strategy

is your firm in trouble? 7 signs

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businessman with face in handsbusinessman with head in hands at laptop broken laptopa culture change may be in order.

by august j. aquila
creating the effective partnership

accountability, according to the merriam-webster online dictionary, is “the obligation or responsibility to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” let’s explore what this definition means.

first, there is an obligation. an obligation is a promise to do something. if a company has a financial obligation and fails to meet it, it may go into bankruptcy. if individuals fail to meet their obligations they also fall into a state of bankruptcy – i.e., failure.

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accountants see solid business gains in 2015

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business outlook 2015
accountants report new highs in confidence levels for themselves and their firms, while casting a darker outlook on their client base and the nation as a whole.

卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 strategy shift report: accounting firms around the world reap benefits of easing oil prices, government stimulus and innovation.

卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 strategy shift logo shadowby rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

tax and accounting practitioners are heading into a new year and a new busy season markedly more confident and optimistic than they’ve been in years, according to the 10th annual 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 strategy shift report.

kathy bennett
kathy bennett

professionals from milwaukee to tucson and karachi to kampala are telling 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 of brightening business forecasts for their firms in 2015.

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fully 71 percent of professionals say they are more than somewhat confident in the business and economic outlook for their firms, with a record 30 percent telling 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 they are “highly confident” for the prospects of their business.

to be sure, they are less certain about the prospects for their client base or the nation as a whole than they are for themselves, their families and their firms. read more →

how will you choose your next managing partner?

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business people having meetingtwo questions to consider.

by robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn

the role of managing partner is just too important and too complex to leave the selection of the appropriate candidate to chance.

more on leadership: four key questions for managing partners | research, but also be ready to act | leader training is time well spent | managing partners must remember partners’ needs | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’

with the scale of the challenges firms are facing, no firm we know can afford not to identify and develop a group of partners with the ability to successfully take on the role of managing partner in the future. read more →

why accountants could be the happiest people on earth

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now or later keys shows delay deadlines and urgencynew research shows “givers” outpace others in life and in business. are you a “giver” or a “taker”? take the 10-minute test.

by hitendra patil
pransform

imagine that one of your clients calls you up and expresses his gratitude for the help you gave him.

you wonder: “i just gave him the balance sheet and told him that his business model needs some adjustments. i did what i have always done, so why is he thanking me so big? but, yeah, i do feel happy my client thanked me.”

more on entrepreneurial strategy: what if accounting firms were ‘apps?’ | top 10 entrepreneurial traits of successful accountants | four leadership strengths that define accountants | as block and liberty add accounting services, independents face 3 options | readers sound off on liberty, h& r block plans to launch bookkeeping services | threat or opportunity as h& r block, liberty jump into bookkeeping services? | six secret keys to the mind of the entrepreneur | 8 seconds into the future: meet generation z | 5 reasons gen y will make or break your firm

there is a huge new opportunity for accountants to reconnect with the real purpose of the profession, i.e.: becoming not just a trusted advisor for businesses and people but literally the “business strategist” for their clients. who else understands the “language of business” as well as accountants? read more →

four key questions for managing partners

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businessman giving instructions to his colleaguesmore than staying close to clients.

by robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn

a significant application of judgment exhibited by successful managing partners is in their decision to stay close to their own and the firm’s key client relationships.

more on leadership: research, but also be ready to act | leader training is time well spent | managing partners must remember partners’ needs | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’

we defined “close” in the research as not doing fee-earning work but being more than the review partner. “close” was having serious conversations with key clients about their issues, about what was going on in their markets and being the “go to” person when informed comment was required by external agencies.

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the six essential habits of successful leaders in tax & accounting

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aquila
aquila

by august aquila
creating the effective partnership

every book you read on leadership will tell you certain things you need to do to become a good leader. however, you can do these things and still not be someone who people want to follow.

more on leadership: research, but also be ready to act | leader training is time well spent |  successful strategy execution requires focus on people | managing partners must remember partners’ needs | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’ | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | partners have love-hate relationship with leadership  | what does being a partner mean? | mirror, mirror on the wall | the 8-point financial tune-up for your accounting firm | three ways to run a firm: but only one is sustainable | eight key goal areas for partners

why? leadership is all about trust. if you cannot trust me, then you will not follow me or believe in me. read more →

research, but also be ready to act

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businessman hand press play button sign to start or initiate projects as conceptone key: accept that there are many different ways of achieving the same objective.

by robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn

not every firm can be the market leader.

more on leadership: leader training is time well spent | managing partners must remember partners’ needs | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’

but every firm can have a culture of excellence, of striving to be the best at everything they do and of reinventing themselves as the markets for both clients and people change.

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why i became a consultant

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by ed mendlowitz the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor while i was working full-time early in my accounting career, i was also picking up clients that i did on the side, also known as moonlighting. one of the clients was a … continued

leader training is time well spent

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leader addresses co-workersfour questions to test your leadership culture.

by robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn

being a good coach is just one of the expectations firms must have of their partners. they are expected to be leaders, as well.

more on leadership: managing partners must remember partners’ needs | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’

while most of the partners we know understand and accept that need, not everyone does, and not everyone understands what being an effective leader means.

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what if accounting firms were apps?

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smartphone12 ways the app phenomenon could change the way you think about your practice.

by hitendra patil

consider, for a moment, the new “app economy.” there are over a million apps in apple and google stores, with hundreds of them doing much the same thing in almost the same way. according to pew research, 90 percent of americans have cellphones and 67 percent find themselves checking their phones for messages, alerts or calls — even when they don’t notice their phones ringing or vibrating.

so, are accounting firms like apps already — offering the same services, same deliverables, same outcomes at the same or similar prices? if so, the only thing missing in the accounting marketplace is an “accounting services app store.”

more on entrepreneurial strategy: top 10 entrepreneurial traits of successful accountants | four leadership strengths that define accountants | as block and liberty add accounting services, independents face 3 options | readers sound off on liberty, h& r block plans to launch bookkeeping services | threat or opportunity as h& r block, liberty jump into bookkeeping services? | six secret keys to the mind of the entrepreneur | 8 seconds into the future: meet generation z | 5 reasons gen y will make or break your firm

wisdom tells us to “hang out where clients do.” yet, there are hardly any “accounting firm apps” on the app stores. read more →

successful strategy execution requires focus on people

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business people working in group in the officeby robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn

momentum is critical in driving change, so it is no surprise that the initiation of activities that drive and support the strategy is key.

more on leadership: managing partners must remember partners’ needs | 5 questions about your firm’s direction | like herding cats: partners must ‘walk together’

it is also one of the reasons why focus is critical. and yet one of the mistakes we see are initiatives having too much time between them.

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