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Ric Payne has a lot of answers. But, importantly, he also knows the right questions.

Payne

The CEO and chairman of Principa, which provides management services to accounting firms worldwide, Payne is famous for launching Results Accountants Systems, the Accountants’ BootCamp and the Results Accountants’ Network.

Today, the big question accountants should be asking themselves is: What is the vision I have for our firm 10 years from now?

In framing that vision, he says you need ask:

1. In what ways are our clients’ businesses changing and what does that mean for the services we should be offering now and in the future?
2. What do our clients value, i.e. what is “value” to them?
3. What are our strengths?
4. Are they the right strengths to create and deliver value to our clients?
5. Are we adequately endowed with these strengths?
6. Are they currently deployed where they produce results?
7. Who are our future competitors from within and outside the industry going to be?
8. What are we doing today that will help us really stand out from these competitors?
9. What technologies should we be using now to better service our clients, in particular how well appraised are we of what firms in adjacent industries are doing?
10. What process, product or business model innovations have we introduced in the past three years to better service clients and offer a more valuable business value proposition?
11. Do we lead or follow the pack when it comes to introducing new ideas?
12. To what extent are we really adding value to our clients, by that I mean, is their business performing better as a direct result of our firm’s involvement or are we simply providing a service that any accounting firm could do for them?
13. Do we know the profit contribution made to our firm by each of our clients?
14. What percentage of our clients are at break-even or below?
15. To what extent are we being held captive by some of our clients who, for their own reasons, do not see any need to change their service requirements but who we allow to consume our valuable resources for fear of losing some short term revenue that has little or no growth potential?
16. In what ways are we attempting to change the culture of our organization to better accommodate the work preferences and environment needed to attract and retain talented people?
17. What are we doing now to implement re-training of our people to equip them with the skills that are going to be needed in the future?
18. What are our plans to align with a network that will be able to provide back office research and development support, global reach and a source of colleagues we can collaborate with to quickly and effectively offer affordable solutions to our clients without risking them being lured away from our firm?
19. How adaptive is our firm to change?
20. Specifically, based on our past behavior, have we been willing to cast aside legacy mindsets and systems so that we are better equipped to accommodate new opportunities?
21. And the final but critical question: what resources in the form of time and money are we willing to invest to ensure that our firm not only transitions successfully to a new service model but takes rank with the top performers in the industry?

via Ric Payne’s Blog.

Posted June 14, 2010
Related Topics: leadership, management, practice, strategy