Predictions for the Future of the Accounting Profession

Excerpts reproduced, with permission, from IPA. The following are condensed highlights. For the complete article, click on the link below.

Sam Allred:

• Firms will treat emerging leaders in a special way, continuing to move away from parity.
• More firms will embrace the idea of part-time partners.
• There will be a trend towards closed compensation systems where partners don’t know other partners’ individual compensation amounts.
• For every existing partner, firms should have two people who have the ability to become partner in the next five to seven years. At a minimum it should be one for one.
• Employee loyalty is waning. Firms need to instill pride and develop fast career tracks.

• Mergers and acquisitions will escalate and values will fall.
• Firms will increasingly move towards value pricing.
• CIOs will need management skills as well as technical skills. The supply of technology personnel will tighten.
• Firms will be forced to disclose non U.S. outsourcing and to mask social security numbers. See IRS Reg. 7216 and Revenue Procedure 2008-12.

• Personnel shortages will continue while competition for the best clients will intensify. Firms must learn to do more with less (in manufacturing, Lean and Six Sigma projects reduce waste and increase margins).
• Professional business developers can help land the best clients.
• Firms that don’t invest in governance, people, growth, technology, or management will be disappointed in their futures.
• Regulation will drive change.

• Staff will be reduced at Big 4 firms as auditing and related Sarbanes work decreases.
• 2008 will be the biggest year yet for mergers and acquisitions. Firms of all sizes will be combining resources and talent.
• Local and regional firms have seen tax work for public companies increase. This will continue.
• A probable recession will restrict growth in 2008 and early 2009. Some firms may welcome a short-term flattening of the growth curve.
• A lot of firms will be going back to basics for training partners and staff in how to develop new business and cultivate referral sources.

From Inside Public Accounting, March 2008, p. 12, The Platt Consulting Group (www.plattgroupllc.com). Subscription $379 per year; back issues—nonsubscribers $50. 317-733-1920.

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