Applying design thinking to accountancy with Alasdair McGill

Alasdair McGill is a co-founder of the award-winning accounting firm Ashton McGill based in Dundee, Scotland. They won Small Firm of the Year at the Xero Awards in 2020, and were finalists in the Mid-Size Firm category for 2023.

Alasdair’s firm is really unique in that he and his son Andy founded first as a consulting business specialising in service design and customer experience, and eventually recognised an opportunity to take what they’d learnt and apply it to accountancy.

With a clear passion for design thinking, Alasdair shares in this episode how they’re using service design principles to improve the client experience for their accounting firm.

Beyond Numbers, hosted by Ash Gibson, is a platform for pacesetters within Xero's community to chat candidly about the issues and topics that crop up at work. It's about exploring the challenges and talking through the tips, tricks and insights together. It's not about educating accountants on how to do their job, but more on how to win at work.

This podcast is brought to you by Xero and produced by Bird Lime Media.