TGS Digested Week 20: Improve your day, your work, and your firm.

Monday 2021.5.17

(Tax) Transfer Pricing

All you ever wanted to know about Transfer pricing but were too afraid to ask. If you have a tax/legal perspective you might benefit from hearing how economists think about transfer pricing. Today we shared information to sign up for a webinar co-hosted by Quantera Global and TGS TP developments in the USA: perspectives on inter-company financing and the US Tax environment.

The webinar will be hosted by our TGS members Guy Sanschagrin and Kash Mansori from WTP Advisors, Jeroen van der Linden, Tax partner at TGS Lime Tree, and co-organized with Rudolf Sinx, Transfer Pricing Specialist and Managing Director at Quantera Global.

This webinar is for you if you are already an expert in Transfer Pricing or maybe you are considering becoming a TP expert to expand your service portfolio. Either way, this webinar is a good place to start or continue your TP journey (we’ll be there too) and you can sign up by clicking here!  

Tuesday 2021.5.18

Productivity and Practice Management

Feedback so far from the regional meetings has been very good and there have been surprising comments and suggestions in all our workshops. It is often the case that when you ask the same question to the managing partners of 70 different firms you’ll get 70 different answers and most likely some of the content will be useful for your firm. This is one of the key values of being in an international network, you get a useful perspective on best practices on how to run your practice.

I’ll post the questions we considered during the seminar workshops so you can think about how you answered or how you would answer. You met a new member of our TGS team, Peter (Peter Forte not Peter Drucker), during the conference and you experienced his excellent facilitation skills.  Peter will be preparing a summary of the regional seminars so you will be able to pick the best ideas to roll out in your firm.

TGS 2021 Regional Meeting Workshop Questions

• What is the most effective way to approach your professional training to increase quality in your firm?
• What are the best ways to motivate your team to use TGS U?
• Have you received any business referrals from Spain?
• Are you interested in receiving business referrals obtained through web research?
• What is a good conversion rate for referrals?
• How would you improve the success rate for business referral conversions?
• Would you be interested in implementing the necessary changes in your website to obtain similar contacts in your local website?
• TGS is an active participant of the UNGC. What CSR actions can we adopt that will be useful for our clients, increase our business and improve quality?
• We share a global registered and protected brand: TGS. How can we use it to amplify our firm communication locally and internationally?
• How can we better share information between member firms?

Wednesday 2021.5.19

Think Global Sustainability

When we Think Global Sustainability, we are not just thinking about the environment but about all aspects of the business. There is much about fair play, honesty and ethical business behavior. Last week we published our 2020 Communication on Progress as part of the United Nations Global Compact which outlines how we link our business actions and strategy to the #SDGs and you can download the full TGS 2020 COP just here!

As we begin to interact more and more with websites, chatbots and answer online questionnaires the dark side of the business will always find ways to use these communication technologies to persuade you to sign up to something, to subscribe to a service, or otherwise to share your information. In the best case you end up with some more email spam and in the worst case you might end up sharing your bank details or personal information when you really did not intend to. There are often reports of consumers and businesses being scammed. Scams and phishing attempts are often easy to spot but they are getting better and better.

How good are you at spotting the scam? Are you smart enough to opt-out of cookies? The game Terms & Conditions Apply contains more than 25 tasks that parody the tricks websites use to get you to do something you don’t want to do. It’s a great way to think about online security issues in a fun way. Have a go at the game and let me know how you get on!

I played the game and Evil Corp attempted to access my data 29 times. I actually gave them my data 18 times but thankfully this was better than 1% of other players (which doesn’t sound good. It took 43 seconds to complete the game which was faster than 97 players.

Thursday 2021.5.20

TGS Live (TGS Community and benefits) TGS Work Groups

We’re still experimenting with TGS Live each Thursday and this week’s edition was a recap of the recent online regional events and a reminder to sign up for all the TGS workgroups in June. There are many opportunities to interact with us so please come to any group you can and if you can’t make it please delegate one of your team members to take part. The TGS webinars are always interactive, a great way to connect with other members and you will come away with some value to improve your day, your work, and your firm. Think of them as international coffee breaks to meet with network members.

Here are the dates for the TGS workgroups:

👉 June 1st (2 PM – 3 PM CEST)

Shared Services Accountability (Session 3)

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

👉 June 7th (2 PM CEST)

Intech Committee

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

👉 June 8th (All day)

Regional Development Groups

Sign up on TGS U.

👉 June 14th (2 PM CEST)

TGS Legal Committee 

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

👉 June 15th (All day)

Young Leader Workshops

Sign up on TGS U.

👉 June 21st (2 PM CEST)

TGS Audit Committee

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

👉 June 28th (2 PM CEST)

TGS Tax Committee

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

Friday 2021.5.21 

We spent a good part of this week resetting the pipeline. Matthew Quinn from Future Sales Factory recommends having four physical whiteboards to track what’s happening in your pipeline. Board 1: Suspect – they might be a client in the future. Board 2: Prospect – all the suspects who have expressed an interest in working with you. Board 3: Proposal Signed, and Board 4: Clients. The physical boards help you keep an eye on everything with a good perspective and you can physically move elements between the boards. Depending on how big your office is this might log you some distance for TGS Walks Round the World. We’ve been using Monday.com for our pipeline over the last two years and having a physical display is a welcome break from jumping between online apps on the computer. It’s a good way of staying on top of activity and what you have to do next.

How do you deal with your pipeline? Do you use physical media or an online platform? Are you (still) using Excel?

TGS Walks Round the World (with WWF and RaceNation)

We’re still walking round the world and thanks to the increasing demand for participation we’re extending the time limit to take part. I’ll have more news about this next week but it’s likely you will be able to log your km until World Animal Day on the 4th of October. Get your walking shoes on, download the RaceNation App and off cover some more km for TGS Walks Round the World this weekend to continue raising money for the WWF. Remember to share some photos or video of where you walk with the hashtags #tgsmademedosomething #foryourworld #onesharedhome #thinkglobalsustainability