MGI Australasia, Case Study and New Brochures

MGI Australasia is currently made up of 10 accounting firms located in capital cities and commercial centres around Australia and New Zealand. While each firm is located hundreds of kilometers, sometimes thousands kilometers apart, they are connected by their focus on providing professional services to small-to-medium (SMEs), privately owned businesses. Typically these SMEs tend to concentrate their business within their local regions and do not need accounting assistance with the complexities and demands of international markets.

At the MGI Australasia AGM 2008, the partners spent one day work shopping the complex issue of what is it that makes MGI Australasia different to the other accounting associations operating in Australasia – what is it that makes us the firm of choice for our clients. The aim of this discussion was to encapsulate the MGI Australasia competitive advantage into as succinct group of words as possible.

There was general agreement that while MGI’s tagline of “Business solutions worldwide” was important to the needs of our larger clients, it did not describe why our SME clients would choose to use us. Our SME clients’ accounting needs were connected to the discrete phases of the business life cycle. For these clients, solutions on how to successfully progress or grow through the phases of the business life cycle were more important than international expansion. The reason why our clients choose to use  MGI Australasia is encapsulated in the tag line that we are more than just accountants – we are “Business growth advisors” who use local as well as worldwide ‘business solutions’ to service our clients.

Further discussion at the AGM succinctly defined MGI’s business solutions into six groups:

Start up solutions
Growth solutions
Exit solutions
Wealth solutions

The final two solutions of Compliance and Audit solutions, while not specifically based on client business growth needs are, none the less, important given the regulatory business environment in which SMEs operate.

The next step in building our position as “Business growth advisors” was to produce business solution brochures or “Hot sheets” as they have become known. Our aim in developing these sheets was to ensure our solutions were written in straight forward language, accessible for clients and reinforced our agreed upon promotional positioning. 

The design rationale for each of the sheets was also important. Each sheet was designed so it could  be independantly used to promote why a SME would want to use MGI at a particular point in the business life cycle; but the full suite of brochures were designed to promote all of MGI Australasia’s business solutions should this be appropriate to a client’s needs.

While the design does not strictly adhere to the CIM suggested images, it does incorporate colours from the Primary and Secondary colour palette, the Dialog typeface, the new MGI brand, and use of the MGI’s swoosh as a design element. A further tag line has also been included of ‘Business Growth Advisors’.

Different versions of the text for some of the brochures was also produced to cover the unique business conditions to be found in Australia and those in New Zealand.

The brochures are as follows:

Australasia
Compliance Solutions, 'Counting Sheep'
Audit Solutions, ' Understanding Your Numbers'
Wealth Solutions, 'Making Cents of Money'

Australia
Exit Solutions, 'Putting up the For Sale Sign'
Start up Solutions, 'Making Dreams a Reality'
Growth Solutions, 'Revving Your Engine'

Christine Greiser
MGI Australaisia Marketing Manager and Area Coordinator
Email: Christine.Greiser@mgimelb.com.au
Web: www.mgiaust.com

2009-07-20