Digital Collaboration Tools
How digital tools are a natural fit for the Praxity Alliance
With members across all five global regions, and a model based on close inter-firm collaboration, digital tools are hugely important to the Praxity Alliance. Empowering our members to work together is key to what Praxity offers, with the entire way of operating prefiguring working methods that are now commonplace.
With this in mind, we have invested a lot of time in creating virtual spaces for our members, facilitating effortless collaboration, knowledge sharing and quick response times. Praxity’s mission is to enable our member firms to offer clients their best work, with a global web of experts working together as required.
There are several digital tools that Praxity offers its members, with both firm experts and our executive office team constantly tweaking for new developments.
The Praxity Website
Built on the Umbraco platform In collaboration with our IT consultants Commensus, the Praxity Website contains both a public-facing section and a members’ section. Once logged in, Praxity Alliance professionals can create and maintain a personal profile, detail their specialisms and work experience, and connect easily with experts at other member firms.
Once logged in, there are a suite of pitch and branding resources available to use, as well as access to marketing collateral. Praxity’s Mergers & Acquisitions hub is also accessed from this area, providing details of businesses for sale and of acquisitive clients.
The members’ area also provides a gateway to the Praxity working groups.
HUB Magazine
This very magazine is a good example of the tools we use to communicate with our members. Hosted on Foleon, we bring together insights and news from across the Praxity Alliance, allowing our members to speak, along with highlighting their many achievements. From firm news to legislation changes and thought leadership, this quarterly publication helps promotore our members’ extraordinary work.
LinkedIn plays a central role in supporting Praxity’s strategic objectives, particularly in two key areas: expanding the Alliance through targeted recruitment and strengthening collaboration among existing member firms. By highlighting success stories, regional activity, and member firm expertise, we aim to demonstrate the value of Alliance membership to prospective firms. LinkedIn also provides us with valuable insight into emerging trends within the accountancy and financial advisory sectors, helping us remain responsive to shifts in the global landscape.
Equally important is how we use the platform to foster collaboration across the Alliance. Many Praxity member firms are already highly active on LinkedIn, using it to showcase their achievements, publish thought leadership, and connect with their professional networks. We actively support and amplify this content, resharing firm milestones, spotlighting joint initiatives, and celebrating contributions to the profession. This not only boosts visibility for individual firms but also reinforces the collective strength and collaboration of the Alliance.
Microsoft Teams
The rise in adoption of Microsoft’s Teams software, along with its increased functionality, means that it has a key place in a global model. Praxity makes use of the Teams Webinar feature to host training webinars, most recently for the Marketing specialist working group. Recordings of the material covered are then made available and distributed throughout the Alliance, ensuring that all member firms have access to the same CPE resource.
In turn, the State and Local Tax (SALT) working group is about to host a similar webinar, covering coast-to-coast impacts of federal legislation in the US. The session is hosted by Stephen Palmer and Jason Parish, Partners at Alliance member firm Plante Moran in Ohio and Illinois respectively, and brings together experts in that practice area to discuss approaches and responses.
For more information on this event, please get in touch with us at website@praxity.com.
From an internal perspective, having a cloud-based computing solution is key to delivering for our members. Teams gives our internal teams clarity, version control and a seamless working environment. Any sensitive data is subject to full GDPR and anything on the system is password-protected and backed up by off-site servers, with our UK-based IT consultants Commensus. Nothing is left to chance in the digital environment, ensuring that any sensitive data is subject to the tightest cybersecurity available.
Events Tools
Praxity’s annual calendar of conferences represents a key offering to our member firms. The Praxity events team have been utilising Cvent over recent years, which allows for smooth interconnectivity and the fast communications. The app contains tools for online booking, as well as allowing delegates to learn about event speakers beforehand, with their professional profiles all contained in the app. The team also posts information about event sessions and allows delegates to keep their own personalised live schedules on hand.
Networking tools on the app encourage delegates to make contact with each other pre- and post-event via the built-in messaging facility, with the notification options notifying delegates of important conference events, ensuring that they are in the right place at the right time.
Sam Louis, Praxity CEO -
“Digital tools are now commonplace in most industries today, however it is my feeling that Praxity’s adoption has been more natural than most. Our worldwide membership and deeply collaborative model sees our member firms use the virtual space as a key resource. Alongside their in-house experts, the ability to work together seamlessly with other firms has always been a prerequisite for what we offer our members. Our expanding suite of digital tools makes that an ever-easier task.”
Praxity Specialist Working Groups
The Praxity working groups are run by experts, for experts. Each practice area has a dedicated working group, where Alliance experts come together to share experience, explore case studies and develop best practice. While these groups do meet in person at the Praxity conferences, these are busy professionals in groups with an international purview.
Praxity’s adoption of digital tools allows these groups to meet virtually, which they do regularly, getting to know each other better and developing their working methods. Alongside this, there are expert webinars on particular subjects; whether for seeking answers to a new change, or for members’ ongoing professional development. Without these digital collaboration tools, the agility and responsiveness of these groups would be unimaginable. The groups also meet in person at conferences to ensure that personal contact is maintained.
Praxity’s members maintain working groups in the following areas:
Client Services
- ESG
- Outsourcing
- Global Audit & Assurance
- Financial Advisory Services
- Tax
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Forensic Valuation & Litigation Services
- SALT (State and Local Tax)
Global Tax
- Transfer Pricing
- Core Tax
- Private Client Services
- Global Mobility
- Indirect Tax
- SALT (State and Local Tax)
Regional Groups
- Africa & Middle East
- Asia-Pacific
- Europe
- Latin America
- North America
Specialised Services
- Marketing
- Praxity Champions
- Regional Chairs
If you are interested in joining one of these working groups and sharing in their expert insights, please contact website@praxity.com.
A collaborative approach is key to all firms in the Praxity Alliance. Our consistent investment and improvement in the digital space helps to make that collaboration easier, as we further remove barriers and facilitate global thinking with local knowledge.