• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

D. Murali

THESE days, it is not enough for cricketers to bat or bowl; they need to run restaurants. Bookshops have to vend music, gifts, toys and mugs, and also books. Similarly, railways cannot simply stop with ferrying passengers and moving cargo. They've to provide yummy food, fast browsing and patient care. The petty shop in the corner too borrows this model and has stocks to meet demands ranging from samosas to stamps, supari to sim-cards.

Perhaps late in the day, the ICAI too has realised the need to go multi and, therefore, seeking a nod to CA firms that can do things beyond auditing. But the idea could not have come at a more inopportune time. For, the prevailing mood across the globe is to get the auditors — if they are going to be allowed to stay alive — be busy with the core work and not stray around consulting and filling their pockets with fee for other services.

Let us work in the non-exclusive areas, the Institute argues, by having partners who are good at other jobs, such as consultancy or costing, secretarial or software. Since the specialties could number beyond the traditional "64 arts", the ICAI wants the cap on the number of partners in firms to be raised from the present 20, and I am already fending off callers at my office who are offering to join the bandwagon.

I have, however, shortlisted a few: A face-painter who has promised to do a trial with a recent annual report, a magician to work with red and black, a carpenter-plumber-electrician combine to cross-subsidise the firm's core activities, an astrologer to give out early warnings, and a cook to work at the desk. My senior partner insists that we take in a perfumer to get our messages through the olfactory route, a crypto-cracker to make sense of management representations, a poet to draft notes to accounts, a jockey to get us out of press meets that go out of hand, a ventriloquist to help shift responsibility, a mathematician to confirm our numbers and a gambler to toss the coin when we decide to arrive at an opinion.

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Corporate earnings — Restoring realism and sanity

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line