Archive for 3 March, 2009
It’s not as if everyone sitting round the agency boardroom table has an MBA
One of my friends is a vet and she was telling me today about the special business skills for vets course she’s taking because “you’d be amazed how many vets end up in charge of large practices without any idea of how to run a business”.
I said that sounded pretty familiar actually. Just because someone is a great copywriter, designer or even account handler it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are equipped with the ability to read a balance sheet or to get their heads around the latest health & safety legislation.
Of course agencies have always relied on back room finance, facilities and HR staff to keep the business running smoothly, but it strikes me that a broad understanding of little things like the difference between net and gross profit is perhaps a bit thin on the ground in some (but not all!!!) agency boardrooms.
Which might explain away a few agency failures over the years…
