What's in Store for 2011?
Source: RedZone, Play of the Month
The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Accountants Advisory Group.
Here are some predictions and trends to consider in your strategic planning:
- Mega-regional mergers will continue, especially on the East Coast from Boston to D.C. The partnership structure will begin to be phased out and a more corporate structure and strategy will take hold.
- There will be more lateral mergers of small and midsize firms as an alternative to merging into regional firms.
- Human resource and marketing directors at large firms will work in tandem as “product managers” to hire, train, retain, and develop future leaders.
- Marketing for quality and not quantity, along with target marketing, will become more of the norm.
- Firms will take a hard look at their partner compensation and retirement policies.
- Accounting firms will continue to play a bigger role in personal wealth management for high-net-worth clients.
- The profession will experience an increase in malpractice claims and litigation in 2011 as a result of business failures.
- Firms will have to be super-efficient in delivering compliance services in order to remain fee competitive.
- Firms that make smart leadership, merger, marketing and HR decisions in 2011 will significantly increase profitability in 2012 and beyond.
- Firms will aggressively compete for quality, experienced professionals as new financial services regulations take effect and the economy starts to rebound.
For the complete article, read “2011 Predictions & Trends.”
From RedZone, Play of the Month, Accountants Advisory Group LLC, www.accountantsadvisory.com, December 2010.