Who Decides What?

Businessman looking thoughtfulYou need to ponder some questions before you answer.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli
CPA Trendlines / Succession Institute

Everywhere you turn, you overhear someone talking about, being asked about the status of, or referring to their need to develop, a succession plan.

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As a matter of fact, for the past 12 years through surveys with the AICPA, we have been asking firms to share with us whether or not they have a succession plan in place.

When you consider the responses to this question from the PCPS Succession Institute Succession Management surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012, clearly more and more firms are:

  • getting their act together,
  • documenting their succession management strategy and
  • thinking through the ramifications of retiring one or more senior owners.

Here is the question we asked along with summary data from both surveys: