Preparing Your Firm for the Future

Source: Accounting Today

How do accounting firms deal with staff shortages, increasing competition, more regulation, rapid changes in technology, and retirement of baby boomers? The solution will certainly require change, but change is hard.

L. Gary Boomer, of Boomer Consulting in Manhattan, Kansas, says firms should create financial models depicting the effects of these changes. If partners see a future of declining income, they will feel pressure to change. Boomer suggests:

• Create a task force to envision the future. Include clients in the meetings.
• Don’t rely on a long-term budget. Develop concepts for the firm’s future path.
• Expect the process to be lengthy. It may take a year for the vision to become comprehensible. But keep it simple.
• The vision must be effectively communicated throughout the firm. A 20-page document won’t do it. Boil it down to two pages. It should include goals, measurement methods, time frames, and accountability.
• Assign significant initiatives to employee task forces. Task forces should be empowered with authority commensurate with their responsibilities.
• Identify those initiatives that are the most likely winners. Launch them early to establish a pattern of success.
• People not committed to the vision should be terminated or retired early.

From Accounting Today, February, 12, 2007, SourceMedia Inc., One State Street Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10004, 800-221-1809. For the complete article, click on the following link: www.webcpa.com/current_issue.cfm?pub=ato, then select The Keys to Transforming Your Firm in the February 12, 2007, issue.