Value for money.

Thomas Cook, a travel company in trouble are advertising their summer holidays at prices reduced by £400. I presume that the resorts are similarly reducing their charges to the travel companies. In the face of this severe recession the time has come for firms in all businesses, not only holiday companies, to start offering value for money and this means ditching the management by accountants philosophy. The accountant's way of running businesses, where only the bottom line counted, has got to stop and management must revert to operating as they once did; supplying goods and services because they want to run a business that meets the requirements of customers, is ethical and satisfies their own need to be successful without being greedy.
Accountants should be at the service of companies, not running them. This should be left to the experts in the field who can continue to innovate, search for new solutions and new customers, regardless of the risk and the annual profit. But what about the share price, I can hear you ask? The share price will drop if profits are not maintained. This is the problem. It doesn't work; shareholders, although owners, had NO say in the running of the companies, particularly executive salaries that have gone through the roof in recent years. Stuff it! It's about time that a new system of raising money was found. One where the senior management of companies do not form a closed shop network that protect their interests at the expense of the true owners.
For too long, Companies have been stifled by constraints imposed by well meaning but ideologically challenged accountants that have no place in the marketplace. Value for money and customer satisfaction should be the new mantra and this goes for Government and town halls as well. Get rid of waste; stop paying union representatives to do union work at the public expense; stop expensive junkets and perks for civil servants and cancel all twinning expenses as a waste of time. The taxpayer and ratepayer should be at the forefront of those who receive value for money and those who run public bodies should do well to remember it. 'But we won't get the quality of management we need if we pay the bosses less', I hear you say. Balderdash! There are thousands of men and women who can run the Councils at half the salaries of those currently employed. It is precisely this mentality that is undermining the way of life of millions of citizens who are sick to the back teeth of paying more for less. Rates are up but the bins are only emptied once a fortnight. It's a disgrace. People in the Public domain should be thankful they are in employment and demonstrate their appreciation by doing more to give their citizens a better deal for their money, remembering it ought to be a privilege to serve the people.