TGS African Managing Partner Conference

Managing partners from TGS African member firms met in South Africa for a two-day practice and network development conference

TGS African Managing Partner Conference participants created a business and network development plan for the continued growth of TGS in Africa. The ambitious two-part plan is to have at least one TGS member firm in each African country in the next 7 years. This will take TGS presence in Africa from seven to forty-seven member firms.

The second arm of the TGS African development plan is to increase business between members and to create a shared pool of resources that can be used by all firms. TGS Nigeria needs 20 extra staff to win an audit but don’t have the capacity? No problem. A call to TGS South Africa secures qualified, experienced remote team members.

Referral business (and a shared on-demand workforce) are major benefits to being part of an international network but they don’t come without thoughtful effort. TGS African member firms are taking the time and energy to paint Africa orange together.

What was the TGS African Managing Partners Conference?

The TGS network hosts three regional conferences for all members every May (EMEA, ASIA-PAC and AMERICAS) and a global conference for all members every November. This year’s TGS global conference will be in Miami.

The TGS African Managing Partners Conferences were created to remedy the African TGS members’ under-representation in the traditional TGS EMEA conferences. The TGS network was founded in central Europe in 2012 and has, for the moment, a concentration of firms in that area.

Cape Town conference participants were working to boost the presence of African audit and accounting firms in TGS and in the global business community. Thanks to them, African concerns and business perspectives are gaining recognition in TGS regional meetings. What’s more, small and medium-sized international businesses now have a clear, orange answer to questions about working with, in and out of Africa.

Pan-African TGS audit, accounting, advisory, tax and legal coverage by 2030

In two days of socializing, team-building and workshopping, the TGS African Managing partners completed a plan to achieve African coverage in audit, accounting, advisory, tax and legal service provision.

Any SME wishing to bring their firm to Africa will be able to call on TGS to act as a one-stop-shop for all their needs. Firms will have their hands held by local experts as they deal with country-specific or pan-African business set up and financial management. Multinational firms will also find value in the TGS Africa coverage for tax, audit and financial reporting.

While these pan-African services are more traditionally covered by the Big 4, the TGS response offers an equally high quality of service with the advantages of more cost-efficient and personalized processes. The TGS team working on your African or international requirements will be only an arms length from the TGS firm managing partner.

One brand, one service quality, hundreds of competent international professionals with local expertise.

The TGS brand, available for each member to use, is globally registered and protected. TGS South Africa is an excellent example of the TGS brand lending international stature to an already strong and well-recognized local firm.

The TGS brand brings an international stature to well-recognized local firms across Africa

Network Vice President, Andrew Menzies, and President, Marc Desjardins were participating in the Cape Town conference to act as both representatives of the wider international network and as business advisory facilitators for the event.

Marc and Andrew are Accredited Mindshop Leaders and as such have the tools, qualifications and experience necessary to help member firms in TGS turn their objectives into reality through clear, quantifiable steps. TGS is as much about accountability as it is about accounting for member firms.

What do we do with too many good ideas? We use the Pareto Principle to select the 20% that are most likely to create 80% of the value following the event. 

It’s impossible to move forward with 100 possible steps towards TGS African success. The group chose to first take three focused steps towards:

• resource pooling
• business development and
• effectively benefiting from the TGS brand 

TGS has a focus on helping all member firms move from diagnostic to strategy to action. 

• Diagnostic – professional services firms are all experts here
• Strategy – professional service firms, with traditional focus on compliance can often be less strategic in their thinking
• Action – can often be lacking in professional service firms and is the key entrepreneurial mindset needed for a sustainable business. 

Our Miami conference will be focused on working towards achieving a strategic and action-focused mindset.

How are we going to keep the momentum going?

Do you often come away from a conference, training session or webinar full of good intentions about what to do next?

As soon as your plane lands when you return from an event, are your development plans left packed and dusty in your suitcase? Like that business card in the pocket of your conference jacket, you may only see those plans again six months later when you are packing for the next conference.

This does not happen with TGS conference takeaways. TGS takeaways come with a side order of accountability. Participants sign up for TGSU online follow-up sessions that mirror and extend conference workshops and connections made during the conferences.

TGS core team facilitators and conference speakers provide regular post-event accountability sessions. In this way, TGS conference participants are supported to take the next steps to success, they are helped to identify and minimize the pushback they will experience when trying to take those next steps.

TGS members are held accountable and advised by their TGS colleagues. This is sharing best practice in action.

You can achieve the collaborative growth TGS members experience in Africa

Bigger clients, more business and lower staff turnover. Would these advantages benefit your ambitious African audit, accounting, advisory, tax or legal firm?

If you are currently doing business in Africa, or you would like to, why not take the next step to develop your firm sustainably with TGS? Participate in one of our TGSU events this year to evaluate how much benefit you would gain through a TGS membership.

We’ll be in Miami in November for our global conference where you will meet and work with senior partners from our African member firms and everywhere else in the world.

We operate online workshops and short courses all year. Check our website to find out what’s on this month:

• Regional Development Groups
• Interest Groups: Audit, Tax, Legal, Advisory and Accounting
• CSR Course
• Marketing and Communication Masterclasses

Speak to Andrew or Fabrizio to explore how you can achieve the same collaborative growth TGS members experience in Africa.

TGS also now has regional leaders in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and The Americas.