Optimism for CLA in 2018
CEO Denny Schleper describes the six priorities set forth for 2018 making it a great year to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and the communities that we live in.
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CEO Denny Schleper describes the six priorities set forth for 2018 making it a great year to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and the communities that we live in.
Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.
[00:00:18]
Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny Schleper. I know many of you are in the midst of a very busy time. Obviously since 2018 began, there’s been a lot of things happening within the firm. Much of this we’ve been able to share once with the owner group when we got together in January as well as a webcast that we pulled together with many of the non-equity principals and those of you on the signing director path as well.
[00:00:46]
I just wanted to spend a few minutes today sharing some of that information with the entire CLA family. We had a chance not only to be at the major firm group meeting in January, which gave us a lot of good information, but we also had an opportunity to have the AICPA chairman Kimberly Ellison-Taylor speak to us at the owner advance as well.
[00:01:11]
And I just wanted to share there is an extreme amount of optimism for 2018, not only with the economy but also with the opportunities that that economy is presenting for professional service firms like CLA.
[00:01:28]
It was nice in January because we were just coming off of obviously the December period where we had a chance to pull together many of the teams within CLA–the executive team, the leadership advisory team, the young executive team, the Future Innovation Team–along with some of the industry chief officers.
[00:01:49]
And we spent time creating the priorities that we felt we needed to meet as a firm in 2018, and I think those priorities tie very well into the information that was picked up at the major firm group meeting as well. Along on the way of this optimism, I think for 2018, we feel that CLA can have a great year. We think we’re coming off of a very good year in 2017, but 2018 should be a great year for CLA.
[00:02:24]
Well, what does a great year for CLA mean? That should mean it is gonna be a great year to create opportunities for all of you, our people, our clients, and the communities that we live in. So I did want to share with you, if you wouldn’t mind me taking the time, on the six priorities that we have set forth for 2018. And I’m gonna break these up really into two groups, the first three and then the last three of these.
[00:02:55]
The first one is one firm, the priority that we must truly embrace the seamless integrated services that we’re providing as a firm. We really need to raise the performance of all of the teams that we are participating in. Truly this one firm accountability and trust factor within the firm. We believe if we’re able to continue to drive a lot of these concepts around the one firm approach, it’s something that will really end up creating the opportunities for all of us.
[00:03:31]
The second one is around creating opportunities for our people, all of us within CLA, really driving career path clarity and opportunities and accountabilities, embracing and developing the generational workforce, all these types of things that we feel will help create more opportunities for our people. There’s a lot of effort that has been put into this priority in the past, and it’s something, again, that remains at the top of the list for 2018.
[00:04:06]
And the third one is around creating opportunities for our clients. As I mentioned, really embracing the seamless approach, the personal touch, the face-to-face with our clients, the relationship building, and really aligning those client relationships around our industry expertise and some of the service expertise.
[00:04:29]
Now, if I just stop on those three, all three of those really are opportunities for us to enhance the opportunities within the firm. And if we are truly doing a great job on these three priorities, this is where the results in the firm should really tell us that we’re making progress, the type of progress we want to make as a firm.
[00:04:59]
By now, for those of you that have listened to this podcast, you probably have already watched the video of Elliot Smith describe his perspective as a young person in the firm, as a member of the young executive team, describe accountability, describe flexibility, and really the clarity of expectations.
[00:05:23]
And I set out the goal via my email that all of us that really spend our time in the chargeable hour world, uh, by March 31st, a commitment that we’ll all be on target with our chargeable hour goals at that point. Why is that important? That isn’t the goal. That is the result. It should be the result if we truly are pulling off these three priorities within the firm. And I hope that all of us can take that in the spirit that it is meant to be, truly the why of CLA around creating opportunities.
[00:06:04]
The other three priorities–now, the first one is identifying the disruption and driving innovation within our firm, within the industries that we operate in. This is an area that the Future Innovation Team along with the Audit Innovation Team, really many people within the firm, are putting a tremendous amount of efforts around trying to really continue to move the firm forward in these changing times.
[00:06:32]
I would imagine that this priority doesn’t surprise anyone, uh, but clearly it’s something that’s gonna take the resource and efforts. We believe today CLA is in a pretty good place, and really, that first-generation knowledge of what’s happening in the marketplace, and positioned well to make the right business decisions driving that innovation going forward. Again, we’re just gonna have to continue to be very prudent on this initiative, on this priority.
[00:07:04]
And then there’s expanding the CLA brand, the fifth priority. This is something that is gonna take a lot of effort, and the information around it today is not available because we don’t have the answers on how we’re going to specifically expand the CLA brand. But we have groups put together already that will spend time trying to figure out those answers, trying to figure out maybe very unique ways of expanding the CLA brand.
[00:07:36]
One area is the CLA store, making items probably more desirable, uh, maybe trying to encourage all of us within the CLA family to utilize the store, be it the apparel, the other items, to actually get the CLA brand out into the community, be it if you’re traveling on an airplane, wherever it might be, uh, really expanding that CLA brand. That’s just one small item.
[00:08:02]
I believe we’re gonna come up with many unique ways of expanding that CLA brand throughout the country and our marketplaces and throughout the industries that we serve.
[00:08:14]
And then the last priority, the sixth one, is around frontline risk management mind-set, including security and quality. Now, this goes beyond–although simple quality of what we do serving our clients day in and day out is the cornerstone of everything we do, it also is expanding really to look at how can we improve really our security culture within the firm, not only internally but externally as well, uh, ensuring our vendors support our security culture.
[00:08:51]
All of these types of things we need to within the firm make this a priority, and there are some very specific things we’re gonna do, maybe in some new positions within the firm that we’re gonna create, to help us move the firm forward and to stay very much in the forefront of keeping the firm safe, all of you safe, our clients safe, uh, in this ever-changing security world that we live in.
[00:09:19]
So those are the six priorities. Uh, I know all of us are busy. I didn’t want to take a lot of time today, uh, but I wanted to share those with you and also share, once again, that optimism for 2018. We have tremendous things happening within the firm. All of us within the CLA family have to continue to hopefully hold ourselves and all the people within our family accountable to pull off these priorities.
[00:09:51]
And if we’re able to pull off these priorities, I have no doubt that the results will be there and we’ll be headed into just a tremendous 2018. Thank you for all of the hard work that I know many of you are putting in at this time of year, and I look forward to seeing and speaking with many of you as we transpire through the rest of the year.
Thank you all, and have a great day.
Denny is the chief executive officer of CLA. As he goes about his duties related to the oversight of CLA’s direction, operations, expansion, and strategy, he is also an enthusiastic ambassador for the CLA Promise. He is fully committed to the firm’s position as a professional services firm that delivers integrated wealth advisory, outsourcing, and audit, tax, and consulting capabilities to help our clients succeed professionally and personally.
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