re: The great testing scam

Chris Arnold — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:51:28 GMT

A good example of the drift towards short term thinking, all because clients are under pressure to meet unrealistic financial targets. There is an old adage, “how can an accountant end up running a small business? He starts with a big one.” The biggest threat to our industry is the constant pressure to make an extra buck where there isn’t one. Lower values. Corner cutting. Unethical behavour. And then when the client runs crap they wonder why it doesn’t work. I think there is less real marketing about these days and too much mush. Only today the Church has done something it hasn’t done in generations, it publicly condemned supermarkets for putting too much financial pressure on suppliers – especially British farmers. It is concerned about society’s declining moral values at the hands of financially driven people. The true cost of profit these days is being made through those that get exploited. The question is not how much you make but HOW you make it. And although we cannot compare out lives with those in the Third World we are starting to see a growing exploitative and sweatshop mentality within the creative industries. All driven by client cuts and procurement.