The word independent appears on the home page of almost every advisory firm. It appears on the Dynmark Technosoft home page too. The word is cheap to claim and expensive to defend. It is worth writing down, in plain language, what the firm actually means by the word, and what a client is entitled to expect from a firm that uses the word honestly.
Five things an honestly independent firm will do
- Name its material sources of revenue so a client can check for conflicts before an engagement begins. The firm will not hide a revenue relationship that would reasonably influence the advice.
- Decline work where the recommendation has already been decided by the client and the engagement is a search for a document that supports it.
- Decline work against an existing client in the same commercial question. The firm will say so, in writing, and will point the second prospect towards another firm.
- Write the honest answer first and write the context second. An answer that is softened to protect the relationship is not an independent answer, it is a managed one.
- Walk away from an engagement that has drifted into territory the firm cannot honestly advise on, and return the unearned portion of the fee in writing.
What this means in practice
Dynmark Technosoft is a sole proprietorship, which is an unusual structure for an advisory firm and which carries its own set of honest constraints. The firm does not have a large partnership to protect. It does not carry a cross sell motive from a sister audit practice or a sister technology practice. It does not take referral fees from agencies, software vendors, or implementation firms. The firm's only commercial relationship is with its clients, and that is the foundation on which the word independent actually rests in this practice.
A client who is unsure whether a particular engagement could compromise the firm's independence is welcome to ask before the engagement is written. The firm will answer in writing, and the answer will not be a marketing answer.