Xerocon London 2016 highlights

Now that Xerocon has ended for another year, we thought we’d share with you the highlights from the UK’s largest Financial Technology conference, with 1,300 attendees and 58 exhibitors over the 2 days. The main theme of Xerocon was to “Stimulate the UK’s small business economy through beautiful software, advice & connections.”

Technology is globalising everything

The architecture of accounting software has changed thanks to technology. Rod Drury, Xero’s CEO says “the speed of change is set to pick up over the next five years.” Technology will disrupt industry as it starts to take place in TV, retail, messaging and even services. Have a look at Rod’s keynote here.

Embracing technology has allowed Xero to create a platform in which accountants and small businesses can innovate and automate, aiming to become the UK’s leading platform in 2016. Xero enables small businesses to thrive through software and the use of the financial data held in Xero. Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, Dave Coplin, spoke about the importance of unlocking the data dividend. “Care about what technology can do for you.” Use data to think outside in and how you can help your clients and understand what it is they want.

Managing perpetual change

Technology means that everything in business is changing constantly. So, you may find it hard to keep up with this perpetual change. How can you use this change as a fuelling mechanism for your business? Jonathan MacDonald, founder of Thought Expansion Network, gave a great presentation about the windmill of change and the 4 blades of this windmill. These are: purpose, people, product and process. All of these factors equal change. Our ability to innovate is directly proportional to our ability to elevate. Innovation unleashes purpose in people. “This is the slowest rate of change we will ever experience.”

Check out Jonathan’s 2 minute summary of the 4 blades of the windmill here.

Still stuck on Sage?

The rise of cloud accounting will mean the end of an era in 2016 as Sage users will be in the minority. All stats point to Xero overtaking Sage in 2016 and becoming the UK’s leading accounting product on any platform. During 2015 Xero converted a Sage data set every 46 minutes and in the last five years, the survival rates of Xero users was at 88% compared to 41% for the national average. Xero really is hero!