McPherse Thompson, Staff ReporterBDO Jamaica, the local arm of the world's number six accounting firm BDO International, will not just be offering its core accounting and auditing services to its small and medium-sized business clientele in Jamaica, but will also provide personalised services such as advice on how to ensure consistent growth of their commercial activities.
According to chief executive officer of BDO International, Cecil Fleming, "Our strategy is to provide specialised services, and that's our motivation worldwide."
"We want to be advisors, and to offer personalised services to growing businesses, and not just to be seen as an auditing and accounting firm," he said.
Mr. Fleming, who is based in Brussels, Belgium, was speaking in an interview with Sunday Business last week, having visited Jamaica to officially launch BDO Jamaica, which became a part of the BDO International practice on January 1, this year.
The move followed a split over the direction of the local firm of Ernst & Young, with the three existing partners deciding to switch to BDO.
Senior partner at BDO Jamaica, Victor Markman, explained that the move was precipitated by Ernst & Young's decision within the past year or two to change its organisational structure.
The main problem was that Ernst & Young decided to focus on servicing large international clients, "and we felt that was not in keeping with the direction of the Jamaican scenario and therefore it was not appropriate to continue that relationship," Mr. Markman said.
BDO on the other hand, said Mr. Markman, "is a leader in mid-market firms," providing services to growing entrepreneurial companies "and that we felt was more appropriate to Jamaica," especially that small and medium-sized enterprises were providing much of the employment opportunities in the island.
Mr. Fleming said the focus of the "Big Five" accounting firms, which include Ernst & Young, is to focus on international firms, while BDO's focus include entrepreneurial or family businesses.
Expressing optimism about the future of the local firm, Mr. Fleming noted that last year, BDO had a 14 per cent growth rate in fee income globally and 38.3 per cent in the United States alone, just under three times the 13.6 per cent growth rate of the U.S. leading accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and much higher than other leading firms there.
And despite predictions of shrinking growth in the United States economy this year, Mr. Fleming remained confident that BDO's growth this year will reach double figures.
Asked about BDO's interest in Jamaica at this time, the chief executive officer said the international firm responded to an opportunity especially as they wanted broader representation within the region. "We think this is our kind of market," said Mr. Fleming. BDO, which has a network of 552 offices in more than 90 countries, will operate offices in Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios.
Range of services
Mr. Markman said BDO Jamaica would focus on providing a range of services, including tax planning initiatives to help companies to become compliant, advisory services such as helping business people to meet JAMPRO's requirements for financial assistance, as well as other core services. As part of its focus on taxation services, BDO Jamaica earlier this month brought in an expert from London to strengthen its tax planning unit.
The January 2001 edition of International Accounting Bulletin, published in Dublin, Ireland, reported that BDO International has strengthened its global presence with a number of new mergers and associations, among them BDO Jamaica.
Mr. Fleming said there would be more and more consolidation and hence BDO International could improve its ranking to become part of the "Big Five" accounting firms globally.
Referring to the collapse of Jamaica's financial sector which was in part attributed to management inefficiencies and some auditing firms' less than forthright assessments of the financial status of some financial institutions, both Mr. Markman and Mr. Fleming noted that moves were being made both locally and internationally to strengthen the regulatory machinery.
"I believe we are operating in a different and far better (regulatory) environment now and it would be difficult for that fallout to recur," Mr. Markman said.
Mr. Fleming said there was "great promise" in Jamaica and he believed there would be constant and consistent growth of medium enterprises that "can look to us for advisory support." Mr. Markman said they have been providing and would continue to offer support services; preparing financial statements; discussing, analysing and interpreting financial data, provide taxation and other services for businesses so those entrepreneurs could concentrate on running their businesses.
