44 ◾ Beyond the Days of the Giants
processes. So it really didn’t seem unreasonable to me. But a more telling
picture was painted as I tested the firm’s efficiency initiative against those
same value-creation criteria.
The standard of accountant engagement seems to be pretty negatively
affected by our process decision. The purpose of diverting the client
information was actually to separate ourselves from our clients’ live data.
Clients live in far too messy a world for us, and public accountants’ lives
are improved dramatically when they can isolate themselves with a stable,
unchanging set of data that they can manipulate to perfection. Unfortunately
in the process, accountants lose their motivation to engage their customers
in much more than ...