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Narrowing Your Firm's Initiatives Is Your Biggest Challenge By Jennifer Wilson, ConvergenceCoaching LLC January 2004 (SmartPros) There are many initiative opportunities available in public accounting and consulting firms. We can choose specific service, industry or geographic initiatives and CPAs have the added choice of specialty service areas, such as investment advisory, IT consulting, management consulting, performance management and outsourcing, to name just a few. We encourage our clients to make the emotional shift from a "we do it all" orientation to recognize that they can only invest in a few initiatives. If you are already focused on an initiative like IT consulting, there are many "sub-initiative" options you can choose. For example, you may choose accounting software and be aligned with a specific vendor or vendors, custom development services, business intelligence and data-mining consulting, warehouse management system design and implementation, or customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. The list is genuinely endless.
Most of us want to deliver a broad offering so that we don't miss opportunities that suddenly appear. As a result, we often say that we are "doing" several initiatives when the reality is that we haven't done much more in the initiative than "sign up" with a vendor or alliance partner, go to training or gain certification and perhaps talk to some prospective clients about the initiative.
In our experience, initiative success requires more than that; it requires that you focus your resources on a small number of "ideal" initiative opportunities. Even further, in both good and tough economic times, you must develop and thoroughly implement a business plan for each initiative that you undertake.
This may go against your entrepreneurial desire to be, or to say, that you are "all things to all people." After all, none of us wants to miss the next "hot" service area. Even so, as leaders within our organizations, we have to avoid allowing our creativity to result in our organizations being "a mile wide and an inch deep" simply because we don't want to say the powerful, but painful word "no."
We encourage our clients to make the emotional shift from a "we do it all" orientation to recognize that they can only invest in a few initiatives. And the challenge they all face is in determining which of their current or planned initiatives is the best choice for their firms' precious resources.
The most effective method for identifying your firm's ideal initiative is to ask yourself the following questions:
Answering these questions requires thoughtful self-assessment. Those of you who are familiar with our strategic practices will know what's coming next. We believe that you should start your self-assessment by undertaking an analysis of your firm's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats -- or, "SWOT."
This SWOT analysis is best completed in a simple, table-driven format (click here for a SWOT template, adapted for our purposes from a graphic in Louis Boone and David Kurtz's "Contemporary Marketing").
To select or reaffirm your firm's initiatives, complete a SWOT grid for each initiative you now say you're doing or are considering doing in the future. You will quickly see where your strengths and opportunities outweigh your weaknesses and threats - the initiatives that bear further consideration.
To undertake an honest self-assessment for any particular initiative, you would ideally include the perspective of others in your evaluation. Consider asking for input from other partners and staff, your clients, your vendors and outside consultants as you complete your SWOT analyses. Also analyze your competitors, a task that can be easily done via Web research. Do they have strengths where you have weaknesses and may be vulnerable where you have strengths?
When evaluating your strengths and weaknesses in a particular initiative, bear in mind that these attributes pertain to capabilities internal to your firm - under your direct control. Be sure to assess your leadership, organization, culture, staff capabilities, financial stability, client satisfaction, product and service mix, service delivery processes, sales and marketing processes and risk management procedures all in the context of that particular initiative.
As you explore your opportunities and threats, remember that these are outside of your organization -- and include things happening with your clients, competitors, vendors, alliances, the government, and the local and national economy. When evaluating the opportunities within your clients, explore whether or not the initiative you're exploring provides cross-selling opportunities within your existing client base -- an important criteria to consider.
Once you've completed your initiative SWOT analyses, you'll probably have a number of grids to evaluate. It will be easy to eliminate those initiatives where your strengths and opportunities are dwarfed by your weaknesses and threats (you'll note the handy "T-account" feel of the SWOT grid we've supplied for your use that makes this assessment even easier).
The more difficult task is in acknowledging that you cannot reasonably resource all of your initiative ideas. Instead, you'll need to select the initiatives where your strengths and opportunities are strongest. When "tie breaking" between initiatives and deciding which one, or few, you'll resource in the year to come, lean toward those where you have strengths in leadership, staff resources, and client satisfaction and where you have opportunities for cross-selling to your current clients.
When selecting or reaffirming your firm's initiatives, you'll need to apply a balance of science (your SWOT grids) and art (going with your group's "gut" feeling for the best ones once you've narrowed the field). When you take the time to assess yourself and your environment, you'll have the confidence that you're resourcing those initiatives that allow for maximum return on your firm's core competencies, intellectual capital and opportunities.
For more information about evaluating and creating new initiatives within your firm, contact Jennifer Wilson at jen@convergencecoaching.com, or 402.933.2900. |
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