How to speak the language of consulting;

              HOW TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF CONSULTING
In recent years, Touche Ross' international consulting experts have helped many nations of the world in their struggle against poverty, inefficiency, and underdevelopment. More industry, higher job skills, im-proved transportation, better medical services—these are but a few of the assignments firm consultants have successfully completed.
Often the engagements are cooperative ventures shared by Touche Ross professionals— mainly based in Canada, the UK, or the US—with firm con-sultants from other nations who are more familiar with the local requirements and regula-tions. At other times, the expert works directly with the local representatives of a multi-national company.
In either case, the result is international cooperation that dovetails the economic and social needs in the developing world with the multifaceted services of a worldwide public accounting firm. On the pages to follow is a sampling of en-gagements where the skills of Touche Ross people have helped to meet these needs.
KOREA: Railroads
Within the past five years, Touche Ross has performed major engage-ments for the national railways of Egypt, Pakistan.. India, Korea, and Peru. From 1969 to 1971, the firm was engaged on four successive as-signments for the Korean National Railroad.
Thus, the cobbled sidewalks of Seoul were familiar to Canada's Dave Stevens when he arrived this past fall with four staffmen and their families for an 18-month stay.
"We are here," says Stevens, "to de-velop and implement a computer-based commercial accounting and performance budgeting system for the Korean railroad." The staff is working with Canadian Pacific per-sonnel, as well as with the Chong-Un Accounting Co. of South Korea.
"One requirement of the railroad's last loan from the World Bank was an information system for measuring their investment return," explains Stevens. "At present, all railroad trans-actions are maintained in elemental accounts suitable for normal govern-ment-type reporting. Our plan is to
Dave Stevens, left, signs contract with Yong Kwan Kim and Su Kee Bank.
divisionalize this system and to de-velop such information as a tariff sys-tem based on actual costs. We want to measure revenues from types of freight carried vs. classes of passenger service. The railroad is losing money on short hauls, for example, but it doesn't have the necessary break-down of costs. Should it let all pas-senger trips under five miles he taken over by the buses? On the other hand, how can it compete with the national airline on longer routes?"
There is also the problem of freight costs. If the railroad can increase the utilization rate of box cars {which is from 75 percent to 90 percent on North American railroads), it won't have to buy additional equipment and can save the country $250 mil-lion in scarce foreign exchange. And on one line, if it can run a train every five minutes, instead of every six, ad-ditional tracks will not have to be bought with foreign exchange.
While in Korea, the staff will also be instituting a similar accounting system for the National Agricultural Cooperative Association of South Korea, a $2 billion organization com-prising a banking system, a market-
Korean National Railroad's
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