The Birth of a Business

The business term 'a startup company', which we became very familiar with during the dot-com boom, has now become a common term.

A startup is a company or temporary organisation designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Unfortunately, it is quite a common occurrence that these companies do not survive beyond their introductory phase.

Most entrepreneurs create startups in order to evaluate and research business ideas, which may lead to the creation of a new product or sometimes even a whole new industry.

For most of us, the image we have of entrepreneurs today has been developed with the help of television shows such as Dragons' Den, Be Your Own Boss or The Apprentice, to name a few. These reality shows, emphasize the importance of being able to elaborate on a business idea, to develop the necessary business skills, and hopefully to get the seed money needed, in order to start a business.

I find these shows very educational and they seem to be very appealing to young people like me. I recently discovered there is a big initiative focused towards helping startup companies in the Information Technology sector to develop their business ideas further and hopefully become successful.

For example, a few weeks ago The Telegraph helped organise the London Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend is an international organisation of active entrepreneurs who focus on founding startups and launching potentially successful ventures. During 2012 they organised more than 600 events in 100 countries around the world.

Those events encouraged application developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts to come together, share ideas, form teams, build products, and subsequently launch a startup. The winner of each national competition represent their country in an international event, where people from all over the world vote for their favourite startup idea such as their favourite web application.

I'm writing about this because I have a personal stake in the competition - my cousin took part in the recent London event and actually won the UK competition with his team, Smartward, and then came third overall in the international competition.

These startup events are very important in helping bring awareness to the industry and encourage young entrepreneurs to participate and become part of a wider network of individuals and companies who can assist each other in achieving their goals.

By participating in these events, we can build our confidence, meet other people with similar interests and in general develop vital business skills early on in our professional lives.

I am sure we all have a lot of business ideas for a startup or a web application, but those ideas will not become reality unless we decide to take them one step further. I believe that by taking part in events like the London Startup Weekend, we will be making a good start towards turning our ideas into reality.

And finally, as the Chinese proverb says: "A good start is half way to success."

This post first appeared in The Accountant (December 2012)

M for Motivation

When taking the early train into Central London, I see many people commuting. When looking around the carriage, I think to myself, “Where do people find the motivation to get to work?”

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Trying to answer this question, my dad recommended I’d read a chapter from the book “The Upside of Irrationality”, written by Dan Ariely. The chapter of the book was called “The Meaning of Labour”. 

In the book, Ariely talks about experiments he and his colleagues at MIT had carried out. Amongst all the experiments he described, there was one I liked the most.

 Two participants were asked to build Lego robots and they would be paid a decreasing amount of money for every one they made.

The first participant was told that the robots would be kept in a box for later use. He started building the robots and soon enough, after ten robots, he gave up, because he realised that the price of the 10^th robot was half of what he was paid for the first, so economically it didn’t make sense for him to continue.

The second participant was being paid for the robots in the same way, BUT after finishing one, and began the next one; the assistant was dismantling the previous robot in front of his own eyes. The participant was not happy with the dismantling and gradually his motivation to build the robots diminished. Even if he was to be paid the same amount as the first participant, he saw no point in continuing after the fourth robot was built. Clearly, money was not the issue for stopping.

The first participant was able to point at the finished robots and feel pride for what he had achieved. The second participant felt that he had nothing to show for his work and saw no point in completing the task.

I am sure that while reading these lines, you can feel the “emptiness” the second participant felt, when they destroyed his robots. So as you can see, that feeling worked against the participant’s willingness to continue with the experiment.  

This experiment made me look back at my Internship during the summer, where I was analysing time-series of data and producing daily reports and charts. In the beginning, I was focusing on producing the reports as fast as possible. After a while, I noticed that some of the reports were not being used. The reason was that the markets were moving very fast and the conditions were changing all the time, so my work was not up-to-date. I discussed this with the manager and he ensured me that my analysis was of good quality, but as the market conditions change, the reports were “yesterday’s” news. That made me feel demoralized, but this was the “nature” of my work.

It seems that what bothered me the most was the fear that my work was not being recognised, thus impacting my motivation. The reassurance from my colleagues helped me overcome this feeling.

Just as I am writing these lines, I realised that writing this blog is similar to building “lego robots” that may soon be dismantled. Perhaps only my family reads them. Not knowing how many people read my posts can be demoralising, but I am not giving up. As someone famous said: “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

It seems that the field of psychology can play an important role in helping us develop our own understanding of what motivates us and how to improve our performance. It may also help employers understand that more money is not always the best way to increase productivity and performance.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College


If you would like to learn more about Dan Ariely and his experiments, please refer to the  page "Taking account of...: Page 4: YouTube...if you want to"

This post first appeared in The Accountant (December 2012)

Career Advice for Beginners

At the beginning of this week, I was contacted by a headhunter via LinkedIn about joining the BBA Recruit (LinkedIn) group. Building Business Associates is a recruitment agency that advertises job vacancies in all areas of the finance industry. 

I was looking at what kind of discussions there was already happening in the group. The creator of the group has been updating the discussion board with articles in the aim to advise people, whether they are beginning their careers or in the middle of them, about how to make the most of it!

As I am at the beginning of my career, I thought I might share with you some articles I found that I found helpful for myself and could be for you too:

How NOT to write a CV | BBA Associates Recruit

The ABC of starting a new job | BBA Associates Recruit

How to get a recruiter's positive attention | BBA Associates Recruit

There are more of these articles and job vacancies on the agency's website at Building Business Associates (Website) if you would like to have a look.

As well as this website, I also recommend you have a look at eFinancialCareers for recent job vacancies too.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

Masters of Money: Keynes, Hayek and Marx

Lately, the BBC, alongside the Open University, has been broadcasting interesting documentaries telling the life stories of 3 economists: Keynes, Hayek and Marx. Presented by Economics editor Stephanie Flanders explains how their thoughts and actions have influenced the way we live our lives. 

If this sounds like something you would be interested to watch, then I have included the YouTube links below for you:

Masters Of Money | Part 1 | John Maynard Keynes
Masters Of Money | Part 2 | Friedrich Hayek
Masters of Money | Part 3 | Karl Marx

Enjoy!
Ellie Fanis

Internships: Building Our Careers

As autumn is upon us and we have now begun a new academic year, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect back on how this summer was spent.

For us university students, summer time is a good opportunity to gain hands-on experience by doing jobs related to our chosen field of studies. Given the current economic situation, it has become increasingly difficult to find internships.

Internships can play a significant role to a student’s career. Firstly, they expose us to a proper working environment closely related to our degrees. Secondly, they prove to our future employers that we have a good skill-set, in order to work in a particular industry.

After talking to friends who are also university students and had done internships during the summer, I realised that some were paid for their internship and others were not. These are the differences between the two:

The paid internships are those summer jobs where the trainee/intern is able to add value to the day-to-day activity of the company which they work for. I think these “paid internships” require minimal amount of training because the tasks they are asked to do are not very demanding (e.g. Filing, copying, mailing and record keeping). Usually the interns replace those who are on holiday, and provide support to the full time staff. The fact that the amount of training required is not significant, shows that these companies do not always invest a lot of time and resources in training these temporary employees.

It is the responsibility of the intern to educate themselves on what the company is doing and what parts of their studies are being utilised in the day to day business activity of the working environment. It is fair to say that if the interns are able to carry out those tasks without a lot of training, then they should be paid for their services.

The unpaid internships are those summer jobs where the trainee/intern is spending more time learning about what the business does, rather than adding value. I think these “unpaid internships” require a lot more training because the tasks are complicated and they take time to be mastered by the individual.

For example, working as a junior developer at a software company, as my cousin did this summer, makes it virtually impossible for him to produce code to be used in production. It was more beneficial for him to shadow and learn from the other developers rather than trying to produce his own code. It is only fair to say that he was unable to add value and he was more than grateful that he was given the opportunity to watch professionals work and to be educated by them.

If the amount of training received by the intern is greater than the value he/she added, then I think it is fair to say that they should not be paid.

At this stage of our careers, the experience one gains through an internship is more valuable than the amount of money that he/she receives. If I was offered the opportunity to do an internship with a lot of hands-on training on complicated business issues, I would be glad to do it for no money at all, and I did.

And finally, as Buddha said, “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”

This post first appeared in The Accountant (October 2012)

Who Moved my Cheese?

As promised from my previous entries, I would let you know about any new books that I come across that I think are worthwhile reading and will help you in your careers.

Well this week, I came across the book "Who Moved my Cheese?" by Dr Spencer Johnson. I must admit, I was a bit confused by the title at first, but it is well worth the read. It is good at advising the readers on dealing with change in both your working and personal lives.

If you would like to read this, I have included the PDF of the book below:

Who Moved My Cheese?

If you would like to buy this book, then click on the widget below:

Ellie Fanis
BPP University

Be Your Own Boss

Presented by founder of Innocent Smoothies, Richard Reed, new series "Be Your Own Boss" aired on BBC3. The purpose of this show is for him to find the next generation of new entrepreneurs around Britain. 

Over 6 weeks, Richard gives £100 each to 500 businesses, created by teenagers. From there, he chooses his top 3 each week, but only can be the winner of a £50,000 investment from Richard himself. 

If you would like to see this episode, I have included the link below: 

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 1

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 2

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 3

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 4

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 5

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 6

I hope you enjoy it. I will be posting the episodes on this blog post over the coming weeks.

BBC News - How to become your own boss

Richard Reed from Innocent Drinks Part 1

Richard Reed from Innocent Drinks Part 2

Ellie Fanis

BPP University

Knowledge Management

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine began her first full-time job after graduation. Her skill-set had matched perfectly with the job description, and she was confident that she would do her job very well. However, having joined this multinational organisation, she realised that there was a knowledge gap between her existing skill-set and what the job required. After talking to her boss, they agreed that extra training was needed, but the organisation did not have an in-house training scheme, so she would have to attend a training course and seminars in order to bridge the gap.

 

When we discussed this issue, we realised that her organisation was lacking a knowledge management scheme, which is something more than simple training. The purpose of such a scheme is to preserve the collective know-how of the organisation and to make it a resource to be shared amongst present and future employees. This is achieved by capturing and preserving knowledge of senior employees in order to be used to train new employees with these refined examples of know-how.

The knowledge management scheme provides a company with long-term sustainable advantages, because its competitors will need more time to accumulate a similar amount of knowledge. It also allows the company to extract value of an employee’s knowledge, even after they have left the company. 

A knowledge management scheme reminds me of what we have at my university, where all the lectures and educational material exist online. It is available to the students 24/7, and it is constantly updated and improved.

The recent trend in higher education is that a large number of universities, mainly in the USA, are providing online classes to an internet platform called Coursera, an innovative application that makes interactive college classes available to the public, free on the web. 

Going back to the business world and its knowledge management needs, I believe that, the steps that an organisation has to take in order to develop a knowledge management system, are very simple, but require resources to be allocated to these tasks. For example, in my friend’s case, they could do the following:

• Identify the knowledge gap – i.e. what an experienced employee can do and what the learner needs to know, in order to reach that level.

• Define the objectives of the training programme – i.e. what you expect the learner to know as a result of the training.

• Create a training syllabus which lists the topics to be covered and the way they will be delivered to the trainee.

• Schedule and provide the training programme internally, using the information contained in the syllabus.

• Preserve the training material for future use.

After talking to some friends regarding the training received from their employer, it seemed to me that they all had similar experiences. Their employers would gladly pay for their training by sending them to external courses and seminars, but they themselves felt that the training should have been done in-house.  

Finally, as Confucius once said: “Learn as though you would never be able to master it; Hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it”.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (August 2012)

Making the Right First Impression

When I was younger, I could never speak with much confidence to anyone. I always used to be the child who would sit in the corner, hardly participating in anything. 

Now that I am growing up, I thought to myself "I'm not helping myself this way. I have to do something about it". 

As you have read in my previous blogs, my university holds many workshops in the aim to teach us what we need to know to kick start our careers. 

Not long ago, I attended a networking event. Finding it extremely helpful, I thought I would share with you some tips I learnt to help you make the right first impression when meeting new contacts. 

• Create your personal "Elevator Pitch"

Your elevator pitch should be one sentence long, which includes: "who, what, when, where, and why" of your personal career to your new contact. You must think that this is the only time you will get to sell yourself, so make the most of it!

• Take pride in your appearance

Many employers begin to make a judgement within minutes of meeting someone new. Therefore, whether you will be working in a formal or casual environment, it is important to take care in your appearance. If you look scruffy, employers may ignore your skills, which in fact could be beneficial to them. They will think that someone who does not take care in themselves will be unlikely to take pride in their work. 

• Get professional business cards

Using a graphic design program or even a simple word processor, you can create a clean, simple card in minutes that will reap many long-term benefits. You want the card to be representative of you and as professional as possible. Don't forget: ALWAYS keep them handy! You never know when you will need them!

• Follow the 80/20 rule

Listening is a key part of networking. It should take up 80% of the time and talking 20% of the time. This enables you to ask open ended questions and keep the conversation flowing!

• Remember names of who you meet

Another key point of networking is remembering the names of who you meet. If you are lucky enough to meet your contact again, then they will be impressed if you remember them, immediately improving your relationship and opening a lot of doors for you. 

• Ask open - ended questions

With this tip, not only will you be able to follow the 80/20 rule, but will help you know the person better. This is beneficial as you might find out that you have a mutual contact between the two of you (then you will see how small the world really is!) or if you are really lucky, you may even be introduced to your future employer! 

Now that you know how to make the right first impression, get practicing and good luck!

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

Olympic Games: Value for Money?

So far this year, it has been all eyes on London with the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations and now the Olympics are just around the corner. This is a very exciting time for everyone as athletes from around the world come together to take part and compete in various sporting events.

The Olympics began in 776 BC, when men from different cities in Greece would walk to Olympia with the aim to show off their skills at their chosen events in one venue. The purpose of taking part at the Olympic Games was to compete fairly, and the athletes were motivated by the glory that came from winning an event. Their reward for winning was an olive wreath, which symbolised prosperity and peace across the country, especially during the games.

For the modern Olympic Games, it is a different story. Our experience as Londoners has been far from that. The moment London was announced as the next host city, renovations and heavy duty spending began. We all understand new Olympic venues have to be constructed, improvements on public transport are essential and housing arrangements for the athletes and the large number of tourists will create a large logistical problem. On top of these costs, let’s not forget security, a priority in these times especially. Therefore, the danger costs will escalate is very high.

We have heard the public sector funding package for the Olympics, which covers the building of the venues, security and policing, stands at about £9.3bn ($14.4bn). That figure is an estimate and is likely to grow even more. Knowing the expected cost, it begs the question if this amount of spending is good value for money. A recent survey showed 55% of people asked agreed it was value for money while 59% thought the taxpayer paid too much to cover the cost of the games.

In my opinion, although the cost seems expensive, it is not a waste of public money. According to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the Olympics will benefit the UK economy by about £13bn in the years to come. This figure is based on the assumption the infrastructure currently being built to support the Olympics will pay for itself in years to come - the regeneration will add value to the geographic area surrounding the Olympic venues and improve people’s quality of life.

From an accountant’s perspective, accounting for a project like the Olympics will always provide an interesting challenge. I am afraid that, we will never be able to come up with a final figure of the true cost or properly monetize the benefits of the games. We all hope the Olympics will be a success and the city’s residents will be proud to have hosted them one more time.

“Faster, higher, stronger” has always been the Olympic motto but hosting the event has become very expensive and a risky business to be involved with.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-18/olympics-14-billion-turns-junkyard-into-meadow-artist-studios   

Ellie Fanis

BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (July 2012)

Entrepreneurs in the Making

Most of us have watched the HSBC advert where a young girl is selling lemonade to pedestrians. Every time I watch it, it reminds me of the time when my cousins and I, started our own mini business while on summer holiday in our village. We set up a stall in the driveway outside the house, selling brightly coloured rocks, for 10 pence/rock.

Although our business (if you could call it that) wasn’t much to talk about, it was the first time I had experienced the feeling of doing something whose sole purpose, was to earn some money.

During my last year at secondary school, I was part of a team selling “Leaver’s Hoodies” to students graduating that year. I particularly liked this project as it made me feel I was in an episode of the Apprentice. This task had made me realise, to some extent, what sort of stages a business idea has to go through - from research and development to production and selling. Although this was “homework” to us, the project was profitable and won first prize.

Throughout our lives, we learn new skills, which prepare us to face an uncertain employment future. Having these abilities, a time may come when we will think, “I have a great business idea. How can I best utilise my expertise, to build a business that will generate income to benefit myself and my family?”

Ideas never stop being generated, and in business, there are always hurdles that need to be overcome as founder of Virgin, Richard Branson, once said “Ideas are like buses. There is always one coming along.” Looking back at the hoodies and the coloured rocks, I thought that I would enjoy a project like that again. During the summer, some friends, with the help of our university, will be setting up a new magazine named “StudentPedia” and have asked for my help. This magazine will be for first year students in particular, advising on how to survive the transition from secondary school to university, as best as possible, as this is a tricky process. So make sure you look out for StudentPedia in the near future!

Taking into consideration the current economic climate, and the number of people out of work, more people turn to self – employment. The latest book I have been reading is called, “How I Made It” by Rachel Bridge (published in 2005). This book is a collection of success stories of entrepreneurs that have created their businesses and achieved so much from very little. My favourite story is that of Lizzie Vann, an investment banker turned organic baby food maker. As a child, she suffered badly from asthma and eczema. When she grew older, she realised the link between food and her condition. Now, her business sells more that 10 million jars of baby food per year.

This shows that a good business idea can come to anyone of us; all you have to do is follow your dreams, and don’t let anyone put you down. All you have to do is have a little faith and you can go far. You haven't failed until you stop.

Ellie Fanis

BPP University College

http://www.strategicbusinessteam.com/successful-entrepreneurs/the-worlds-richest-school-drop-out-billionaires/ 

This post first appeared in The Accountant (June 2012)

)

Think and Grow Rich

Since spring is here, I decided it was time to do some “spring cleaning”, beginning with the book cases. As I went through each shelf, I slowly discovered all the work I had done in the past two years. I was up against four huge overflowing folders, consisting of papers on subjects ranging from geography to maths and from economics to psychology.

As I was going through the shelves, I discovered some books that I wasn’t expecting to find, but did not belong to me either. It was easy to figure out what kind of books they were. The various shelves were filled with my dad’s Maths books, mum’s economics books, my brother’s engineering books, and another book I couldn’t quite recognise. It had a strange title which I hadn’t heard of before: Think and Grow Rich (by Napoleon Hill; first published in 1937).

I decided to look inside and I ended up spending a lot of time reading a few chapters while standing in the middle of the room, and not even realising I was doing so. The contents of the book were similar to some topics covered in my organisational behaviour class. However, one aspect was somewhat different - The driving force behind the 'behaviour' was the individual itself, not the organisation.

The unfamiliarity of the concepts brought up in the book captivated me. The talk of desire, the knowledge of what you want to achieve, the talk about faith, the state of the mind dominated by positive thoughts, fascinated me even more. According to the book, it was a burning desire to achieve, which motivated Thomas Edison to invent the light bulb.

A relentless passion for technology was what drove Henry Ford to invent the motor vehicle, even though he was a poor and uneducated man, and it was a modern entrepreneurial spirit that led the Wright brothers to dream of building a machine that could fly.

It also said that in order to achieve your goals, after setting them in the first place, it is important to acquire specialised knowledge, to use your imagination and to organise your plans, whilst having alternatives in case they are needed.

It seems that serendipity, the discovery of something good by accident, had materialised itself in the accidental discovery of this book.

The very first piece of advice in the book is to make a “wish list” of the things you want to accomplish in life. Revise this list regularly and you will achieve everything you wish for.

After that thought, I can say that as I discovered the book by accident and found it intriguing, I will spend a lot of time this summer re-reading the book, without the thought of looming exams in a few weeks distracting me.

I would like to wish good luck to all students with their assessments and of course, I will let you know if I am fortunate enough to discover any more interesting books in the near future.

And before you forget, my name is Ellie and I would like to be an accountant.

Think and Grow Rich (PDF Format): http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0304spiritpsych/030413.hill.think.and.grow.rich.pdf

P.S Read in the link below about how the advice of Napoleon Hill inspired Mel and Patricia Ziegler to establish the founders of the tropical travel - theme clothing company Banana Republic!
An Empire Built on Short-Armed Shirts - Bloomberg

Ellie Fanis

BPP University College
This post first appeared in The Accountant (May 2012)

The Future Value of Good Advice

The other day, my father asked me for a small favour. I was asked to deliver some documents to an office very near my university.  He told me that I was going to meet his financial advisor. When I visited the office and got his business card, I thought that his job title was very cool. It was:  “Wealth Management Advisor”.

Not knowing enough about that kind of business, I decided to ask him a few questions. When I enquired about the services they offer and how they approach their customers, he told me that “people, throughout their working lives, had invested into various company pension schemes. Their money is scattered into numerous pension funds, making the process of monitoring their performance a full time job for the individual concerned”.

His company is able to combine all these funds under one roof and recommend investments into various pension and hedge funds. The outcome of the advice they offer, can be the difference between a comfortable retirement and an expensive financial mistake, whose implication will be felt well into the client’s financial future.

I must admit that, until that moment, I had no idea what he was talking about and after the meeting I made a promise to myself to find out more about that line of business. I am now certain about one thing: Selecting a wealth management advisor can be risky. The price you may end-up paying for wrong or misguided advice could be very dear, especially when the “family silver” is invested in the funds they recommend. Therefore, the relationship between the client and the advisor must be built on trust and must become very personal.

We face the same situation when it is time for us to choose what to study and where.

As students, we are at an age where, we do not have to worry about wealth management services, yet. We are the NINJA generation, according to Gordon Gekko. “No income, no jobs and no assets”.

But we are desperate for good advice. Like in the wealth management services, the value of that advice can only be evaluated after some time has gone by and the advice has been put to its proper use.

It is obvious to me that, every day we come across different people, such as tutors, mentors and classmates. By interacting with them, we absorb a lot of information which can be considered as guidance. The question is: What do we do with all this advice? I believe that, it is our responsibility to convert that advice into valuable knowledge and the knowledge into actions as Confucius said: “The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.”

Although the future value of the good advice will take time to discover, the present value of the good advice can be very small. It is in fact, free. The only thing we have to do is ask for it.

Ellie Fanis

BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (April 2012)

Intangible Assets in a Student's Life

One of the most interesting expressions frequently used in accounting is the term ‘intangible assets’. Intangible is a word, not heard in everyday conversations, meaning something that cannot be touched, or something which has no physical presence.

The way these intangible assets are created, is what I find most interesting to talk about. Something that comes to mind is that these assets take time and effort to develop. In terms of an organisation, something intangible could represent the know-how of an organisation, the way it does business, how employees interact with clients, and in general, the “culture” of the organisation. Human capital is a generating force of an organisation’s intangible assets.

It crossed my mind that when we graduate, and hopefully get a job, we will be ‘that’ human capital, and it will be our responsibility to develop and preserve those assets. So, now that we know what is expected of us, we should better prepare ourselves for the task.

Given the title of this blog entry, a case can be made that our student-life is in a way, an intangible asset. We study and learn a lot of subjects, attend numerous seminars, take tests, and interact with our lecturers and fellow students, while also networking with many potential employers. All these activities have one thing in common – the acquisition and propagation of knowledge. These collaboration activities help us build our knowledge-base and skill-set which represent our intangible assets; Assets which, our future employer(s) would have to pay a lot of goodwill, to buy.

We have often heard the expression “we are a product of our environment”. After spending three years of our lives at university, it is inevitable that we would be influenced by its “culture”. That means, we and our university, are equally responsible for developing the intangible assets through collaboration, and knowledge developing activities that will generate our ‘intellectual property’.

Over the past five months, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, our school had given us the opportunity to participate in a lot of activities that are necessary for us, as students, to get a taste of what is meant by “business culture”. I feel that I have become a professional student, and all that thanks to the culture that exists at the school.

It would be a waste, on my part, not to take advantage of the goodwill shown by the lecturers who give us a lot of advice and guidance. The best way to develop our skill-set, is by following the advice of people “who have been there, and done that”. For that reason, let us all try and take advantage of these opportunities and make the most out of them.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (March 2012)

Careers Choices

I am sure most of us have been asked the question ‘what would you like to be when you grow up?’ at least once during our youth and I would hazard a guess that most of our answers would have been to become a fireman, hairdresser, footballer, doctor, or perhaps even Superman.

What was my answer? Well, let me tell you a story. After one particular trip to the supermarket (being as observant as I usually am), I turned to my mother and said “I know what I want to be when I grow up! A cashier”. “Why?” my mother responded. “Because you just sit there and people come and give you money to keep in a box.” At the time of course no one had explained to me that the money they collected was not theirs to keep. From that moment onwards, I knew that ‘counting’ would probably play an important role in my life.

It was not until my GCSEs and later A Levels that I really understood how important the role of an accountant is. As I matured, I wanted to find out more. In order to find out exactly what an accountant actually does, I thought I’d do some research on the Internet. I found out that the word accountant has an interesting history.

It is actually derived from the French verb compter, which, like a decent proportion of English and French, originates from latin, in this case, the Latin verb computare meaning ‘to count’. The word was formerly written in English as accomptant, but over time, (having always been pronounced by dropping the ‘p’), the pronunciation and its spelling has evolved into the current, more anglicised form.

Whenever I would tell people that I wanted to study accountancy, I was surprised to find that most people think that being an accountant is a boring profession. I could not understand the negativity shown towards my choice of profession. They do not seem to express that kind of negativity towards professions such as firemen, police officers or soldiers, which can be really dangerous. I believe the negativity towards accountants may be derived from a lack of understanding (perhaps even phobia) of the number crunching involved in accounting, or a fear of filing an incorrect tax return.

Having friends who work in the City of London, I had the opportunity to ask them what a typical interaction with their accountants is like. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to discover that they all thought their accountants are a very valuable part of their organisations. They seem to think that their accountants are like the ‘doctors’ of their firm. They analyse the financial health of the organisation, they find remedies to ‘cure’ any hiccups in the everyday transactions and advise their clients how to make their business more profitable.

Those answers were good enough for me. And before you forget, “my name is Ellie and I would like to be an accountant”.

Below are job sites which I recommend:
eFinancialCareers
The Accountant Magazine - Job Section

By Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (February 2012)