FOREWORD

by
Richard Caturano, CPA
Managing Partner Vitale, Caturano & Co. PC

The myriad challenges faced by today’s professional service firm leaders are daunting. For as long as I can remember, the number one challenge facing us has been staffing and the shortage of talent. As times change, this issue will not go away. Rather, it will get more complex. The shortage of Ph.D.s to train the next generation of professionals is alarming. Competition for talent from all areas of the United States and abroad.

Work/life balance is at the forefront of the minds of the most recent generations of professionals. The lack of diversity in our firms is becoming even more acute. Compensating our partners and staff in a manner that not only leads them to do the right things, but also rewards them for helping the firm achieve its strategic initiatives now ranks as one of the key issues facing accounting firms.

What then is a leader of a professional service firm to do? While we have learned much about having the right mission, the right vision, the right values, the right strategy, the right people (in the right places, of course), we still struggle with how to bring all these factors in alignment. In my view the key success factor is how all of these elements relate to and work off of each other to create a successful firm. In Compensation as a Strategic Asset, August Aquila and Coral Rice, two veteran consultants to the accounting profession, develop the essential blueprint for helping firms with a holistic approach for creating an effective compensation method.

Interdependence, alignment, synergy, win-win, rewards for performance—these sound like old-fashioned buzz words and concepts, often over-used and misunderstood in today’s business world. That may be so, but in this rapidly changing business environment, they remain important elements of the successful firm. The authors take us step-by-step through a process that brings mission, vision, values, strategy, leadership, goal-setting, performance management and compensation together.

I know personally that when the various components of our strategy work off each other, the investment in the numerous costly initiatives which are required to compete is easier to justify. When our actions align with our strategy, we get countless positive benefits, including those which enable us to attract, motivate and retain the talent so desperately needed in our firms. When the sum of our actions is greater than the whole, success, regardless of how each firm defines it, usually follows.

Compensation as a Strategic Asset breaks theory down to practical steps in a way that is understandable, and more importantly, actionable. Aquila’s and Rice’s hands-on experience and pragmatic approach are explained in a context which not only makes sense, but can be applied to firms of any size. They provide a process that allows each firm to develop its own mission, vision, unique values and compensation system.

This is an extremely well-written book and should be required reading for every managing partner. If you follow their advice, you will develop a compensation model that drives a well-defined mission, vision, and strategy. Your compensation system, too, will become a strategic asset.

Richard Caturano, CPA
Vitale Caturano & Company (Boston, MA).

Mr. Caturano is a past chair of the Private Companies Practice Section of AICPA.