The reorganization of the The reorganization announced this week saw the combination of the unit that markets CCH ProSystem and Axcess with Small Firm Services, that sells the other two lines. The newly created Tax & Accounting North America also incorporates Canadian operations and is headed by CEO Jason Marx, who had been at the helm of SFS since 2013. The software effort has been organized into Small Firm Professionals, Medium and Large Firm Professionals and corporations.
Abramson says one benefit is the ability to better serve small firms.
"We are going to double down on small firms," she says. Under the previous organization both the CCH lines and the SFS product groups were serving small firms and larger firms. Abramson says that structure did not make sense. And while ProSystem has a reputation for serving large operations, "There are quite a number of small firms that buy ProSystem," Abramson says.
There is no easy way to define the difference in the go-to-market units by size of firms. Abramson says the focus will generally be more on the size of clients served by the tax and accounting firms.
Abramson also says while spending on R&D will not increase, having a more-focused effort means that Wolters Kluwer can more effectively target its spending to improve all products.
The ATX and TaxWise names are likely to remain on the market for a long time. Abramson says perhaps someday, all product lines might be brought under the same label, but there is nothing planned for the foreseeable future.
However, the move to the cloud will continue on all fronts. "We are going to be cloud-based," she notes. Wolters Kluwer has set CCH Axcess as its cloud entry for businesses that have been using ProSystem. TaxWise also has a cloud version while ATX will get to the cloud.
