From IT Support to Strategic Leadership: Elevating Technology’s Role in Firm Growth
- Marc T Staut, Shareholder
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
In a modern accounting firm, technology touches every part of the business, from client engagement and workflow automation to compliance, cybersecurity and capacity planning. But while IT is mission-critical, too often its role remains reactive: solving problems as they arise, maintaining infrastructure and ensuring the software runs.
That model must change if you want to scale, innovate and thrive in a fast-changing landscape. IT must evolve from a support function to a strategic leadership partner.
The evolution of IT in the accounting firm
Let’s be clear: support will always be part of IT’s role. That’s not going away. Every IT leader dreams of the day they no longer have to troubleshoot printer issues or recover lost passwords, but that day won’t come. Nor should it.
Support builds trust. People come to you with problems because you get things done. That foundation is essential. You can’t become a trusted strategic advisor if the firm doesn’t trust you to follow through. High-trust environments foster collaboration, innovation and speed, critical ingredients in tech-driven transformation.
Simply put, support isn’t a negative. It’s the base you build from.
Think like a business
To elevate technology’s role, IT leaders must stop thinking of IT as a department within the business and start running it like a business of its own. That means thinking beyond tickets and toward outcomes: profit and loss, customer experience, innovation, revenue impact and risk management.
When you start treating IT like its own company, a few things happen:
You understand your “customers” (partners, staff, clients) more clearly
You develop key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect value creation, not just task completion
You learn how the broader business functions and how to influence it
That mindset shift changes how you engage with other leaders. You stop reacting and start anticipating. You bring forward ideas that help the firm scale, reduce friction and generate new revenue. You show up not just with technical know-how but with insight into firm strategy.
Know how the firm makes money
Surprisingly, many team members across departments don’t fully understand how the firm makes money or how much ROI projects need to be viable. That knowledge gap can also exist within IT.
Understanding your firm’s economic engine is vital to making a strategic impact. That means asking the hard questions:
What services are most profitable?
What bottlenecks limit revenue growth?
What are the client acquisition costs?
How does the firm manage margin pressure and pricing risk?
Armed with those answers, IT leaders can connect the dots between technology and revenue. That’s when IT stops being overhead and starts becoming a growth driver.
Build influence through action
Strategic leadership isn’t about vision alone. It’s about execution. It’s about credibility. IT leaders who deliver small, visible wins consistently are far more likely to earn buy-in for larger, riskier initiatives.
If your house is a mess, no one will invite you to decorate theirs. If your own systems are broken, no one will trust you to fix someone else’s. So build your influence by keeping your house in order. Demonstrate that your team runs efficiently, communicates clearly and delivers value. Then, step up and show how you can help others do the same.
Elevating IT means expanding the vision
The future of the accounting profession will be defined by firms that embrace change through digital transformation, data-driven insights and new client service models. And none of that happens without strong technology leadership.
But to get there, IT leaders must expand their vision:
From managing systems to driving innovation
From fixing problems to shaping strategy
From being reactive to being essential
The seat at the table isn’t given; it’s earned through trust, clarity and consistent value. Technology leaders who make that shift will do more than support firm growth. They’ll help lead it.
Could your firm benefit from getting firm management and IT leaders in alignment?
The Boomer Technology Circles are a peer group of firm and technology leaders in the accounting profession who benefit from aligning IT and firm strategy and building valuable long-term relationships with solution providers and peers. Apply now to start building confidence in your firm’s technology decisions.
Marc Staut, Shareholder and Chief Innovation & Information Officer at Boomer Consulting, Inc., helps meet the growing needs of CPA firms by leveraging his experience to provide strategic technology assessments, planning, visioning and coaching. He feels that “technology should be an enabler – something that’s approachable, aligned with and integral to the success of each firm.” Marc is a regular speaker, author and panelist on technology in the accounting profession, cloud computing, mobile technology, leadership and vision.
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