"Accountants are Bad at Marketing" — Deloitte Zimbabwe Needs to Change That

I ran a poll and 78% of the 378 people who responded said "Accountants are bad at marketing”.

Now this was a social media poll which is not always reliable however 78% was a big enough majority to at least get me to think through how it could be possible that accountants are bad at marketing.

When you train to be a chartered accountant, you typically don’t learn much marketing.

Take for example the curriculum for an Accounting Science Degree at UNISA, the biggest university in Africa, there is no part of the degrees that is dedicated to marketing.

This continues through to the final qualifying exams which focus on more accounting, auditing and tax related subjects as shown competency framework from the South Africa Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) which is similar to the Institute of Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe (ICAZ).

Even when the subjects are not related to accounting they still tend to be more rule-based subjects such as commercial law rather than the more creative-oriented marketing.

In fact, if you use the phrase “Creative Accounting” it has a negative meaning indicating misleading accounting practices.

The good thing is for accountants especially those in the Big4 accounting firms being good at marketing doesn’t matter too much.

We can see why this is the case if we evaluate the Big4 using the 4Ps of marketing, Product, Promotion, Place, and Price.

The main “Product” audit is pretty standard and well-understood and the “Place” you go to get an audit done is also well-known. On “Promotion”, if you are a Big4 firm then anyone responsible for an audit knows about you. Also, since audits are usually required by law, clients don’t need to be persuaded to have one.

The main thing that they need to manage is the “Price”. If the client is happy with the pricing then usually the Big4 win the business which explains why they have been so dominant.

So with the Big4 firms, you don’t have to be great at marketing to succeed.

For Deloitte Zimbabwe, this is where they stood until recently but with leaving the Deloitte network, they now have to become very good at marketing.

Last week Deloitte Zimbabwe started its branding journey by unveiling their new name - Axcentium.

The first thing that strikes me about the name is the fact that it's only taken two weeks from announcing the exit to unveiling the new name.

This already highlights some of the agility that comes with becoming independent. Big4 rebrands are typically slow and gradual. For example, the migration from Deloitte & Touche to the Deloitte brand today has taken close to 20 years.

With the name in place what will we be interesting to now see is the strategy and market positioning Axcentium will take.

To analyse this we can use the below matrix which shows the “Price Point vs Brand Power”.

In the “Price Point” what is being considered is not only the fee charged to the client but also the other hidden costs that the client may incur from a more rigorous process, which typically is the case with Big4 firms who sometimes have additional reviews.

In the past, the Big4 made money as their brand power was enough to comfortably charge a higher price point. Of late, the sweet spot (shown in green) seems to be firms at the medium price point. This is because of the difficult economic environment and that fact that historic financial statements in a high-inflation environment are not that valuable.

This perhaps explains why BDO has gained market share. As the 5th biggest accounting firm in the world, it still has a strong brand power but comes in at a more competitive price point.

Axcentium will automatically lose significant brand power when it drops the Deloitte name. This will mean their price point will have to change. They probably hope to play in the attractive medium price point segment.

The challenge however is that from a brand power perspective, it is not yet clear how Axcentium compares to BDO or Grant Thornton for exampe . If BDO’s brand was good enough to gain market share from the Big4, why wouldn't BDO be able to fend off Axcentium?

This is why Axcentium needs to be very good at marketing. They will have to persuade the market that their brand and offering is just as good if not better than international firms.

Axcentium still has a strong team and great people so they they definitely have what it takes. However, they will need to work extremetly hard not only in serving their clients but also with promoting their brand.

I am working on information that is publically verifiable so I could be missing something or wrong in my analysis. Please let me know what you think.

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