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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Technology Challenges the Accounting Profession

Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

Billable hours will remain under attack. They have to go.

By Gale Crosley
 The Rosenberg Survey

Technology will continue to challenge our ability to harness its power. Firms will need to continue to rely heavily on technology consultants to help them sort through the confusing array of options.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
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Beware of capabilities promised but not yet ready for prime time. Plan to be on a continuous shopping trip in multiple categories of tech because of the rapid advancement in platforms.
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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Challenges for the Accounting Profession: Private Equity, Offshoring, Training New Hires

Chalkboard saying indicating that time to change is now

New tech will force firms to examine value pricing if they haven’t already.

By Gale Crosley
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

Private equity interest in the profession will continue. New PE organizations are dotting the landscape, showing interest in firms from the top to the near bottom of the market. Family offices and ESOP investment bankers/consultants are appearing. In the future, firms will have multiple alternative sources of equity capital.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics asks the profession’s top consultants two sets of questions:

    • How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts?
    • How would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

MORE: Recalibration Is Key for Accounting Profession | People Development Still a Concern | Focus on Intentional Growth | Accounting Firms Upshift to Corporate Model | Tech Anxiety Paralyzing Some Accounting Firms | What’s Going to Happen? Lots, Say Consultants | Growth and Complacency Must Concern Accounting Firms This Year | Solving Staffing Requires Intention | How Accounting Firms Are Handling the Staff Shortage | The Future of Fees | As Private Equity Closes In, Firms Seek New Answers to Staffing Problems | When Staffing Falls Short, Clients Get Culled | How Accounting Firms Are Dealing with Retirement | Next Five Years Are Critical for Accounting Firms | Staffing Turnover’s Down, But Why? | What’s Your Firm Worth? Private Equity Wants to Know | The New Pipeline: Outsourcing and Offshoring | Is This the Last Year of Accounting’s Golden Age?
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Private equities that have already invested are starting to more fully understand the vast operational differences between corporate America and CPA firms. This will put pressure on PE-backed firms to perform in more sophisticated ways. On the revenue growth side, corporate-world staples such as effective firmwide pipeline processes, professional sales organizations and a repeatable innovation (product management) process will start cropping up.
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GROWTH STRATEGIES

OUTLOOK: It’s Time for a New Business Model

three people looking at charts on laptop and papers

How about a chief growth officer?

By Gale Crosley
The Rosenberg MAP Survey

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, the Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country. How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months?

Our homogenous profession consists of firms with similar ownership and governance structures and business models. Looking forward we’ll see an increased variety of approaches.

MORE: Rosenberg MAP: Partner Incomes Surge 11.4%
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Many will look more like the corporate world, where ownership is not just in the hands of equity partners. Governance structures will include a C-suite of non-CPA players. Business models will include the melting away of geographic borders, value-based pricing and a variety of career paths.
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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

OUTLOOK 2023: Top Five Trends

Strategic thinking is at a premium.

By Gale Crosley
The Rosenberg MAP Survey: National Study of CPA Firm Statistics

I suspect the next 12 months will bring four sizable developments.

MORE OUTLOOK: Compensation Gets Creative |  The Office Is Over | Private Equity Comes for Accounting Firms
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This has been an unusual year of high uncertainty, unpredictability and sapped energy among our profession’s leaders. Many are facing the most significant business issues and opportunities of their careers. The profession has experienced nearly a century of relative business model certainty and predictability in market conditions, punctuated by occasional disruptive blips.

However, it’s not just one dynamic, such as the dot-com bust, the events leading up to Sarbanes-Oxley or the Great Recession. Rather we are seeing a confluence of four major thunderbolts – disruptive technologies, shifting economic conditions, non-traditional competition and fast-moving regulations. Add to this extensive talent constraint, work-from-anywhere options, unexpected market demand and the relatively new enthusiasm of private equities to invest in our firms. And don’t forget continuing baby-boomer retirements. Wow! I’m exhausted just writing about it.

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FEATURED

Why It’s Time for an Acquisition

Put your firm in the best possible position.

By Gale Crosley
For The Rosenberg MAP Survey

Now more than a year from the start of the pandemic, the long-term ramifications to the accounting industry show us morphing into an “anytime anywhere” work environment.

MORE: Three Ways the Accounting Profession Has Changed | Ramping Up for the Year Ahead
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You choose when and where you want to work – not necessarily just office or home, but wherever you are with your laptop or mobile device. As consultants, we have already been living this life for years. Our office is in an airplane, airport, Starbucks, hotel lobby, etc.
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