How to Get Clients to Reveal Their Needs

Source: Accounting Office Management & Administration Report

This article tells how to uncover client concerns to help them--and generate engagements and revenue. A list of questions was developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers for this purpose. Here is a sampling:

• Is the business making and/or buying the right things?
• Is the company eliminating waste?
• Can the company utilize smarter procurement policies?
• What is the true net product profitability?
• Would it be cost-effective to move transactional activity to shared services centers or to outsource it?
• How can the company eliminate no-value-added costs and keep them out?
• Do company executives fully understand where value is being created or destroyed?
• Is the company reviewing customer receivables regularly? Who is managing the process? What targets have been set, and have they been updated recently?
• Are there any other sources of cash that the company can readily access? For example, are there any surplus assets that can be disposed of?
• What are the key risks facing the business? How should the company monitor its performance against these risk factors?
• Which customers have declining orders? Can this shrinkage be reversed?
• Which parts of the business generate the highest returns on capital and which the lowest? Would those that generate high return benefit from additional growth capital or productivity investments at this time?
• How are competitors affected by the downturn? Does the company know the moves they are probably considering?

For the complete article, click here. See AOMAR "Suggestions to Stimulate Client Discussions and Develop Engagements."

From Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, Institute of Management and Administration, Inc., Newark, NJ, [email protected], July 2009, p. 5, "Suggestions to Stimulate Client Discussions and Develop Engagements."