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Send
Me Your Old Study Materials…
In the
last issue, I submitted my column from the sweltering heat and pouring
rain of Bangladesh, and this issue I thought I’d give you a mini
report on my trip.
Located
just north east of India, Bangladesh is a developing country of 130
million-plus people with just 200 CA firms, some 20-plus hours flying
time away. (The trip there was about 30 hours due to layovers waiting
for connections in London and then Dubai, but the return trip was Dhaka
direct to London (11 hours) then London to Toronto.)
My trip
was a two-week visit where I held three two-day workshops on marketing
the services of accounting firms, one for The Institute of Chartered
Accountants of Bangladesh, one for The Association of Accounting Technicians
of Bangladesh and another for The Ad Club (a group of marketing and
advertising consulting firms and agencies who wish to target CA firms
as clients when the marketing rules are relaxed).
I also
held a consulting session with the Deloitte & Touche correspondent
firm in Dhaka.
My trip
was originally planned for late August, but it had to be postponed when
there was a political bombing in the downtown area and in retaliation
there would be nationwide labour strikes causing havoc.
When I
finally arrived, I discovered that the terrorist activities were not
evident and that the people were very friendly and welcoming, and to
my relief, English is the business language in Bangladesh, as my Bengali
is non-existent!
My trip
also coincided with the worst rain the nation has seen in over 50 years,
creating waist-high rivers in the streets in the oldest parts of town
where drainage was less than efficient. I was lucky that the area I
was staying in, and working in, was newer, with better drainage and
was also higher above sea-level, so I never did see for real any of
the images you might have seen on TV in recent weeks.
In case
you’re wondering, this assignment came about through a non-profit
economic development agency called Katalyst that subscribes to my free
marketing newsletter, and when they had a budget approved to bring me
over for two weeks to help to start to create a new marketing culture
in the accounting profession, I have to admit I was curious and a little
dubious. But it turned out to be a wonderful trip.
The main
issues they have – and these might sound familiar – are:
·
Educating clients as to the benefits a professional firm can provide
to clients
· Dealing with Institute regulations restricting marketing activities
of members
· Recruiting people into the profession
· Retaining quality people when they qualify
· Succession Planning
Hmm, small
world, eh?
Needless
to say, we had some very productive sessions, not just in the seminars,
but also in my private sessions with the President and Vice President
of the Institute, when we discussed many of the above issues.
The new
President is looking to update the Institute’s rules on marketing
for practising members and is looking at the UK, Canada and the USA
as models, and I will be working with them over the coming months to
help build a model that works for them.
But they
have a bigger problem.
With such
a small number of members (800 CAs and 3,000 students) they don’t
have a lot of money and they desperately need study materials and model
answers for their students, to help them be better prepared to write
the final exam.
Evidence
of their need is that of 3,000 students, only 17 new CAs were created
after the last final exams.
So, the
President is looking to create new study materials - and that’s
where you can help.
If you
still have any old study materials that you don’t want to keep,
please, don’t throw them out. Instead, send them into me (MFA
Group Inc, 113 River Glen Blvd, Oakville, Ontario, L6H 5Z5) and I will
forward them onto the ICAB so that they can review them and build a
set of model answers for their own curriculum, which is very similar
to ours – and ultimately distribute them among their students.
I’ll
be going back to Bangladesh in March or April of next year for a follow
up project with the public accounting profession, and I hope you can
help me to help them, by sending me your old study materials.
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