The following is sponsored content by Joey Havens, the executive partner of Horne, LLP, an Accountingfly Firm Partner.
Is your firm future ready?
Let’s define future ready as the capacity to be aware, predictive and adaptive of emerging trends, innovations and changes in business, population and the social environment. It is beyond agile due to being predictive. Agility is part of being future ready.
When CPA.com published its “Insights into the CPA of the Future Study,” 92% of CPAs reported that they were not “future ready.” Similarly, a recent McKinsey poll showed that 84% of global executives reported that innovation was extremely important to their growth strategies. Yet, that same report also showed that 94% of those executive were dissatisfied with their own organization’s innovation.
Bottom line, our firms and our profession are not future ready.
We are not innovative enough to remain relevant and execute our growth strategies. Why do so many business leaders tell us they can’t see the difference in various firms? Are we on the slippery slope of being non-distinctive? A dinosaur historical CPA firm, which has limited impact? Focused on compliance and history, all while clinging and defending the status quo?
What could possibly be killing innovation when so many executives realize it is extremely important for survival and growth? What is holding so many CPAs back from preparing for the future?
Is it possible that our conventional wisdom, groupthink and complacency are all clouding our path forward? Our past success has us fooled into believing that future success will look the same. But do we really believe that? How can we ignore this time of rapid, disruptive change? We cannot remain relevant and maintain the status quo. The other side of this coin is, what are we going to do with this abundance of opportunity that this disruption brings to us? We are so uniquely positioned to benefit from this change due to our skills, relationships, insights and commitment to serve.
We absolutely must innovate to remain relevant and become future ready. How we serve clients, how we lead with new services, how we deliver anticipatory insights, how we market, how we work, where we work, when we work, how we grow leaders, how we learn, our technology tools, and our competition are all changing rapidly.
I believe our profession is in desperate need of bold leaders who will choose to step forward and decide they’ll no longer live in the historical CPA category, the traditional role of the profession. I am eager for us to transform our profession into the future ready firms, together.
Our challenge is this:
Let’s embrace this change. Instead of being buried in administration and managing and controlling, let’s learn, let’s innovate and let’s collaborate and get future ready. Yesterday’s skills will not be sufficient for tomorrow. The transformation to future ready requires firm-wide change and we must move quickly if we want to outpace the competition that is coming from outside our profession. Are you choosing to be a future ready firm?
About the Author
Joey Havens, CPA, is the executive partner at HORNE LLP, where he passionately lives out his life’s calling to help others see and reach their full potential. Joey challenges leaders to bold transparency, calling on leaders to show their heart while working to connect everyone to the “why,” or the purpose, of the organization. He is a husband, father, grandfather, avid outdoorsman, and a college sports fan.
