Sponsored: Why M&A Between Accounting Firms Requires a Data-Driven View of Client Relationships

Most firms have a well-established, proven approach to assessing cross-selling opportunities, often a straightforward and effective process of mapping services and identifying potential overlaps. This method works and will remain a valuable part of M&A strategy. By layering in deeper relationship insights such as strength, depth, and engagement trends, your firm can enhance this approach with a data-driven perspective.

With a clear view of a prospect firm’s client ecosystem, you can go beyond the traditional pen-to-paper assessment and validate the true strength of cross-sell opportunities. A service may look like a fit on paper, but if the client relationship isn’t well-established or multithreaded, the potential could be more limited than it appears. Relationship insights help you assess risk, identify where additional engagement is needed, and ensure you’re maximising the growth potential of each deal.

Relationship insights can help you evaluate:

• Depth of connections: Are client relationships spread across multiple contacts in the firm, or do they rely on just one or two individuals?
• Engagement trends: Are client interactions increasing or declining? Are client response times improving or slowing?
• Reciprocity: Is the prospect firm’s team driving most of the communication with their clients, or is there a balanced, two-way conversation where both sides are actively engaged?

Consider this scenario for a moment: You’re evaluating a mid-sized accounting firm for acquisition. On paper, the client roster looks strong, and leadership assures you that the cross-selling opportunities are there. But after using Introhive’s relationship intelligence, you uncover that a significant portion of client revenue is concentrated among just a handful of partners, a couple of whom are nearing retirement, making retention a major risk. Additionally, relationship mapping uncovers significant gaps in how well key accounts are multi-threaded with key purchasers and decision-makers, meaning there’s a weak foundation to support cross-selling. To make matters worse, engagement is steadily declining across several key accounts, signaling potential client attrition post-merger.

This is the kind of insight covered in-depth in our new guide. Download it now to see how leading firms are applying this at scale.

A deeper look at client relationships can help your firm refine your approach before finalising a deal. Here are some areas where relationship insights can add value:

• Identify service gaps by analysing whitespace opportunities: unmet client needs within the target firm’s portfolio that your firm can fulfill.
• Assess relationship depth by assessing where client connections are strong and where they may be vulnerable, such as single-threaded relationships reliant on just one individual.
• Enhance your analysis of clients by tracking responsiveness trends, meeting frequency, and historical interactions, helping you distinguish loyal accounts from those at risk of attrition.
• Validate cross-selling potential with data-driven projections, ensuring you prioritise which accounts have the highest likelihood of expanding into new service lines.

By leveraging this data throughout the due diligence process, you can minimise the risk of overestimating an acquisition’s value and ensure that each deal aligns with your firm’s long-term growth strategy.

When the time comes to explore cross-selling and deeper integration, relationship insights help support a strategic approach. Here’s how:

• Identify key client stakeholders and influencers across both firms, ensuring that critical relationships don’t get lost in transition.
• Avoid redundant introductions and strengthen client confidence by demonstrating that you already understand their needs and existing touchpoints.
• Uncover the highest value cross-selling and expansion opportunities, leveraging relationship data to target clients most likely to benefit from additional services.

By leveraging these types of relationship insights, your firm can eliminate blind spots, strengthen client retention, and ensure that accounting M&A deals deliver their full strategic value.

Consolidating technology systems, including CRM platforms, can be a significant challenge in a merger. Introhive centralises and enriches client relationship data across both firms. By ensuring that all teams have access to real-time, comprehensive client insights, your firm can maintain continuity in service delivery and build stronger client engagement from the outset.

Merging firms often struggle with misaligned client outreach and redundant touchpoints. Introhive provides a shared relationship view, helping teams coordinate interactions, prevent crossed wires, and maintain a seamless client experience. This visibility ensures consistent communication and stronger client retention post-merger.

Cross-selling potential can be overestimated by both the acquiring and prospect firm. Introhive maps key stakeholders and relationship overlaps, helping you pinpoint viable cross-selling opportunities.

Accounting M&A success is highly dependent on securing strong, lasting client relationships.

Validating the strength of the prospect firm’s client relationships during due diligence is key to assessing growth potential and retention risks. With Introhive, you can enhance your existing processes with a proactive, data-driven approach that reinforces your assessment of the prospect firm’s client relationships.

For more strategies on strengthening your firm’s M&A readiness and unlocking value across the client lifecycle, download our guide: Rewriting the Accounting Playbook.

Introhive is a leading Relationship Intelligence Platform that helps firms overcome data silos and unlock actionable relationship insights that drive collaboration and growth. With Introhive’s relationship intelligence, firms can identify key relationships within the firm, measure the strength of client and prospect relationships, foster cross-firm collaboration, uncover risks or opportunities by understanding the health of relationships over time, and leverage these insights for business development and client retention efforts. Our recent awards include Best Company Culture (Comparably) and Best CEO (Comparably), High Performer, Americas (G2), Easiest To Do Business With, Mid-Market (G2), Easiest To Use, Mid-Market (G2), High Performer (G2), and High Performer, Mid-Market (G2).

Trusted by world-renowned brands, Introhive supports over 750,000 users in 90+ countries. With offices in the US, Canada, and the UK, we’re committed to helping businesses optimise their revenue opportunities.

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