Congratulations! Your firm has weathered the opening act of the recession. You're more profitable. You're refocused on business development. You've figured out this "social media thing:" You have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

But have you transformed your firm?

You may be doing a different dance, but - if you're like most firms - you're still at the junior prom.

In contrast, a new breed of CPA firm is bootstrapping its way into client boardrooms and wallets. Launched by entrepreneurial Gen Xers, Millennials and young-at-heart Baby Boomers, agile firms are cropping up around the world. They are more nimble, open, innovative, interdisciplinary, and aggressively client-centered than traditional (non-agile) firms. And I predict that will become an increasingly common story in the years to come.

Here's why:

Agile firms are more profitable. Research conducted at MIT showed that agile companies - companies marked by their obsession with the client experience, leadership in innovation, the ability to turn knowledge into value, and consistent, "no surprises" execution - grow revenue 37 percent faster and generate 30 percent higher profits than non-agile firms. Trouble is, most business leaders don't feel they are flexible enough to compete successfully with agile firms. And the bigger your firm is, the harder it will be.

What does it mean to be an agile CPA firm?

Agile firms are nimble. They can adapt quickly to client or market changes. This is, in part, because they have tighter sense-and-respond cycles than non-agile firms. Agile firms regularly round up and discuss the intelligence they're gathering from clients to develop new products or services.

In 2009, an agile firm in Ohio recognized that its manufacturing clients were having a hard time obtaining credit from banks. It found a specialist in alternative lending structures, and introduced him to all of their manufacturing clients. The agile firm quite literally saved many of its clients from going out of business - not by providing tax or audit services, but by noticing a client need and quickly responding.

Agile firms can act nimbly because there's little hierarchy. Any team member can take action to help a client at any time. If you love the service at the Four Seasons, you've experienced the nimble, client-centered approach of an agile business.

Agile firms are lean. They are not bogged down by expensive overhead, burdensome organizational structures, or we've-always-done-it-this-way processes. Agile firms ask questions like: "Why do we need Class A office space downtown when clients prefer that we visit them at their offices, and we can use Skype, GoogleTalk, e-mail and instant messaging to connect our people in real time?"

Agile firms ruthlessly question every expense and would rather "cheap out" on standard industry perks - e.g., golf club memberships for senior partners - so they can focus on the stuff that matters to their clients and employees. Agile firms may not pay the best, but their employees are loyal, because they feel that they have a say in the business. Agile firms aren't encumbered by a partnership structure. They run themselves like a bootstrapping start-up from Day One.

• 1
• |
• 2
• |
• next