In Argentina, it is essential that SMEs are trained and professionalize their management. Most of the industrial production falls on them and they are the only ones that can potentially generate exports that demand employment and distribute income.
The agricultural activity, although it generates foreign exchange, uses very little labor.
Thus the only model that makes our country grow is that of the competitive dollar, read cheap labor, since in the current state, most of the small and medium-sized companies are not in a position to compete with the world. And it is not a technology or investment or product problem, it is a management problem.
For years we have been a country with continuous crises, we have gone from growth cycles (when we lower the cost of labor) to stagnation cycles (when that value recovers). We are continually developing companies to supplant imports and then closing them when costs recover.
The only alternative is to develop competitive companies that can go out into the world as equals and that can pay the same wages as the countries of the first world.
The only way to get there is EDUCATION.
Argentina is a country with many entrepreneurs and very few entrepreneurs.
In my work with Pymes de Familia I found that Argentine entrepreneurs are not affected by training or professionalization of management.
Most of them do not have professionals among their collaborators, so they usually transform into large workshops, led by an artisan who can know a lot about the product but does not know about strategic direction, nor about the work environment, nor about competition, or even about innovation or marketing.
They are not even interested, nor are they aware of the need for change.
When things go wrong it is a problem of the government or the politics of the day (without delimiting the responsibilities that fall on them).
The public accountant.
From the comparative analysis of the universe of SMEs that I have to advise, it appears that most do not have professionals in their staff, the only professional who has access to SMEs is the Accountant, all have one.
The problem is that this SME accountant, generally, does not have management or management involvement, it is only limited to working on the annual official balance, the base of the corresponding tax payments, settling the monthly remunerations and complying with provisions legal regulations.
I have observed that many times, that balance has nothing to do with reality, it only exposes the numbers of declared purchases, sales and expenses, so the businessman does not even take it into account as a decision tool, it is just one more formality than comply.
In other words, the Accountant does an enormous job to generate data that have little value that only serve to meet the collection agencies, which do nothing but add formal tasks, making the Accountant more of a professional at their service than one who provides his services to whoever hires him.
Due to the situation that is indicated, in general the Accountant loses motivation, he feels that his hard work is not very useful, so he becomes a technician focused only on one aspect of the business that he advises and does not see the SME as a WHOLE.
In my opinion, the accountant of an SME company should become the spearhead of its transformation.
Countless companies, many of them more than medium, do not really know how much they earn or lose, nor do they know their real costs, nor do they have a defined strategy.
It should be the function of this accountant to help the entrepreneur define the strategy, to suggest what training should be done and, above all, to generate the information to be used as a management tool.
Many accountants think that the employer never asks them that, so it is not what they want.
In fact, from my observation as an advisor to SME companies, it appears that the SME entrepreneur does not know that he needs that to improve the management of his company, and it is a function of the professional to offer and provide that service.
It would not occur to any doctor to give a patient only what he asks.
Accountants must change the perspective, they must become management professionals and be an active part of the SME leadership.
In my opinion, the career of Public Accountant prepares them fundamentally as legal advisers in commercial, labor and especially tax matters, (knowing how to pay taxes, paying less within the law is very important) also trains them for audit tasks, with special emphasis in the form of exposition of reports to be presented to the official organisms, in their content, but the Accountants are little instructed in the importance of those tasks that they are in a position to provide and that would add value to business management.
I go to the accountants because they are, I repeat, the only ones with access allowed to the management of the companies, neither lawyers nor technical professionals have the same possibility, since the former are only called in case of misfortune or emergency and the latter are not very confident, they think that it will steal their knowledge, generally the SME entrepreneur thinks that he knows everything about his business, and that a technician would only add expenses to his cost structure.
For all the above, I think the challenge is for Accountants, it is not about working more, but working differently, to stop doing routine work to move to the generation of management tools, to use the data as a guide, to teach how to interpret them.
The Accountant should prepare, maintain and present the organization's dashboard, be part of the board and help structure a form of government that controls the running of business.
Wouldn't it be more stimulating for an accountant to get involved in the real numbers of the business for which he works, looking together with the entrepreneur for the best strategy for achieving the stated objectives, helping the entrepreneur feel that he knows that he dominates his business, Who knows where you are going, and who can plan the steps to follow to grow your company?
Wouldn't the work of the accountant be more valued? Wouldn't the entrepreneur feel that the professional who helps him is important to his business, so he deserves to receive a good fee, since the results of his management are satisfactory and predictable?
It should be, in my opinion, the Professional Council, who encourages re-education, changing the perspective of the independent Public Accountant, promoting the expansion of the knowledge offered at the University to obtain the enabling degree.
Argentina needs to professionalize the business management of SMEs, the most immediate tool and with access to produce this change are, in my opinion, the Accountants.
