The age of the super accountant

Accountants used to be viewed as trusted entrepreneurial operators, but somewhere along the line this changed and they gained a reputation for being boring bean counters – if they were lucky – or gormless witch doctors if they weren’t. Now, the worm has not only turned, but I think we are entering a new era.

When I was a young lad, if you were ambitious about business, the thing to do was to get an accountancy qualification and then go into industry. You then spent some time doing ‘service’ (ie. remaining in the finance function) whilst simultaneously undertaking whatever was necessary to persuade someone in a position of authority to find you something different!

It all sounds a bit harebrained now, but the system actually worked and produced a series of outstanding businessmen and chief executives such as Lord Hanson. Looking back I suppose there were good reasons why accountants were dominant. First, there were so many sleepy companies in the 70s and 80s. They all had bags of under-utilised assets and were practically waiting around for those aggressive capitalists – the dreaded ‘asset strippers’ – to work their dark and controversial art.
But that wasn’t the only reason the numbers men thrived. Inflation was rampant and growth most often came from price increases, not increasing market share. Cost-cutting plus price increases equalled a healthy profit increase – job done!

The fall from grace
But the 90s changed all that. The inflation dragon was slain and the worse excesses of over-manning and extra costs were gone. You only have to look at the effect that privatisation had on the industries concerned to see this graphically demonstrated.
Regulation also played its part.

In the past it was standard practice for your auditor to provide you with your next finance director. After all, they had audited you, they knew about the business and you already had a personal relationship with him or her.

No longer – if you join a client company your erstwhile auditing firm has to resign as auditor, so the practical, handy practice of transfer from auditor to client just stopped!
But the 90s was all about above-inflation growth, innovation, investment and, by the early 2000s, the tulip mania of the internet. MBAs and graduates from Business Studies courses ruled the roost. Being a good old-fashioned accountant was boring and backward!

From boring to brilliant
So where are we today? Well, I believe accountants in industry are making a comeback for the following reasons:

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