Report Urges An Upgrade In Skills
The Sunday Age
Sunday November 15, 1998
Accountants have an image problem.
But in what could be a blow for cartoonists and comedians around the world, the bean-counters are fighting back.
They are so determined to change their staid brown-suited image that they are talking about re-branding the profession. Even ditching the A-word from the lexicon altogether.
It means that as an occupational name, the word ``accountant" could go the way of ``cooper" or ``tram conductor".
Just as secretaries have turned into personal assistants and garbage collectors into sanitation engineers, accountants are hoping to transmogrify into dynamic business managers and financial officers.
A report just released by the Institute of Chartered Accountants said that accountants need new skills if they are to remain relevant to business.
If they fail to do so, it warned they will be replaced by lawyers, information technology professionals and the growing army of MBAs.
The chairman of the institute's accountants in business committee, Mr Michael Beer, said the volatile business environment was forcing the profession to reconsider its traditional role.
He said accountants in the businesses of tomorrow were likely to assume different roles.
Whereas accounting was traditionally about the processing of historical data, the new breed of bean-counters would also need skills in information technology plus strategic valuation and management know-how.
``It is going to be someone who is a step ahead of the rest of the organisation," Mr Beer said.
``The word `accountant' is becoming redundant ... it has connotations of data processing.
``While there will always be accountants who are going to be processors of data, a lot of that processing will be outsourced."
Mr Beer said changes were already happening in younger, more dynamic industries such as telecommunications and information technology where financial officers and business managers were in roles that might have once been labelled accountants.
``Things are changing, and in the larger progressive industries you can see that in five years time there will be a new monicker for people who are in those roles."
According to the institute's report, CFO (chief financial officer) of the Future, an accounting degree may no longer be enough to get to the top of an organisation's financial tree.
It said that chief financial officers of the future will need broad strategic skills outside traditional finance areas. These skills will include thorough knowledge of a company's customers, markets and suppliers.
They will also include expertise in knowledge management, information technology, environmental controls and commerce, cost management, valuation of intangible assets, knowledge of domestic and international capital markets and risk management techniques.
Skills in general management, project management, change management and experts in communication, presentation and negotiation will also be required.
Having the social and cultural skills appropriate for a globalised economy would help too.
Some chief financial officers may not even be accountants. After all, they could always get the bureaucrats to look after that side of the ledger.
``Whilst accountants in business are well placed to satisfy companies' emerging requirements, they should not assume they will automatically be given these new responsibilities," the report said.
``Other professionals will also compete for work, such as Masters of Business Administration, company secretaries, information technology professionals, lawyers, environmental experts and engineers."
Information Technology expertise
Communication expertise
Knowledge management expertise
Social/cultural skills
© 1998 The Sunday Age