No Account Accountancy and the Short Term 0
Bob Burnett cites Steve Benning’s description of how Dell Computers gave away their business to Asus when Asus, a manufacturer of circuit boards other components, proposed that Dell outsource manufacturing to Asus:
Like most American corporate accountants, Dell’s financial people had a simplistic, narrow objective: do whatever would improve the current quarter’s bottom line. Because accountants don’t have a strategic perspective, Dell’s number crunchers didn’t realize the cumulative debilitating impact of the ASUSTeK transactions. Denning observed, “Decades of outsourcing manufacturing have left US industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy.” Parasitic accountants have neutered our entrepreneurs.
But it’s not only high-tech companies that are infected by these parasites; American corporations from all sectors have been hypnotized by the promise of short-term profits. It’s the conventional “wisdom” that accountants and executives are taught in business school. This dysfunctional perspective is reinforced by contemporary corporate monoculture where employees live in a bubble, log obscene hours, and vacation with their co-workers. As a consequence giant corporations are dogmatically insular with their own warped code of ethics and worldview.
The other day, I was discussing the differences between yesterday’s robber barons–the Carnegies and the Rockefellers–and todays–the Jamie Diamonds and John Corzines. Though my buddy had a somewhat kinder view of yesterday’s robber barons than did I, particularly as regards their treatment of employees, we agreed on one thing:
Those folks made money by building things to last.
Today’s robber barons are making their money by tearing those things down.
