New Horizons and the race for the future
Author:
Brian Walsh
[Fulltext] The recently published report of the New Horizons Working Party highlighted a number of issues which will take up much of the Institute's time and resources over the coming years.
Student entry this year reached its highest ever level at just over 800. There is almost full employment for members and their earning power has never been higher. To allow these factors to lead to complacency would be dangerous. The New Horizons report identifies major challenges ahead particularly in areas such as education and training, information technology, marketing the career, and promoting the CA qualification.
The race for the future
We all know that the business environment is changing at a frightening pace. Developments in information technology, globalisation, and intense competition are the major drivers of change. Never has information been so readily available or indeed so highly prized. Witness, for example, the recent growth of Knowledge Management which attempts to draw value from the combined knowledge resources of the organisaton. The most complex data can be disseminated instantly to anyone with access to a PC. New management techniques are being devised to enable companies to keep up with or get ahead of their competitors. As one guru recently put it, it is a race for the future.
Implications for training the CA
So how do you prepare a person to succeed in such a world? How do you educate them when much of the knowledge they have at the time they qualify will be out of date soon afterwards? Should you preparing them for lifelong learning throughout their careers? What is the balance? What values do you teach them? Should there be more emphasis on ethics, people skills, communication skills? Should all Chartered Accountants be taught auditing?
These, and many more questions, will be considered by a small working party recently established to review our educational processes. It will look first of all at what the market wants from newly qualified Chartered Accountants. With a significant majority of CAs now pursuing careers in business rather than in practice the working party needs to identify the skills business requires from Chartered Accountants. Practices are also changing rapidly. Many of the traditional skills of the accountant are no longer required or have been overtaken by technology. Today the emphasis is on delivering a more holistic service to clients and adding value to the client's business. The new working party, in partnership with our educators, will undertake a major review of the CA syllabus with a view to ensuring that the Chartered Accountants of the future have the skills and attributes required by the market.
Education processes
The working party will also consider the methods by which education is delivered. This will involve an exploration of the benefits that could be obtained by greater use of technology in the education process. The issue of greater "front-loading" in the education process to produce trainees who are more mature and skilled when they commence employment will also be considered.
The ultimate objective of this work is to produce Chartered Accountants who will be regarded as highly skilled business professionals commanding premium value in the market place.
Marketing
The need to attract the best people in each generation to train to become Chartered Accountants was the most important recommendation of the New Horizons Working Party. Students thinking of pursuing a career in business now have a very wide choice of qualifications. There is evidence that many of them no longer see Chartered Accountancy as the most attractive qualification. Business cares more at what people can do than it does about the qualification that they hold. The Institute recognises this and is committed to devoting more resources to marketing Chartered Accountancy as a career to school leavers and graduates and also to promoting the qualification to business.
A new era
It is interesting to look back over Institute developments in the last 15 years or so. The 80s was a period of great innovation. The Final Admitting Examination was developed and made an open book exam. An executive dedicated to developing services for members in business was recruited and the training in business scheme was introduced. The Practice Advisory Service was developed and was followed by the introduction of Practice Review. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland was at the leading edge in many areas and this was recognised not just in these islands but around the world.
The 90s have been dominated by regulation and that has meant that the Institute has had to be reactive to change with very little time or resources available to be proactive. However, I believe we are now at the beginning of a new and exciting era in which the Institute will play a leading role in keeping pace with and anticipating the needs of the new business environment.
Brian Walsh
Chief Executive