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by Lisabeth Hristova 03 Nov 2000 Diploma in Financial Management Relevant to All Papers

There was a time when finance departments used to seem scary to those who were unused to the mysterious language of accounting or frightened by the numbers. Programmes such as the ACCA’s Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance have done much to demystify the finance function and to raise financial awareness within all managerial functions of business. Such awareness is paramount if the implications of strategic and operational business decisions are to be fully understood.

Times are changing and accountants must change too. Gone are the days of pen pushing grey accountants. They are an endangered species. Finance has always been at the heart of every business, but it is now linked more strongly with operations. Finance also needs to focus on being more forward looking rather than retrospective. Accounting is no longer a number crunching exercise, and accountants can no longer be bean counters; those who are have had their day. The fact that accounting software is far too good and far too affordable has been the final nail in the coffin. IT has revolutionised accounting, stripping it of the routine tasks of data collection and recording. So what is there left for an accountant to do?

Accountants in practice will make their money from giving financial advice including tax and increasingly less frequently audit. Accountants in industry will cease to exist per se. Instead they will become managers with financial expertise. Computers have replaced traditional management accounting tasks in most large organisations. Tasks such as processing of expenses can be embedded into the system, and credit controllers becoming a relic of the past due to the emergence of credit referencing on line and the automation of credit control processes. Financial tools are now at everyone’s fingertips. It has never been so easy to produce a set of accounts, to access and apply accounting policies, to generate a budget or to produce an investment appraisal all at the simple click of a button.

IT is able to deliver relevant and reliable financial information in a much more timely fashion than business decision makers have previously been used to. The challenge is therefore for business to use that information to their competitive advantage, as the modern business world is fast paced and highly competitive. Computers may have taken away the daily drudge of accounting, but a business still needs financial direction. Those who ignore this do so at their peril.

The ACCA has recently commissioned global research using the organisation Market and Opinion Research International (MORI) to undertake a survey of international business opinion into the skills required by the modern finance professional. ACCA wanted to find out what would equip these professionals to cope with the global business demands of the twenty first century. Pinpointing the skills to meet business demands was felt to be the number one challenge both to the ACCA and to business.

There appears to be a direct correlation in the minds of corporate leaders between the standards of education and training in the discipline of finance, and the accountancy profession’s readiness to meet its changing remit. If the role of the finance professional is changing, it therefore follows that the preparation and support provided whilst studying and after qualifying must change too.

The research confirms that 86% of business leaders want ‘in-house’ finance professionals, who will be key decision makers and be instrumental in developing both short and long term corporate strategy.

The overall message from the survey is that a finance syllabus needs to be broad in scope to offer the range of skills which corporate leaders are now demanding from their finance professionals. The research found that many major companies have been guilty of narrow thinking, which they are now keen to avoid at all costs. Whilst core financial skills are seen as important, the survey respondents cited a growing demand for strategic decision making, risk management, people management and the formulation of corporate strategy. These have obvious implications for the continuing professional development (CPD). CPD or lifelong learning needs to play a vital role in the development of both the individual and their organisation.

Business leaders believe that unless finance professionals are given the opportunity to update and fine tune their skills on an ongoing basis, they will not be able to perform optimally in today’s business climate of constant change. The ACCA is addressing this issue with the recent launch of ACCAdemy.com, which provides interactive professional development courses on the web in a range of business and finance areas, such as strategy, management development and world accounting.

The training of finance professionals now seems to be that of two way traffic. On the one hand, general managers and specialist operational managers are hungry for financial knowledge in order to make them conversant with the language of business. On the other hand, qualified accountants are increasingly studying for an MBA to broaden their business experience. The results from the MORI survey apply equally to fully qualified accountants as to general managers, who have studied for qualifications such as the ACCA Certified Diploma.

So where does this leave the Certified Diploma Holder or student? Armed with the skills of understanding and interpretation of financial data, combined with general business skills from either work experience, the study of an MBA or both, they will be in a unique position to take advantage of the changing market for finance professionals.

The watchword appears to be “out with the beancounters in with free thinkers”.

www.corporatethinking.com
(contains the results of the MORI survey)
www.kpmgconsulting.com/uk

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