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PRACTICE PROFILE
Doubling its size every four years is a strong performance for any business. When this is mainly organic growth achieved by an accountancy firm it is very impressive. That is the record of BDO Simpson Xavier. Mary Canniffe spoke to Managing Partner, Anthuan Xavier.
When Mr. David Simpson and Mr. Anthuan Xavier got together in 1982 they looked around the market and judged that entrepreneurs and indigenous small to medium growing firms, particularly owner managed or family businesses were not being targeted by the larger accountancy practices. They decided to target this business niche.
"We decided these were growing businesses and we could grow with them", according to managing partner Mr. Xavier. The entrepreneurial style of this niche client suited the type of firm he wanted to build.
"We are entrepreneurial therefore we can empathise with our clients".
Niche market
The key to building the firm, which Mr. Xavier described as "very different" to the traditional type of accounting practice, was developing very close personal relationships with the individuals who would become their clients. Indigenous firms often needed a confidante, a mentor or a business adviser, he said.
Simpson Xavier developed a family business center which sourced family owned business where family issues appeared to be an obstacle to the operation or development of the company. It offered courses and programmes for the immediate and extended families working in the business.
"We wanted to focus on the entrepreneur, the individual and the family first and then on the business they own", Mr. Xavier explained.
Entrepreneurs and owner managers are different from the managers one meets in multinational or state-owned businesses, he explained. They are ideas people, they are restless, always looking for something new and they want to be recognised as successful, he said.
"I often explain our role by comparing it to the circus where you see the huge elephant being guided around either by a person pulling or pushing it."
"For us as advisers it is important to remember that we are that little person pushing or and pulling while the big person is the entrepreneur with the ideas", he said.
Training
Accountants servicing this niche market need to have the right ethos and culture, he explained.
"There...