When I qualified more years ago than I care to remember and joined the family firm of Bellman Messik as the third generation of Messik accountants, I rather thought that this was a job for life. As we all know, Life is what happens when you are making other plans and little did I realise that Bellman Messik would be followed by Jayson Newman, Numerica and then Vantis.

What did remain constant throughout, however, was my interest in IT, gadgets and eventually Cloud Computing -the latter rather taking on a life of its own. As I became more involved with the concept, which started with Easycounting, it quickly became obvious (to me at least) that this technology was the way of the future and the reasons for adopting the Cloud were so obvious that they would hardly need justifying.

I am still convinced of the former – although I was obviously wrong about the latter. Few in the accounting profession have been convinced although the number is continuing to grow. I believe that business users get the idea and as I have often espoused – it will be the business users that provide the momentum as they demand a better way of dealing with their affairs.

New technology is often called Disruptive technology – disruptive in the sense that it challenges the current paradigm. It attracts criticism out of ignorance and fear of change. It is the early adopters and innovators that push the idea forward.

Well, after those more years than I care to remember, I have now decided that it is time for my next great challenge. I have resigned from Practice (I reckoned that if I couldn’t get it right after all this time, I never would) and have decided to become more of a loud mouth than before on the subject of Cloud Computing.

I have set up my own consultancy –RFM Associates which will assist businesses and the profession to elevate their business processes to the Cloud. Education – Advice – Implementation are the key aspects and I will pushing these in the months and years ahead.

I am excited about this new challenge and I look forward to contacting many of you in my new role in the near future.