Faye Chua, head of futures research at ACCA, talks about the latest research on the future drivers of change for the accountancy and business community.
Accountants need to embrace an enlarged strategic and commercial role
As businesses evolve their strategies, structures and business models to survive and thrive in a turbulent environment, there is a clear opening for accountants to assume a far greater organisational remit. The need to ensure responsible practices in the pursuit of growth opens the door for accountants to participate in broader business decision making. This broader role will require accountants to apply financial expertise in combination with analytical, creative and risk-management skills. These capabilities will prove equally valuable in everything from assessing country risk to developing and testing innovative new revenue models.
Businesses need to pursue technology leadership
The pace of ICT advancement, the sheer potential of what it can deliver and the pervasiveness of adoption now place technology at the heart of strategy and operations of businesses of almost any size. New mindsets and approaches to technology management are required for this rapidly evolving environment where the firm owns less of the computing and communications assets it relies on. The key drivers here are a shift to staff using their own devices, applications and databases being run remotely through cloud computing and the internet becoming the backbone of most enterprises. Each new generation of systems offers increasing intelligence, enhanced flexibility and ever-greater potential to transform working practices. Technology advances are enabling new business models, disrupting value chains and transforming entire industries.
Very insightful! The big data point is particularly important and key. Please provide more thought pieces like these!
Agree – financial, accounting, strategy and risk management can not function as silos.