Accounting Today - October 2011

The agile CPA firm
tomorrow’snews

Congratulations! Your firm has weath- ered the opening act of the reces- sion. You’re more profitable. You’re refocused on business development. You’ve figured out this “social media thing:” You have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

But have you transformed your firm?

You may be doing a different dance, but — if you’re like most firms — you’re still at the junior prom.

In contrast, a new breed of CPA firm is bootstrapping its way into client boardrooms and wallets. Launched by entrepreneurial Gen Xers, Millennials and young-at-heart Baby Boomers, agile firms are cropping up around the world. They are more nimble, open, innovative, interdisciplinary, and aggressively client-centered than traditional (non-agile) firms. And I predict that will become an increasingly common story in the years to come.

Here’s why:

Agile firms are more profitable. Research conducted at MIT showed that agile companies — companies marked by their obsession with the client experience, leadership in innovation, the ability to turn knowledge into value, and consistent, “no surprises” execution — grow revenue 37 percent faster and generate 30 percent higher profits than non-agile firms. Trouble is, most business leaders don’t feel they are flexible enough to compete successfully with agile firms. And the bigger your firm is, the harder it will be.

What does it mean to be an agile CPA firm?

Agile firms are nimble. They can adapt quickly to client or market changes. This is, in part, because they have tighter sense-and-respond cycles than non-agile firms. Agile

Are you nimble, open, innovative, client-centered?

BY REBECCA RYAN

Rebecca Ryan is an author, speaker and entrepreneur whose firm, Next Generation Consulting, helps forward-looking firms figure out the future. Reach her at rr@ nextgenerationconsulting.com or (888) 922-9596, ext. 702.

firms regularly round up and discuss the intelligence they’re gathering from clients to develop new products or services.

In 2009, an agile firm in Ohio recognized that its manufacturing clients were having a hard time obtaining credit from banks. It found a specialist in alternative lending structures, and introduced him to all of their manufacturing clients. The agile firm quite literally saved many of its clients from going out of business — not by providing tax or audit services, but by noticing a client need and quickly responding.

Agile firms can act nimbly because there’s little hierarchy. Any team member can take

Agile firms
don’t follow
the herd.

action to help a client at any time. If you love the service at the Four Seasons, you’ve experienced the nimble, client-centered approach of an agile business.

Agile firms are lean. They are not bogged down by expensive overhead, burdensome organizational structures, or we’ve-always-done-it-this-way processes. Agile firms ask questions like: “Why do we need Class A office space downtown when clients prefer that we visit them at their offices, and we can use Skype, Google Talk, e-mail and instant messaging to connect our people in real time?” Agile firms ruthlessly question every expense and would rather “cheap out” on standard industry perks — e.g., golf club memberships for senior partners — so they can focus on the stuff that matters to their clients and employees. Agile firms may not pay the best, but their employees are loyal, because they feel that they have a say in the business. Agile firms aren’t encumbered by a partnership structure. They run themselves like a bootstrapping start-up from Day One.

Agile firms are obsessed with improve-
ment and innovation. Agile firms mine the
edges of their processes and markets, the
place that author Steven Johnson calls “the
adjacent possible.” For example, agile firms
use the lean process to eliminate waste and
increase efficiency. Agile firms use other tools
like the ROTI scale to gauge the “Return on
Time Invested” from meetings, and “sprint”
periods of two-to-four weeks to tackle prob-
lems or invent new solutions. At the heart of
their obsession is the belief that agile firms
can always do better.

Will you be attending Accounting Today’s second annual Growth & Profitability Summit, October 25-27, in Las Vegas?

Have you been following my updates on Twitter, @ATomorrow? In addition to offering information about this month’s event, I’ve asked for your participation. What questions do you want me to ask the marketing experts I’m moderating in a panel on lead-generation campaigns? Have any other must-asks for all our other panelists and speakers? Want me to rustle some card-counting tricks out of Bringing Down the House subject and keynote speaker Jeffrey Ma?

I can’t promise that I won’t bogart that last bit of information, but regardless, all of your feedback will be heard when you tweet with our event hashtag #GroPro11, both leading up to and during the conference. Your tweeted insights will also be visible onscreen throughout the event.

I’ve found the simple hashtag to be a valuable resource at conferences and events. I have followed new speakers and attendees on Twitter, been alerted to supplementary information about particularly interesting sessions, and had many slightly awkward, “I think I know you from your thumbnail headshot?” introductions that have ended in good conversation and opportunities for new Accounting Today and Accounting Tomorrow content.

My colleagues have found similar success. Our technology editor, Seth Fineberg, has been tweeting from tech conferences as @Seth TechEditor. And of course, event updates and breaking news can always be found @Accounting Today.

We will all continue the live tweeting and retweeting during our conference, and I hope to see some new faces joining in under #GroPro11. Please, introduce yourself during one of our receptions or networking breaks. We can squint at each other with cautious recognition over our smart phones.