Partnering = profits
(May 21, 2007)
Since 1982, Miami-based CPA and business advisory firm Watson Rice has worked with a neighboring accounting firm to fill its personnel needs in auditing engagements. That may not be so unusual, but what makes the relationship unique is the way the two firms have solidified the partnership - through a handshake.
As unbelievable as that seems in today's litigious culture, another firm shares a similar experience.
Bill Pirolli, a partner at DiSanto Priest & Co., in Warwick, R.I., merged his small firm into a larger neighboring one after three years of what he described as a "courtship." When he moved his former firm, Pirolli, Deller & Conaty PC, into DiSanto Priest's location before the merger, there was a spatial contract, but how work would be relayed back and forth was done by a gentlemen's agreement, he said.
In both cases, where no formal contracts were involved, the firms' partners had long-standing relationships with each other.
Ron Thompkins, managing partner for the three Florida offices of Watson Rice, realizes his situation is atypical. "To tell you the truth, in this day and age, if I was to start over and do it again, outright, right out of the box, I would probably have a formalized agreement," he said. "Especially as we start to pass [the practice] to our younger partners, we just want to make sure we have a formalized document."
But whatever unofficial or official method is used to seal a partnering agreement, an increasing number of firms are discovering that the right partner can help usher in both an expanded number of client services and healthier bottom lines.
WHY PARTNER?
Many firms enter into partnerships or strategic alliances to help provide their clients with expertise that they don't offer, or because they need additional staffing resources.
"We're trying to be the value-added provider, not the commodity provider," said Bill Goodman, president of Appleton, Wis.-based Schenck Business Solutions. "There are certain services that our people are the best choice to provide, and yet there are other services that are really not our forte. So we use partnering to provide services to our clients, where the partner has a higher level of expertise and delivery than we do."
Specializing in audits, Watson Rice offers services for health care, not-for-profit and governmental enterprises. The core clientele of BKR Garcia & Co. PLLC, Watson Rice's partnering firm, is for-profit organizations, tax and governmental entities. There is some overlap, but not much.
"Our busy season is the opposite of their busy season," Thompkins said. "To meet our staffing needs, we formed an alliance in which we use their personnel. We have not had to go through the staffing challenges of a lot of firms."
Firms that band together through partnerships can also win bigger jobs that they may not have gotten on their own.
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