Operations12 min read
Inside the modern firm operating stack
How a new generation of accounting and advisory leaders is rebuilding their firms around tighter systems, fewer tools, and clearer client outcomes.
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Peer Insight
What mid-sized firms are quietly doing differently
Field notes from operators at 30 to 120 person firms — what is changing in how they hire, structure work, and measure the year.
Practice Insider11 min read
The interesting movement in the profession is not at the very top of the market and it is not at the very bottom. It is in the middle — the 30 to 120 person firms with enough scale to specialise and enough nimbleness to move.
Hiring against a clearer shape of the firm
These firms have stopped hiring generalists by default. They are hiring against a stated shape of the firm three years out: which client segments they intend to serve, which they intend to exit, and what the work actually looks like at the engagement level.
“We stopped hiring people we hoped would work out. We started hiring against a written picture of the firm we are becoming.”
Measuring the year on fewer numbers
- Realisation by service line, not just firm-wide.
- Client concentration, watched as a risk metric, not a vanity one.
- Capacity utilisation against a stated target, reviewed monthly.
- Retention of the top quartile of clients and the top quartile of staff.
None of this is novel. What is novel is the discipline of actually using these numbers to make decisions, every month, without flinching.
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Advisory, without the buzzword
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