also closely examined: whether clients are the right fit.
by sarah dobek
the rosenberg survey: national study of cpa firm statistics
it’s all about transition. the transition of leadership feels like it’s peaking at a lot of firms. if firms aren’t on the tail end of a transition, they’re in the middle of it.
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among these transition opportunities, we’re noticing a few things.
firms are preparing their bench to move into partner roles. we’re holding lots of conversations with firms on the path to partner and helping firms gain commitment and prepare those future leaders.
overarchingly, we see a recommitment by a lot of firms in the areas of skills development. most of the focus is on soft skills training – including management, business development, and leadership. we’re also watching as the preparation for transitions causes them to question the client base and evaluate what they are truly transitioning. many firms look at it as an opportunity to more strategically align clients to build out niche expertise.
with transition comes new opportunities, and the transition at the managing partner role and among the partner group continues to present firms with an opportunity to re-evaluate how they do things. we’re watching firms evaluate their governance model and expectations of partners. we’re also watching as they embrace new ideas on the future of the profession and start to explore these, including more non-compliance services.
we are also seeing a few new trends emerge. the most significant trend is doing more with less. staffing continues to be a challenge for many firms. this concept of doing more with less has been a theme as firms are exploring how to address the challenges. we are watching firms embrace more remote workers and leverage technology heavily to create more time and free people up to do more valuable work.
in a continued effort of doing more with less, firms have also shown a strong recommitment to being more strategic about their growth than ever before. they are re-evaluating who they are serving and being highly intentional about the work being performed across the firm. we are watching as firms evaluate their client bases to determine who is really an ideal fit and what kind of clients they want to serve going forward.
as firms narrow, they are also starting to go deeper with clients. we’ve seen a large trend toward client experience and an overall focus for firms to
- focus on deepening the relationship with their clients and
- expand the services offerings with these firms.
still in its early stages, we are seeing major leaps in firms that are adopting client accounting services and building advisory or consulting practices.