As I had reported in our Winter Newsletter, Nexia Australia hosted the Nexia International Partners Conference in Sydney during the first week of November. With over 260 delegates and 110 accompanying persons attending, it was certainly an honour and privilege to showcase Australia and Sydney to our International colleagues and from all accounts they were not disappointed.
The conference theme of “Leading Change” provided many opportunities to consider the disruption to normal business thinking. We had 3 powerful speakers present at the conference and the one which grabbed most of the attention was Michael McQueen who talked about “How to prepare now – for what’s next”. To highlight the speed of change and to consider the impact of disruption, Michael provided the proposition that a child born today may never drive a car. Imagine with the accelerated development of driverless cars, it is likely within 10 years that many cars will not only be driverless but also be electric. You will be driven to work and send the car either home or possible act as an Uber vehicle while you are at work and then simply ask it to return to pick you up at a certain time. In this model your car could earn you income while you work, there is no need for parking stations as the vehicle will not be parked and petrol at $1.70 will be a thing of the past. Is this proposition too far fetched to be believable or is it a possibility?
I feel many of us can see or predict some of the innovations but most of us fail to predict the affect it will have in other non-related industries. I must admit I could see driverless cars taking over the road within 10 years but had not considered the affect it will have on parking stations, insurance, less accidents mean reduction in panel beaters and the list goes on. As leaders, we must be prepared to question the norm, question when your business is travelling well and not wait until business is performing poorly to consider disruption, build a paranoid culture which leads to innovation and look to industries or businesses which are not in our own field, otherwise we will be blind sided by the driverless car.
I came away from the conference with the view we all need to take time out of our day or week to think about the possible disruptions and not wait until it is too late.
One of the other highlights of the International Conference was the presentation by 4 young and future leaders of our Sydney, Canberra and Christchurch firms who presented their idea which was developed in the 2017 Next Leaders programme conducted by all offices in Australia and New Zealand. Their idea was to mentor and build the knowledge of new firms who join Nexia was an outstanding but simple idea which captured the attention of all who attended and as well as the Nexia International CEO, Kevin Arnold. Kevin commented, it was an idea which would be implemented and also mentioned that if this is the calibre of our future leaders, then the firms in Australia and New Zealand are in good hands. I could not agree more.
Finally and with much pride, the Sydney office of Nexia Australia was awarded the Nexia International Firm of the Year on the gala night of the conference. Out of 115 countries and over 600 offices around the world for our Sydney office to receive this award is amazing and reflects the years of hard work that all the partners and team have contributed to the betterment of the Australia and New Zealand firms, the Asia Pacific region and to the International network. To be selected by your peers and the International CEO and Chairman is an honour that we are all extremely proud of.
It was certainly a conference to remember.
