PKS Stahl & Partner were one of the first firms to join BOKS International in 2017, as our exclusive member in Schweinfurt. The firm provides professional business services in a multi-disciplinary setup. With a steadily growing, highly-talented and experienced team of professional staff, PKS offers its clients a multi-disciplinary evaluation of business opportunities.
We asked Alex Stahl to answer our questions on some key issues in the accounting and legal sectors:
In your opinion, what is the future for your profession?
Our profession is currently going through one of the biggest changes since the last decade. Part of our business gets less profitable or even redundant, or too time consuming in a society where time is more and more elementary. Therefore we prefer to emphasize on digitalisation so as to work in a contemporary manner, rather than “ticking off” permanent tasks within our valued clientele. We thrive to move towards specific and distinct consulting as well as a more proactive approach, where we prefer to guide and coach our esteemed clients on a more individual basis. Within the last few years we have gradually moved into a fully client orientated approach, which is focused mainly on companies. Thus we are more and more aiming to help grow internationally orientated, growing businesses as well as enterprises, and to additionally provide them with top quality tax and legal security. Close partnership and collaboration with our valued clients is therefore essential and of utmost importance to us.
What is your growth strategy?
Our growth strategy consists of a 3 step approach; Firstly we aim at developing our own business and by that we mean to aim to constantly improve as well as to innovate the standard process so as to take our expertise to the next level. In this way we can offer this same, first class consulting on the highest level possible, so as to shape and develop your company to the utmost potential it deserves and needs. This approach corresponds with the way our company is determined to constantly look at recruiting the most competent and innovative solution finders out there. Secondly we aim to collaborate with our clients in such a matter that we are able to improve their economic situation, to assist them with their daily processes as well as finding innovative solutions for their specific requirements. Lastly we aim at acquiring new clientele as well as team members who correspond with our views and beliefs as well as mirror our notion of the current world economy and on how our goals can be achieved accordingly.
Where do you see your firm 5 years from now?
Within 5 years from now, we can see PKS being in a leading regional position offering premium consulting businesses with international tax as well as legal questions. We will also be assisting businesses, providing them with innovative solutions for their processes and to be up to date with the current external requirements.
What is your biggest challenge?
Our biggest challenge is to be able to manifest our vision as well as bringing this into the minds of the people, but also to find like- minded clients as well as team members who are looking for change and are innovative as well as entrepreneurial. Creating ideas and values as well as implementing them is probably the hardest challenge in business and one of the biggest changes throughout the last ten years.
What percentage of your work is international?
Our current percentage of international clientele is around 3 to 6 % which consists mainly of our valued returning customers. Our future goal is to grow this international department and to have growing international desk – increasing our present team accordingly.
What business advisory services do you offer?
We currently offer legal and tax related services as well as international issues, auditing and accounting. At the same time we are working on expanding our business consulting department and would like to fully establish this until the end of 2022 at latest. Our ultimate goal is to be able to offer our clients a full package of comprehensive consulting.
What was your main driver for being part of BOKS International?
As consultants we do not see ourselves as lone wolves and realize that we need a strong network, both internationally as well as nationally. We look for partners that we can trust featuring a straight forward organisational structure that leads to fast decisions and improvements. We do not see a single benefit from acquiring new clients, but also want to learn from BOKS members as well as share our knowledge in return. In this way we can build a strong alliance as well as best practice for cross-border collaboration in future.
Where do you see BOKS International 5 years from now?
We strive for this network not to be among the biggest networks, but the best working and most stable network. Our goal is to grow with the network and make new contacts as well as to find interesting new clients and partners to learn from and share information with.
How would you describe your typical client?
This question is not easy to answer; there is not one specific type but our main goal is to work with clients who meet our values and point of view and who appreciate our innovative and “different” (naturally meant in a positive way) hands-on approach.
Tell us about a recent international assignment
Last December 2019 we achieved a major international assignment. This mission was referred to us by our BOKS partner TC-Group (Thank you for your trust in this!) and the collaboration took from September 2019 to February 2020. Our client is an event organiser from UK planning a sports tournament in Germany. The main task consisted of consulting them in VAT and withholding tax issues from the registration to the submission of tax returns including the communication with the responsible tax authorities as an “all-inclusive” approach required by the client.
How do you target clients who are looking for international services?
We will target to advertise our services in business magazines as well as through the great Boks network. Of course we will use social media as well as investing in linking our website and develop a system of promoting referrals, where existing, satisfied customers are kindly reminded that they may consider referring us further.
Do you specialise in a particular sector or service?
No we do not – as we are a jack of many trades and master all—- 🙂
What will be the affect of COVID-19 on our profession?
There will be an increasing workload for all of us. A close cooperation between all professions (tax, legal, audit and finance) is more important than ever before. Just calculating taxes will no longer be enough to meet the needs of our clients.
How are you able to help our clients through this difficult times?
In these challenging times we maintain a positive approach by keeping our clients as up-to-date as possible showing them the needed tools to keep their business going. Furthermore we help them implement these tools efficiently so as to keep the business flowing.
