Strategy is Different from Planning

Source: Accounting Office Management & Administration Report

William Reeb, of Winters and Reeb PLLC ([email protected]), addressed the Association of Accounting Administrators in Indianapolis on the subject of “Management on Purpose Instead of by Accident.”

Because of well covered succession issues, CPA firms are getting serious about strategy. But strategy implies change, which is challenging.

Traditionally, firms create plans for achieving goals. This sounds like strategic planning, but it isn’t—strategic planning deals with changing markets and how the firm will service them.

Here’s what firms must do:

• Be willing to change. Managing partners must play crucial roles in bringing about change. Accountability at every level is necessary.
• Treat technology as the new norm in accomplishing tasks. It has the beneficial side effect of reducing the need for staff.
• Change the way you assign work. Firms worry that staff won’t have enough work, so they give them too much. Some of these jobs don’t need to be done at all. Don’t be afraid to fire unprofitable or undesirable clients.
• Firms often view training and marketing as luxuries to be dispensed with when profits are suffering. This will harm retention and deprive the firm of future leaders.
• De-emphasize the billable hour. Bill more for the time employed. Defuse client resistance by concentrating on meeting needs. CPA firms often place value on the amount of time it takes to do the job. That’s why clients complain. Flexible work arrangements, which staff needs anyway, will help here.
• Work should be reconfigured. Firms try to solve the staff shortage by finding the unobtainable experienced professional. Partners fear delegating. They will find, however, that staff is more capable than partners imagine.
• Partners should spend more time with clients, not selling or cross-selling, but learning what clients need and finding the resources to meet them.

From Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, November 2006, p. 1. For subscription information contact Institute of Management & Administration, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, 30th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5902. One-year subscription $349. 212-244-0360, [email protected]. To read the complete article, click here.