Well. A lot has been said about the placements and packages that a fresher CAs enjoy over MBAs.

But, can anyone out there, give me exact number of students who went to join a partnership firm or try their hands by setting up their own professional practice.

As far as little knowledge that i have and based on my practical experience,i have come accross seniors who are very much willing to join the existing firm as a partner or start their own practise.

I would not like to specifically comment on the earning potential of  practising CAs.

And someone out here commented that CAs do not have a revenue generating role and are merely boook keepers, but i think in satyam case everything was perfectly fine..revenue was at its peak........nothinh was wrong in other departments but something went wrong with accounts and consequences were out in the open.

Why could not the efficacy of other departments overshadowed the problems in accounts department.

I do not wish to say that CA is the only exclusiove and best profession but it indeed it has edge.

Yes it hasbeen rightly pointed that the earning potential of other business is far more than a practising CA business. But i  was specifically meant to draw a comparatives between  professions. A  fresher MBA can't start his own firm and offer services that a CA can. Although he may  act as an independent management consultant and the same can be done by a CA too.

And i do not wish to go into the details of  significance of regulatory compliance and the importance they have in the long term business health. What people generally see is the activeness of sales and marketing department but only the company knows how important it is to keep record of each and every transactions to take a strategic mgmt decisions.These things have been said by me based on my practical experience.

And from my practical experience i have witnessed that on an average a CA enjoys better pay packeges than others. I have been involved in providing tax consultancy to the employees of some conglomerates (i do not wish to name them) but they are one of the most respected business house.

And the trend i saw was that every CA employed there had a pay package of 8.5 lakhs on an average. The highest i came across was 55 lakhs.

However, a person from operations department enjoyed a package of 1.2 crores annualy.....which was much higfher in comparison to CA but it did not reflect the general trend and average worked out to be somewhere around 6 lakhs. Although the no of CAsemployed were marginal in comparison which is justified in the backdrop that CAs are not the abundant lot.

And i am not considering engineering because that is totally a different issue.

U cannot compare science and commerece education as both have different roles to play.

It is like comparing the importance of Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology.

Surely, these comparisons cant be made.

MBA finance can do lot of things other than what you mentioned. He can start his own firm and offer all other services except for those where CAs are required to sign. The amount of money that can be made in providing those services exceeds the amount of money accountants make by providing the services where they have powers of constitutions. MBA finance or any one else can always start a business, make it big....and give approx 0.5 to 1% (or even less than that) of what he makes to a CA to audit his books.!!!

I am not denying the importance of book keeping, audit, tax and other work which CAs do. Off course it is vital. But first comes the entreprenuership and business and then all the other things like book keeping, audit, tax etc.

I respect your thoughts and I dont want to comment on your experience about the packages of CAs.....because my experience contradicts it. Further, the trend you mentioned about higher packages doesnt reflect in the actual numbers that have come. Do one small activity, take the annual reports of top 50 companies of India and top 50 companies of the world. You will be able to see the top paid executives of these companies. See how many people come from finance background at the first place, then see how many are accountants? I am not saying there are no accountants, but I would like you to do this yourself then you will realise what I am trying to say.

I have never compared science and commerce education Sir. I dont even want to compare CAs with MBAs or anyone else. It all depends on Individual I feel. A person becomes CA because he is smart, intelligent, it is because of his hard work. That person will be successful, rich because of his own deeds. ICAI is not going to gift him wealth and a seat at any of the big company's boards. The same applies for MBA, Engineering and everything else. And off course there are people who have none of these degrees and have been more successful than those who have all of these. So, there can always be exceptions as well.

So if we go in a deeper analysis then we can conclude that every profession has its own importance and who goes for which is ultimately the choice of the aspirants.

A company cannot do without MBAs, without CAs and other similar professionals. Because each contribute to the growth and development of the company. And you have rightly pointed that MBAs can do much more than what i mentioned. But business can be done by anyone and we do not require any specific professional degree to initiate. 

And i have not scrutinised the details of companies in foreign for my reference, because I am not forgetting the fact that CAs are the one who are experts in Taxation , Auditing and Accounting operations and are meant to help companies comply with relevant Indian rules and regulations. And when i went through the management details of Resident Corporates , i found that maority of CFOs and Finance Directors are Chartered Accountants, even in navratna PSUs.

Though I admit the fact that the CEOs are from mixed backgrounds, majority being MBAs.

As far as enterpreneurship is concerned professional degree does not matter a lot.

To quote some of the leading dailies..." CAs have much more knowledge content when it comes to quantitative finance than MBAs but they lag behind MBAs because MBAS have more breadth and flair and communication skills"

Exactly, thats what I have been trying to say to all those who kept criticising other professions and said CA is the best and all that sh*t.

I would strongly advise dont look at what the dailies say, thats never a reliable source to judge. Recently an article in sunday's "education times" wrote,"of course CAs have deep knowlege of finance;which MBAs don't have that much depth. But there is no doubt that recruiters have much higher likings for MBAs that they can contribute in many more ways to a Co; and are more proficient in getting things done by their staff."

See, you got my point. CEO community is dominated by non-CAs.

Regarding CFOs and Finance Directors being CAs....thats exactly what I wanted to show. You should see the profiles of all top paid executives of these companies. You will see that these positions of CFO/Finance Director is one of the many positions. Besides these two positions, there are hundred other positions for people from finance as well as other backgrounds...and these are not occupied by CAs. Further, these positions are far more remunerative than the CFO/Finance Director position. Again, in the top 50 cos...see that many of the CFOs/Finance Directos have multiple qualifications. So it doesnt show any greatness of one particular degree.

I have done my analysis of the above. I can discuss this on every single company in the NSE 50 and other indexes. I am open to it. You tell me, which company you want to discuss. We will put up the annual report here and do the analysis of top paid exeuctives of that company and I will show you that in every single company in front of one highly paid CA we have hundreds of top paid executives who are not CAs.

  Every profession is important as they provide valuable services to the society. These figures do not show  that ICAI losing brand value. Rather it shows that the efforts taken by the institute is not effective enough.

      I do not want to enter into the debate of ICAI losing it's brand value. If it is not managed properly ofcourse it will lose it's brand value. But that can very well be corrected if there is a good,dynamic and efficient leadership.

    But what I had to say is that the auditing profession is not losing it's value. This is evident from the audit fees paid by the top companies to their auditors.Like you pointed out our profession is mostly not a revenue generated one. But this disadvantage is balanced by the fact that number of CAs qualifying each year is in thousands while in courses in revenue generating department  like MBA,BE(etc) the numbers are in lakhs.

  Every profession is good but success in career depends upon the individual who takes up those profession and a little bit of luck.

Mr. Vijay,

I would like to quote what Mr. Rathi said to an interview to CNBC -