Competing With the Big Guys
Source: CPA Trendlines
The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Bruce Marcus.
Mergers and acquisitions are altering the competitive landscape for firms of every size. It's likely that the major CPA firms will accelerate a long-standing practice of reaching into the low end of the market – the very market of the smaller CPA firms.
Can the smaller firm successfully compete against the bigger firm?
History says yes, if the firm follows at least some of the following 10 points:
- Don't be sanguine about the health of your firm. Be ever alert in your marketplace.
- Save your current clients. Your current client base is your first line of defense in a highly competitive environment.
- Seek new business from existing clients. In the typical mid-sized firm, there should be a 20 percent annual growth in business from existing clients.
- Organize for productivity. The future, in difficult times, lies with the lean, mean machine. That's the one with full control of process, expenditures, and business practices.
- Focus on business. Know what business you're in, and carefully consider any changes in your business model or the services you offer.
- Modify your culture. The culture of the professional firm must shift from an abstract professionalism to an aggressive market-centered orientation.
- Market. Your survival depends upon your use of the skills of professional services marketing.
- Challenge yourself. The successful accountant is the one who demands more of himself or herself.
- Learn. Today's successful CPA is well aware of the larger world in which he or she functions, and is constantly learning about context, as well as skills.
- Think increments. It takes only the smallest increment to be the best.
For the complete article, read “Ten Strategies for the Smaller Firm Facing Competition from Larger Firms.”
From CPA Trendlines, April 29, 2013, http://cpatrendlines.com.