Today’s Globe and Mail has a piece on why law and accounting firms struggle to innovate. In a nutshell the reasons are: 1. Billable hours. If someone is investing time and effort in innovation they’re not billing, and that’s seen as not valuable. 2. Too much focus on today rather than tomorrow. 3. Smugness. They’re doing well now, so why change?
See more, and the author’s ideas about how professional service firms that want to innovate and grow can do so, here.
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I think that a possible fourth reason is that firms are wary. No one truly wants to be the test subject or the one one first out of the gate only to fail (or possibly not succeed to the extent they were hoping). The firms and the people (lawyers/accountants) that work at these firms are prideful. Innovation will occur, it has to, it just may be a longer process for this ‘stubborn’ group.