Day 1 @ 16:30

The Advisory Trap: Why Most Firms Add Business Services and Still Don't Profit

st accounting firms know they need to move beyond compliance and build a business services arm. Fewer know why so many firms do exactly that and still don't see the profit improvement they expected.

Drawing on her background as a CPA-qualified accountant (EY) turned business owner and strategist, Ranya Akacha will unpack the real reasons advisory arms underperform, even in firms doing genuinely good work. It's rarely a lack of demand. It's usually structure, pricing, and time that's quietly eaten by overservicing.

This session gives firm owners a practical framework for building a business services offering that's not just busy, but actually profitable, using real case examples of where firms are losing margin without realising it, and what to fix first.

Key takeaways:

•     Why gross profit margin alone is a misleading measure of client or service profitability, and what to track instead
•     The most common structural mistakes firms make when adding advisory or business services to an existing compliance model
•     How overservicing quietly erodes margin, even on your "best" clients, and how to spot it before it compounds
•     A practical framework for pricing, scoping, and resourcing a business services arm so it grows profit, not just revenue

Ranya Akacha, CEO, Real Business Matters

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Ranya Akacha / The Advisory Trap: Why Most Firms Add Business Services and Still Don't Profit

Ranya Akacha, CEO,
Real Business Matters

Ranya Akacha is a CPA-qualified accountant turned business strategist. She began her career at EY before stepping into business ownership herself, running a beauty salon while at university, then a travel agency, before leading the turnaround of a chemical manufacturing business. In 2017, she...

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