Firms Expect Growth in 2021 Despite the Pandemic

Many believe the investments they made in content marketing will continue to pay off, according to the second of two Growth Outlook Surveys conducted in 2020 by Inovautus Consulting in collaboration with the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM). Firms expect growth to occur in the following areas:

Improvement in 2020

Inovautus Consulting’s second Growth Outlook Study, conducted in November 2020, showed that 95% of accounting shareholders and marketers are optimistic about job security, compared to 84% in the first survey conducted in the beginning of May 2020.

“Overall, CPA firms are doing much better than in the spring,” said Sarah Dobek, president and founder of Inovautus. “The growth outlook improved, services are evolving and firms have used the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to build momentum. Firms with existing advisory services have the strongest outlook on growth and are making faster shifts here.”

Dobek said nearly half of the firms with a positive outlook indicated an increase in business development activity.

“We were able to see the correlation between BD and the growth outlook in the fall survey,” Dobek said. “Investment in growth is a mindset, and firms that are equipped with the capacity and capability to manage business development and marketing in a virtual environment are likely to come out ahead.”

The respondents also reported anticipating challenges with changes to business development and marketing, staffing capacity, retention, efficiency and client retention because of the number of businesses that have been forced to close during the COVID-19 pandemic.

View the full article “Firms Expect Growth in 2021 Despite the Pandemic” in the Spring 2021 issue of Growth Strategies.