PROFESSIONAL TIFF
Accountants Versus
Marketers: How Can We
Solve The Debacle?
By CPA Nicholas Gachara
H
aving attended several Marketing
Africa’s professionally organised
Marketer’s Night Outs, I get
asked quite a lot what accountants do.
Usually, this is not in the sense of the
definition of the role, but oftentimes our
gatekeeper role of the company’s coveted
shillings. This is always preceded with
rigorous paperwork ahead of approval,
which my marketing friends always find
daunting and demeaning to their work.
Once I was asked why I attend the forums
instead of attending accountants’ events.
I realise that many marketers do not
understand the role of accountants and
some may have a negative view of us in the
accounting field. If I may shed some light,
accountants are responsible for collecting,
preparing and presenting financial data to
gauge the performance of a company.
Most accountants have a vague
understanding of what marketing seems
to achieve for companies. On a simple
vox pop of accountants, some will argue
that marketing is having a good time at
the full expense of the company, giving
out company merchandise and generally
partying the entire week while earning a
salary. This is while the accountant is busy
crunching numbers trying to make sense
of the cents. The one expense that almost
always never makes any sense to them is
the marketing expense.
Marketers usually seek a budget to carry
out their activities. This is where the
arguments begin. Pitted against each
other are the Finance departments and
It’s expected that the higher the spend
on marketing the higher the sales. There
would be no justification for declin-
ing sales yet increasing spend on mar-
keting. This is the Achilles heel to the
marketing department. Invest part of
your budget in prospect follow-up. Get
feedback from the prospects about the
products you are selling to be shared
with the research and development de-
partment.
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Marketing departments. The judge is
usually the Board of Directors.
The finance department will argue that
the company can actually improve overall
performance if the marketing budget is
completely slashed. They view this expense
as unnecessary as there is no direct Return
on Investment (ROI) that is palpable.
Further, they would argue that there is no
need to have a marketing department.
This battle can easily be won by the Finance
department unless you as Marketers have
the following points to articulately counter
the arguments:
Marketing is necessary for
sales to happen
As an accountant, my understanding of
marketing is communicating the perceived
benefits of the product or service that the
company is offering to potential customers.
They need to be aware of the product
before they make the ultimate decision to
purchase it. This requires a good rapport
with the company and the customer may
end up being a lifelong customer to the
company.
As marketers, you need to quantify the
results of the marketing experience.
For instance, if its sponsorship to a golf
tournament that you seek, target to come
up with a list of potential customers who
would be interested in your products
post event. Possibly get the estimated
orders those customers would place. This
is crucial to the finance department as it