Leveraging the Xero Partner Network in Asia
This is my fourth year at Xerocon and I continue to be blown away by the event each year. Xerocon is such a great opportunity to experience the global Xero community of accountants, bookkeepers, marketplace apps and banking partners, and be the first to hear how we continue to evolve and innovate our product.
Last year, I moved from the Xero Australia team to lead the Asia business out of Singapore. With Asia experiencing such incredible growth, there is a huge potential to extend the Xero ecosystem and grow the community here. I was fortunate to share my experiences, learnings and advice about the Asia region during a session at Xerocon.
Growing Xero in Asia
While Singapore small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) have the highest cloud technology usage (23%) compared to their counterparts in Hong Kong (17%), education continues to be essential for accounting and bookkeeping firms. Since we started the Asia office in 2016, we’ve provided complimentary training to accountants and bookkeepers and have plans to expand on these training sessions, including eligibility for CPD hours. To date, our sessions have benefitted over 3,500 accountants.
Following Xerocon Brisbane, we are excited to be holding our annual Xero Roadshow Asia in Singapore and Hong Kong taking place this November. We have experienced such great traction and demand and expect an estimated turnout of 1,600 people this year. Our Roadshows continue to be an important community platform for our regional accounting & bookkeeping partners to learn more about important news and product releases for the Asia region, as well as connect with each other and our marketplace app partners.
The Xero ecosystem
The Xero platform delivers the greatest impact when combined with our community of app and banking partners. Together, this community forms the Xero ecosystem to empower businesses.
Our recent Singapore Partner Benchmarking series conducted in December last year revealed that by using Xero and promoting their cloud services with us, our accounting and bookkeeping partners have added on an average of 48 clients in 2017, and this translates to 12.6% growth in revenue.
Our developer community further enhances the benefits of the ecosystem by creating apps that integrates with the Xero platform to help our subscribers effectively manage their payroll, approvals, POS and consolidations.
Opportunities through the Xero Partner Network
There is a growing demand for businesses to use digital tools in Asia.
Businesses are expanding regionally by establishing cross-border collaborations and venturing into economies with existing bilateral ties, with 4 out of 5 Accounting firms in Singapore reported to having overseas clients.
This means that accounting partners are fast evolving into trusted advisors and need to stay at the forefront of the digital transformation journey in order to better capture the huge wave of millennial business owners. In addition, your clients will be looking to you as a source of advice when thinking about growing their business into other markets.
What does this mean for you?
The key takeaway from my session at Xerocon is to encourage our Xero accounting and bookkeeping partners to connect with each other through the Xero partner community. While Asia is a massive growth opportunity for our small business clients (and our accounting and bookkeeping practices), the Australia and New Zealand markets are likewise a huge potential for our Asia clients to expand their businesses into.
Your next steps are:
- Connect with your counterparts through the Xero Advisor Directory; and
- Ask you clients if they are thinking about expanding overseas
New to Xero?
If you are a business owner, find advisors who are experienced in your industry here or contact us to find out how Xero can empower your business today.
If you are an accountant or bookkeeper, feel free to visit us to find out more about the Xero Partner Program
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Source: Xero Blog
