3-day TGS annual conference with friendly and intelligent professionals

Everything about our global event this year confirmed the TGS positioning

Are TGS member firms an alternative to the Big4 for their national and international audit, accounting, advisory, tax and legal clients?

Yes, but TGS are also something entirely different.

TGS, ‘Think Global Sustainability’, is based on values that each member firm supports. Our values make us the Number 1 international network with a full range of expertise developing sustainable and transparent business worldwide.

We have the values poster on our walls and all decisions are predicated on being:

• Together
  Cooperating and innovating to grow sustainably together: today and tomorrow.
• Agile
  Delivering an active, appropriate and personal response to clients in a rapidly changing environment.
• Conscious
  Respecting each other, our wider environment and client experience to provide big service quality.

TGS has a small but high-performing team

It’s amazing how much we managed to achieve in a short time with such a small, high-performing team.  Marcela Vargas,  Sophie Cartalier, Sophie Everarts de Velp, Marc Desjardins and Silvia Letang worked hard to create the TGS annual conference in Dubai.

TGS member firms are often quite small in numbers but they are always big on quality, big on service provision big on sustainability. You will love working with them as much as we love having them as a TGS member.

Here’s the TGS annual conference 2022 in figures

68 participants, 100 ping pong balls, 3 ping pong tables, 240 cups of tea (Andrew), 4 workshops, 16 presentations, 344 conversations, 84 litres of humous, 4 awards, 2548 photos, 0 hospitalisations.

TGS annual conference: making the firm of the future.

Here’s what we got up to at the conference, why it was useful to TGS member firms and what they thought about it.

1. TGS Ambassadors’ Meeting
TGS is a unique network. Member firms can own shares in the network. Network shareholders are called TGS Ambassadors.

During the TGS Ambassadors’ meeting, we discussed presentations from the TGS team. We also shared updates about the network and explored forward strategy for the network.

TGS is created by and for the members.

2. Museum of the Future Visit

On the opening day of the annual event, TGS members visited the ‘Museum of the Future’ in Dubai.

‘The Museum of the Future welcomes people of all ages to see, touch, and shape our shared future. Go on a journey through possible futures and bring hope and knowledge back to the present.

• We will not live for hundreds of years, but we can create something that will last for hundreds of years.
• The future will be for those who will be able to imagine, design and build it, the future does not wait, the future can be designed and built today.
• The secret of the renewal of life, the development of civilization and the progress of humanity is in one word: innovation.’

The museum visit was a fun pretext to spend time together socially before the conference started. We connected with the other conference participants. Networking is the key benefit of our TGS events.

The visit also primed the participants to think carefully and in an innovative way about TGS and our professions in the future.

– What will the accounting and audit firm look like in 2032?
– What will accounting, audit, tax and legal firm clients look like in 2032?
– How will professional service firms be providing their services?

3. Sales: Everything has changed and nothing has changed. 

Workshop with industry expert Jason Langford Brown. The way we sell and develop our businesses in the last 10 years has changed and is still changing.

Jason is helping TGS member firms stay ahead of the curve with this session in Dubai and five follow-up sessions from December and up to our next regional conferences in May 2023.

4. Retention and recruitment strategies at work. ‘It’s not you it’s me. Oh, wait, it is you.’

Workshop with HR superstar, Dominique Austin Bruno. We laughed, we cried, we came away with an action plan to solve our recruitment issues.

To make sure TGS members move forward and develop their recruitment action plan we have four follow up sessions. The extra sessions with Dominique will keep members on track to success.

5. TGS Strategic Partnerships with the ACCA and Caseware

TGS is developing working relationships with the ACCA and Caseware International. These relationships allow TGS member firms to get discounted services and shared training.

This strategic partnership with the ACCA will take TGS into another level and it can attain a lot of attention of that of our potential clients, students and people working in our field. Members are excited about the partnership and about the courses they offer.

Many TGS members have already implemented Caseware software and are excited to know what more they can offer. It will be great to have a uniform software for the whole network.

6. Adopt the right Mindset to create the Firm of the Future

Three part workshop with John Schol, award winning and visionary leader of Malloch McLean, Audit and Accounting Firm in NZ.

John has already created the firm on the future helped TGS member firms get into the right mindset to do the same.

How often do you think about these strategic elements of your business?

– Your Business Development from now to 2030
– Your Capacity to support your business development
– Your International Network to leverage your success

Do you return regularly to your plan with your team to make sure you are on track?

TGS member firms do and that’s why TGS firms will be sustainable and thriving in 2030 and beyond.

7. TGS Ping Pong Tournament with UAE Paralympic Athletes

For many firms, the highlight of the annual conference this year was the Ping Pong tournament.

This was a fun moment to let off steam at the end of three packed conferencing days. It was also an event that showcased TGS Values very clearly and loudly.

The importance of diversity in the workplace. TGS members learned how to play ping pong from Paralympic athletes and then participated with the athletes in a tournament of doubles.

• Working together to grow sustainably.
• Working in an agile way to provide an appropriate response to circumstances.
• Working consciously to provide a high quality experience for each clients and stakeholder.