Jurisdiction Development- Indian experience

Anil Jogani MBA, FCA, CISA

Director Tally Solutions UK Ltd

How it started• Academic effort in the past 3-4 years

– no interest from target stakeholders• Direct Participant membership by two

software companies • No accounting firm interested• Boston conference of April 2005

– Meeting with Juris Dev Committee– Encouragement to promote

Start with committed peopleJune 2005• Promoter - A leading software company invests people, time and effort

– and money• Ropes in an interested and influential accountant• They make presentations to different regulators and companies

– The relationships of the Software company opened many doors• Get interest from:

– Two Apex Accounting Bodies, Two stock exchanges, Central Bank– Software companies

• Promoter takes President of oneApex accounting body to XII New York!

• However, all are cautious and it is down to the software company to move things forward.

The start-up team must have passion and commitment and the budget!

Intense PRJuly – Oct 2005• Created and spread the vision for XBRL in India

– Wrote XBRL articles in accountancy journals– Received half-page write up in a leading newspaper

• Created a not-for-profit company for XBRL which:– Enabled dissemination of Information literature, XII circulars– Avoided conflict of interest

• Regular participation in XII jurisdev concalls– Gave us exposure to XII ways– and confidence to all that we were serious

SeminarsDecember 2005• Conducted two seminars in December 2005

– Mumbai and Delhi • Great support from XII. Kurt Ramin and Ed Watanabe spoke

– 100+ attendees at each location– Bombay Stock Exchange President was the Chief Guest at

Mumbai (he is now Vice-Chairman of XBRL India)– Chamber of Commerce President Chief Guest in Delhi

• Good support from software companies for the events

• Signed up 9 organisations as founder members

Bottlenecks• A large diverse country – a sub-continent of different practices• Difficult to get commitment from non-commercial organisations• Misplaced perception that the software company had vested interests• Typical not-for-profit organisation issues compounded by local beliefs

– Too many people to please. Many who comment from the ringside– Cautious about anything new– Wait and watch before they jump in– Red tape– Costs deter participation

• XII fee structure deterred many but others were convinced to take the plunge

Took all in our stride. Different tactics yielded results.

Lessons learnt• High-visibility efforts are necessary to get buy-in from target

stakeholders – Somebody has to foot the bill!

• Get target stakeholders to take key high-profile positions and open up the organisation asap

• Market has low propensity to spend on R&D– Hence do everything to attract and retain– Don’t scare them off with very high fees for ‘exploring new stuff’– Believes in ‘try before buy’ or better still free because time is being

invested!– ‘What will we get out of this?’ – This will take a long time to be accepted. We will revisit it when it is

more widespread– If they then find it good for them, they will spend.

• At the same time, potential for large membership numbers

Conclusion• It is not easy to start and rally support

– Even difficult to sustain momentum and belief• However,

– Ensure that passionate and committed people are involved

– Continue to maintain relationship• both domestic and international

– Don’t be afraid to make mistakes else progress is not possible

• but make amends quickly

Success is not that far away!