Specialization within the practices in which Andersen provides services is the main challenge ahead for the firm, which is co-directed by José Vicente Morote and Íñigo Rodríguez-Sastre, who have already announced that growth will also be one of its hallmarks in their next strategic plan. They have set themselves the goal of reaching 100 million in revenue in three years.

In fact, regarding the sectorial specialization, both point out that "opportunities arise related to the economy and the evolution of the market, such as the energy sector, technology or waste management".

Morote and Rodríguez-Sastre set this goal for the entire firm, as they intend to "develop all the practice areas in each of our offices in which we have a presence in order to provide high value-added service from the local presence and experience, together with the great national and global coverage offered by the firm".

In this regard, they point out that "Madrid -which they qualify as the flagship of the firm- will continue to expand its coverage in those areas in which we have already established ourselves, but we have identified as growth niches to meet new market demands", although they will place special emphasis on the growth of the offices in Barcelona, Lisbon, Seville and Malaga. For the time being, they are only considering opening an office in the north of Spain in the short term - Bilbao has been mentioned as a target for the year - in order to have complete coverage of the entire Iberian Peninsula.

At a general level, the next strategic plan - the one that ends in 2023 "has been more than fulfilled" - has as its main vectors, according to the two executives, "quality in the provision of service, specialization and technological investment in order to improve internal processes and make a leap in profitability".

Regarding the practices, Andersen is satisfied with the current weight of each one of them, a distribution that they consider balanced: "We do not depend on any area or any specific partner that conditions the rest of the firm".

However, José Vicente Morote and Íñigo Rodríguez Sastre recognize that the areas with the greatest weight continue to be, within legal, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and litigation and, in tax, the branch linked to M&A and tax procedures, but they have also managed to ensure that public, an area directed by Morote himself, "has a relevant percentage of turnover and that the small areas are not residual, but have a considerable contribution to the whole".

This is a commitment of the current managing partners who consider that it is "a distribution of turnover that, as a whole, gives us the peace of mind of having a sustainable firm in the medium and long term".

Growth is important for Andersen, but without professionals to carry it out, this strategy would be impossible. That is why they strive for an attractive corporate culture that allows them to achieve low turnover.

Among the aspects that have a positive impact on talent retention, they highlight the firm's international character, which "involves professionals and partners from all over the world, working as a team with clients and joint projects, which undoubtedly motivates and attracts professionals".

On the other hand, both leaders highlight the firm's commitment to training: "We invest a great deal of resources in training and the development and transmission of our culture at all levels, global, regional and national".

In this regard, the firm has a training plan that contemplates its applicability at local, regional or global level depending on the category and typology. As part of this program, for example, in January, the Global New Leaders Meeting was held in Madrid, which was attended by more than 200 partners promoted in the last year or recently joined the project, while in November Barcelona was the venue for training dedicated to associates from all over Europe.

To this Andersen adds the possibility of secondments so that professionals can develop for a few months or a year in any office in the world, as well as master's degrees taught by prestigious universities, such as the University of San Francisco, with which they have an agreement, whereby professionals can apply for MBAs at no cost to them.

Finally, Andersen has a career plan for its lawyers that is "perfectly parameterized and very transparent, so that everyone knows, from the beginning of their professional career, what is expected of each one of them in order to be promoted and that they can, from the beginning of their career, work to achieve clear objectives".

On the other hand, the firm also has a specific plan for partners. "We have approved a partnership for which we have counted on the contributions of all the partners, where the conditions for accessing the partnership are established in an objective manner and which establishes that all the partners have shares in the partnership and no one has more than 3%", they conclude.

You can read the article in Expansión.