Introduction The product or services that I have chosen to pursue after graduation is to open an Accounting Firm.

My firm will be located in a family based community in Ottawa, and will offer the best services and prices for small businesses and families. Our firm will not only have the usual services for bookkeeping to small businesses, but will also prepare the income tax return for the families in the area and around. Not only this, our firm will have a section for counseling. The counseling section is divided into two subsections, which one is for the businesses and other is for the families. The business section will give advice to businesses on how to be profitable and how to reduce their taxes. The family section will provide tips for the families on how they can reduce their income taxes by splitting the income of the family and how to save more on their family income. In addition, our business can provide some part time job contract based job during the tax rime. This period of time will be from beginning of January to end of April, which is a period of 4 months. By doing this, our firm will help the government by reducing the unemployment rate. Prices for bookkeeping, other accounting jobs for the businesses, and tax preparation will range from as low as $50 to $400 monthly, depending whether it is small or large business, single person or family package. The firm will also offer a complete package of bookkeeping, other accounting job, or year-end tax preparation. The purpose of conducting this environmental scan is to determine whether or not this service will be a valuable business two years from now. By evaluating the competitive, social, technological, and regulatory forces along with the economic environment, we will be able to have a more in-depth understanding of what it will take to run this service successfully, and evaluate if it is worthwhile. Competitive forces: The competitive forces of accounting firm will greatly affect our business, and there are many other accounting firms in the region. Other accounting firms in the region already focusing on the bookkeeping, auditing, Tax preparation and other accounting jobs. Limited Liability Partnership: This is a collection of accountants getting together and creates a partnership for doing the accounting job for businesses and individuals. Individual Chartered Accountants: who have their own accounting firms and directing toward businesses and families, to complete their year-end tax preparation and monthly financial statements. Four major Auditing firms: Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG, which in total they have more than 700000 employees. All these firms are competing with each other on the prices and fast finishing the job done. Based on the above information, we can conclude that it is very important to be aware of our competitors, their objectives, their place in the market, and the latest trends in the industry.

Social Forces: The social forces involved in operating an Accounting firm have a great deal of importance. You need to know the type of clients you can expect, the strength of the industry as it stands now, and even some environmental factors that may affect the firm. Based on the information about Canadian Law, everyone as individuals, families, or businesses must do some kind of filling to the Canada Revenue Agency. This includes the individuals and families must complete a tax return every year, and businesses must complete one full cycle accounting every week, every month, once every sixth month, or once a year. This shows that accounting customers are any citizen of the country more than the age of 18 year or anyone who is working before the age of 18. Every family will spend at least $100 for filling the taxes per year. According to the trend in the market, the market for accounting is growing to 16% by 2016. More and more accounting firms are directing toward green, because they are using accounting software instead of paper. This way they are conserving energy and nature. Based on the above social information, we can conclude that it is very important to be aware of the demographics of the typical customer, the strength of the industry as a whole and some environmental issues. Technological Forces: Technology is one of most important things needed for the accounting firms. Firm need computers, printer, accounting software, and internet for completing the job. It is essential to use technology when running the accounting firm, whether it is for preparing financial statements for businesses, preparing income tax return for individuals and family, or it is just for scheduling the employees. It is important to keep up to date with new and recent technology involving accounting in order to keep the clients. Because computer is getting slower and slower every year, we need to purchase new computer at least every three year. We have to transfer all the files from the old computer to new computer every time we purchase the new computer, and if it is necessary we have hire a computer technician to do the job for us. In addition, we need to have an extra hard drive or portable hard drive to back up all our files, in case there happened something on the computer, we should have something to recover the data. Based on the above technological information, we can conclude that technology is a very vital aspect in running an accounting firm. It can make all the differences in keeping up with the new technologies that are constantly being invented. Economic Environment:

The economic environment surrounding the Accounting industry largely affects the purchasing power of this specific industry. The predicted economic cycle includes many aspects that could assist or hinder the outcome of a new accounting firm. During the first quarter of 2011, Canadas revenue declined by 1.5% 0r 50.8 billion dollar. However, according to Statistics Canada the rate of decline has slowed a substantial amount, since the last quarter of 2010. Although, international export rose by 1.2%, but the net export was -1.1% during the first quarter of 2011. It is well known that Ottawa has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada, and its rate is typically lower than the national and provincial average. The unemployment rate rose for the third consecutive month on June to 7.4%. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/lfs-epa-eng.htm In large population areas such as Ontario, services accounts for 75% of Canadas GDP. Due to the increasingly busy lives of Canadians, they tend to turn to the service industry more and more to take care of their regular household activities and some of their entertainment and leisure needs. Personal service companies earned $9.1 billion in 2005 and the personal care industries were responsible for $4.1 billion of the total revenue. Based on the above economic information, we can conclude that Canadas economy has a huge impact on the success of a service company, such accounting firm. When Ottawas household income declines, so does the level of disposable income. In addition, high unemployment rates in younger age groups likely will not harm our business because our target market includes them but not totally rely on them. The increase in price of services will not be affecting the popularity of the service industry anytime soon, due to the growing workload of adults. Political, Regulatory, and Legal Forces: The political, Regulatory, and Legal Forces behind a service business such as an accounting firm are vitally important to the well being of the business. Without set rules and regulations, an accounting firm would not be strong enough to survive. Federal laws are put in place to protect the consumers of various products and services, and influence the daily operations of the businesses. It is the responsibility of the firm to abide by mandatory regulations put in place by various level of government. For example, the operator of a firm must be familiar and in compliance with rules and regulation of GAAP and IFRS. The rules are distinctively written in the pamphlet publishing yearly, and should be understood by the operator and owner alike to effectively run the firm. The governments involvement is constantly increasing in the accounting industry. Especially in the Chartered Accounting and Auditing industry, there are various issues likely to arise. Some of the most common legal issues in this industry concern employee wages, compensation.

Based on the above information, we can conclude that the political, regulatory and legal forces behind the accounting industry have a huge impact on the survival of the business. Legal regulations and safety issues, along with various governmental issues that can arise are critically important to the current and future well being of an up and coming firm. Conclusion After gathering and evaluating all of the above information, we are now more equipped with the knowledge we need to pursue our own business in the accounting industry. Although there are many businesses that will be or main competitors, but those, which are closer to our business in geographical aspect or those which are in the city will be our main concern. They offer many of the same services that we will; however, they are separate companies with different locations. Our accounting firm will be a one-stop service industry for kind of accounting job and for all types of customers. In the past some years the accounting industry has been continuously growing, opening up many opportunities for new firms, and to have viable chance to survive within the industry. We know who our typical customer will be, and what they want out of our business. In recent years, there has been many new ways available to serve the customers. Some of the services that has been available through letter mail, now we can do them online, such as sending the tax files, preparing and sending the financial statements online, which all of these are available by the help of new technology. We will need to keep up-to-date with all of the upcoming new technology. Canadas economy has a colossal influence on the stability of a service type business, such as an accounting firm. Unemployment trends, level of disposable income and demand shifts for services all have different effects on a company. We realized that our accounting firm will be a relatively stable business, and will be able to withstand all economic obstacles that may come our way. Political regulatory and legal forces will ultimately decide whether an accounting firm will survive. Government, legal and safety issues are things that can end up helping or destroying a business. After assessing all possible issues that could arise, we now have the skills we need to avoid them. Based on all of the research data from competitive, social, technological, economic, and regulatory forces, we can conclude that opening an accounting firm will be greatly profitable and rewarding business to pursue in the future.

Appendix A

(Historical and projected unemployment rate, Ottawa (2011). City of Ottawa, Retrieved August 8, 2011, from http://ottawa.ca/residents/statistics/new_growth/projections/employment/unemployment_en.html
Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS) 1 Seasonally adjusted

Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS)1 Seasonally adjusted

June 2011 July 2011 June to July 2011 July 2010 to July 2011 June to July 2011 July 2010 to July 2011

thousands Class of worker Employees Self-employed Public/private sector employees Public Private All industries Goods-producing sector Agriculture 3,590.3 11,076.2 17,337.1 3,818.6 308.3 3,518.8 11,170.7 17,344.2 3,835.7 298.9 14,666.5 2,670.6 14,689.5 2,654.7

change in thousands 23.0 -15.9 271.0 -18.9

% change 0.2 -0.6 1.9 -0.7

-71.5 94.5 7.1 17.1 -9.4

30.4 240.6 252.1 72.6 -3.1

-2.0 0.9 0.0 0.4 -3.0

0.9 2.2 1.5 1.9 -1.0

Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS)1 Seasonally adjusted

June 2011 Natural resources2 Utilities Construction Manufacturing Services-producing sector Trade Transportation and warehousing Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing Professional, scientific and technical services Business, building and other support services Educational services Health care and social assistance Information, culture and recreation Accommodation and food services Other services Public administration 337.5 144.2 1,259.9 1,768.7 13,518.5 2,669.1 841.3 1,101.5 July 2011 326.2 141.0 1,290.7 1,778.8 13,508.5 2,696.6 869.0 1,106.7 June to July 2011 -11.3 -3.2 30.8 10.1 -10.0 27.5 27.7 5.2 July 2010 to July 2011 -4.4 -7.2 65.5 21.7 179.5 14.0 58.6 19.7 June to July 2011 -3.3 -2.2 2.4 0.6 -0.1 1.0 3.3 0.5 July 2010 to July 2011 -1.3 -4.9 5.3 1.2 1.3 0.5 7.2 1.8

1,293.0

1,294.6

1.6

10.3

0.1

0.8

696.5 1,216.0 2,097.4 800.8 1,088.7 740.9 973.2

682.5 1,186.0 2,058.0 804.7 1,103.4 745.8 961.4

-14.0 -30.0 -39.4 3.9 14.7 4.9 -11.8

2.3 -3.2 13.9 32.3 42.4 -11.4 0.7

-2.0 -2.5 -1.9 0.5 1.4 0.7 -1.2

0.3 -0.3 0.7 4.2 4.0 -1.5 0.1

Bibliography
Latest release from the Labour Force Survey (2011), retrieved August 8, 2011 from

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/lfs-epa-eng.htm (Historical and projected unemployment rate, Ottawa (2011). City of Ottawa, Retrieved August 8, 2011, from http://ottawa.ca/residents/statistics/new_growth/projections/employment/unemployment_en.html
Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS) 1 Seasonally adjusted. Retrieved August 8, 2011 from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/t110805a2-

eng.htm Business, consumer, and property services (2011) Statistics Canada, Retrieved August 8, 2011, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/110630/dq110630c-eng.htm