The problem here is that ICAI thinks CAs are perfect and are demanding a price for them from the companies. That is not effective leadership. What Mukul said here is correct. If ICAI wants companies to pay CAs 9 lakhs they should MAKE the CAs worth that amount rather than demanding it like ransom. I don’t know who advises ICAI on such things. It implements all the wrong solutions for the problems always. Even when while dealing with dummy articleship, they completely banned transfers which was not an ideal way to stop dummy and it did not stop dummy either. So another disastrous plan by the ICAI.
The proposal will not work because Companies will simply not go to ICAI placements anymore and will hire from outside.
Anyways the ICAI placements are a mishap, on top of that if such things happen, lesser companies will come there and lesser freshers will be hired in the placements.
A persons pay is decided by what value he gives to the company, and not by how much knowledge he has crammed in his brains. If someone is worth 9 lakhs, the company will definitely pay even 12 lakhs at a premium to get it. But let it be a market thing by rating individual CAs and not some auction with a base price. It is not going to work at all
Also, I was surprised to hear that till now base price was 6 lakhs because I am very sure students have been picked up at ICAI placements for much less than that regularly in the past. So quite surprised at that news.
ICAI introduced GMCS to make CAs equal with MBAs on communication, presentation and such other skills, however it was stupid to expect a class of 50 people to learn all this in 15 days. GMCS is only for making new friends and having fun. There is hardly any value addition for anyone in 15 days. As someone mentioned here ICAI should actually train people in these qualities and then the industry will gladly pay up whatever wanted.
Efforts are definitely extreme in CA Course, but are those what the industry requires? You can hit a shovel on stone for a month but that doesn’t mean you get paid for digging a hole coz that is not what you did even though your efforts were for that aim.
@ Priya
Just some correction on your points without being rude:
1. MBAs don’t have an enjoyable life. It is torture to do their BE then give CAT (to be selected in first 5000 out of 2.5 lakhs people which is around 2% is less than any CA result ever) and when they don’t get into a top institute, they are left to do a career as an engineer with low pay and hard life. This CAT is a do or die situation for them. They have an equally tough life too (Refer point below for reply to Rahul regarding RISK).
2. Average engineers don’t get 4-5 lakhs. Even top companies like Infosys pay max to max 3 to 4 lakhs for engineers from decent colleges. Factual error there.
3. Trust me, Financial Management is something very very very few CAs understand. I am doing my CFA and I know what a joke it is in CA. Its so theoretical based on formulaes and calculations without understanding the economics behind the finance. You can talk big words like analyzing and ascertaining, but try giving an annual report to a CA student, or even someone who has qualified recently and tell him to make sense from it. He will calculate a hundred ratios, make your cash and fund flow statement, calculate NPV and IRR and so on, AND THEN WHAT??? Then sit with it. He wont be able to analyse it and make conclusions. This is a hard fact. Financial analysis CAs cannot do properly.
4. CFO of a company is not based on his degrees. It is based on his experience and learning. Several CFOs are CAs and several are MBAs. Some are neither. Once you reach that level, no one looks at your degrees. Only thing seen is what you have achieved and learnt in your career. So don’t think only MBAs become CFO or only CA become CFO.
5. The reason most advertisements in papers for finance positions want CA because they cannot afford top MBA inst people. And hiring some LalubhaiChand Management inst. Graduate will result in bankruptcy so they prefer CAs better than such C Grade MBAs. (Lalubhai chand is a random example, no insult intended to someone by that name actually)
6. You may or may not accept it Priya but it is a fact that CAs are built only for accounting. They are not built for finance and I am saying this as a CA and CFA (USA) having seen both sides of the coin. BUT the main point here is WHY ARE YOU ASHAMED OF CA NOT KNOWING FINANCE? We are not SUPPOSED TO know finance. We are accounting experts and we are the best at it. That’s what it is.
7. Mukul here is a MBA HR, he cannot be expected to sell Tomato Sauce like MBA Marketing people. Similarly CAs cannot be expected to do finance, and obviously MBAs cannot be expected to pass accounting entries. Its two different worlds and they merge only after experience and seniority in both fields, not after getting either degree.
8. Priya last point for you. YOU HAVE BECOME WAY WAY WAY TOO PERSONAL HERE. I know Mukul was rude but you literally got personal on every single sentence. Really not something expected from a CA student.
My net is hung up so I could not see who posted this but SUPERB IDEA FROM THE PERSON WHO WROTE ABOUT ENTERPRENEURSHIP. DUM HAI TOH DO IT. FANTASTIC IDEA J
@ Sidd
Excellent points. I appreciate your thought process and thinking. Really brilliant thinking. You talk logically and sensibly. Even without a CA degree, this is what people should have. The ability to think logically.
BTW why are you “nothing yet?” Going to give CPT or something?
@ Rahul
I did not want to compare CA to MBA and I said in the first post I wrote itself that this discussion should not go down that lane, but since you have written about it, I should correct you on some points.
1. Adding CA as a prefix to the name is illogical and purposeless. The idea of adding Doctor was logical because it was in public interest to identify doctors for their services. By asking CAs to do so, ICAI merely bajaoed its own trumpet. Sad really. CAs may be great, but respect is not demanded, it is commanded. If people are great, they will be respected without having to show off a CA tag before their name (And yeah CS followed in its path blindly…sigh)
2. “Say you are a CA and a warm salute will be given.” Sorry brother, but people only respect you when either you are of use to them, or you have money. I know several CA rankers and several CA multiple attempt people working in various places. Respect is not for the rank or for the attempt or for the degree. It is only given to those who are making more money and having big cars and houses. This may be superficial and wrong on part of public, but it is true and happening in the real world.
3. You are saying on your profile that one should look at people better than him and achieve that, and here you are saying Thank God we are not good at making presentations and speeches. Contradictory statements.
4. Difficulty of a course is not determined whether it is at entry point or exit point. Both MBA in top institutes and CA are equally tough.
5. RISK? As mentioned above in reply to Priya, MBA is way more risky.
6. Appearing for all exams together: CA has 18 subjects over four years. MBA has around 20-24 in 2 years.
7. BCom is a big joke. I am from Mumbai Univ which is apparently the 2nd best after Delhi Univ and it is such a big joke to write their BCom exam after studying for CA so I can imagine how it must be elsewhere. No student ever studies more than 15 days for the exam and doesn’t need to either coz its all covered mostly in CA.
8. I agree with the affordable part. That is a huge advantage CA has over MBA.
9. Remuneration cannot be fixed according to ONLY either attempts or rank because the CA exam does NOT test the qualities required for corporate success. It only tests theoretical exam based knowledge and not practical situations in most subjects. People should show their application skills of the knowledge they have and only then demand any amount whether 6, 9 or 15 lakhs.
10. “We CA/CA Students and our instituion(ICAI) is like a family and as a father takes care of the family...in the same way our institution does....It takes a lot of good initiatives for the overall betterment of the profession”
Was the above statement supposed to be funny? ICAI has done marginally anything for students. Most students have a blind faith and adulation for ICAI as if it is doing something great. It is not. I shall write more on ICAI in some days.
11. Rahul, after you put all the points about how CAs are better than MBAs, you conveniently declare, “I guess we don’t compare CAs and MBAs further”. So you want people to accept what you have written without any opposition or opinion. Glad to see this kind of thinking from a multiple ranker in various chartered courses.
12. If you are talking about being unethical, yes you are right. MBAs do practice lack of ethics but I can assure you, in NO top company today is there ANYONE unethical. I don’t like to badmouth my own profession but if you look at how small time practicing CAs sign financial statements and certificates swiftly only for money without proper verification, then you can write a thesis on ethics in the CA profession.
13. Since you are a CA you will know how effective that whole CPE hours thing is. Most CAs find it a burden without any value addition and only go to sit there and sleep in some random topic lecture only to complete the hours. Theory is very different from practical. You may make thousand policies but if you don’t monitor and see how its working, its useless.
14. Rahul, in our somewhat successful democracy, every person has the right to their opinion whether it is respect or disrespect for any person or institution. Please don’t say things like shut up to people for voicing their opinion just because it doesn’t agree with you.
15. GD as I said it’s a big joke among most CAs. They may know what Sec 225 of the Companies Act is in their sleep, but they don’t know how to talk on a simple topic, how to say relevant information regarding a topic, how to oppose someone’s point, how to convince people, ZERO at that.
16. I did my articleship in a big4. There EVERYONE Is a CA. Being a CA is not something to get respect there. In my first year of articleship after my CPT, I used to teach my so called first attempt CA Assistant Manager who had done dummy basics of audit, because he had never opened a company’s trial balance or annual report in his life. And this is not a rare case. There are cases like this everywhere in abundance.
@ Mukul
You are right, Priya does not have exposure to corporate world and its working and therefore as a senior professional, it was your moral duty to guide her, instead of badmouthing and talking a little rudely.
Priya here is talking about the thousand odd random MBA colleges that have come up around the country that create MBAs like a factory. Those MBAs have degraded the true MBA degree got from top MBA institutes like IIMs or JBIMS etc. You on the other hand are talking about these top MBA graduates. Since the subject matter differed hence your opinions differed. Please talk more professionally guys, don’t get personal on each others degrees, and relax. It is a discussion not a communal riot J
Mukul bhaiyaa, what is this? How can you say this sentence? “so dont make say something which reveals the truth in front of you ” Are you blackmailing her? Very very disappointing sentence from you Sir.
Mukul you also know that apart from top companies like your own, in MOST other companies, HR means only payroll and some other timepass regular compliance like PF, ESIC etc. So only few companies place challenges like the ones you mentioned here about HRA and so on.
Similarly even in CA, there are companies who give big challenges to its CA employees and then there are companies who don’t. That doesn’t mean CAs don’t face challenges. J
@ Ujash
Do you know what a joke the Gulf country is? People who work there for 15-16 yrs have to come here and start fresh coz there is hardly any compliance or standards there to be implemented. Only oil money and hence lots of pay also.
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