Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do at HW&Co. Internally, the teams from every practice area in our firm work together to make sure each client benefits from the expertise we have to offer. And our relationships with clients are collaborative as we work together to help them meet their goals.
The benefits of collaborative relationships have long been talked about in the business world, but as the challenges of doing business become more complex, and as the pace of change continues to accelerate, we find that collaborating internally – and externally with allied professionals – is essential to helping our clients and achieving our vision as a firm.
HW&Co. has merged in several accounting practices in recent years, adding expertise and valued people to our staff. One of the most rewarding things about these mergers is getting to meet the clients our new colleagues bring to us.
Occasionally, we’ll hear a client say they thought they would have to find a new accounting firm when their former accountant retired, and they’re gratified to meet their team from HW&Co. Having worked with a single accountant for many years, the reality of working with a collaborative team is new to them.
Collaboration
Internally, working collaboratively benefits us in terms of recruiting and retaining talented professionals. Working with a team, sharing ideas and coming up with innovative solutions makes HW&Co. an exciting place to come to work, and it helps people grow individually. It also results in effective advisory strategies that are based on a multidisciplinary approach. By breaking down the traditional silos and bringing people together to work collaboratively, we create an energetic internal culture that benefits our staff and clients alike.
Out of curiosity, I took a look at the teams that work collaboratively for my clients recently, and found some with as many as 10 individuals, including tax, accounting, valuation, technology, forensics, mergers & acquisitions, as well as industry specialists. While I manage the relationships and communication with my clients, the team works right alongside me.
Private Business Advisory
Our commitment to innovative collaboration on behalf of our clients has taken an exciting new turn, as we launched an initiative on January 1, 2022, that we call Private Business Advisory (PBA). Led by one of our most energetic professionals, Kim Zagar, our PBA practice fulfills a need that clients had been expressing to us for some time.
Through the PBA practice, we take a holistic approach to client service by providing day-to-day accounting services in addition to the compliance and advisory services we have always delivered. This gives us new insights into how our clients run their businesses, enabling us to start conversations with them about business strategy and organic improvements going forward.
Working this way adds a deeper dimension to our collaborative relationships with clients and helps everyone feel more connected. We are able to look at the whole business, from the standpoint of finance, operations and human resources, and help owners envision how they will meet the challenges of a changing marketplace.
The PBA practice is still just getting started, but we are optimistic about its potential and we’re already envisioning how a similar approach may help us focus our energies in other service areas, as well, such as mergers & acquisitions.
Effective collaboration, combined with vision and an understanding of the evolving marketplace, will help us deliver more targeted services in the future. It’s a vision that honors the long history of HW&Co.
President & CEO
brandon.miller@hwco.cpa
