The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) recently launched a new syllabus that is expected to bring its professional members up-to-date with developments in the industry, locally and internationally. Modestus Anaesoronye in this interview with Noel Tagoe, the executive vice president of the institute, shares his thoughts on the challenges and future of the profession. Excerpts:
Your institute recently embarked on a major project of reviewing your syllabus, what led to this and what were you planning to achieve?
Thank you for the acknowledgment and the opportunity to share our vision with you. The changes reflect the advances in the world of modern finance and business, and support CIMA’s ongoing commitment to ensure students and members remain competent, employable and in demand. The changes we are making reflect the findings of our Future of Finance extensive research programme. Over the last two years, we consulted with over 5,500 finance professionals from 2,000 organisations across 150 countries to build a composite picture of the role finance professionals play in business, identify competencies and skills employers expect, and map how these are changing in a digital world.
To ensure that we continue to shape global, multi-skilled, dynamic professionals who are employer ready, we have released a comprehensive suite of new learning professional development resources which tackle the demands of a digital-led world, including: The updated CIMA Professional Qualification, plus newly introduced exam blueprints, which focus extensively on digital finance to deliver finance professionals who can harness the full power of technology and data to create and add organisational value while supporting businesses to mitigate new risks, including cybersecurity threats; an updated CGMA Competency Framework, which both adds and incorporates the new area of digital skills to the four core existing knowledge areas of technical, business, leadership and people skills; and the Digital Mindset professional development course to enhance competencies and skills through a free CPD Bundle for CIMA members based on automation, blockchain, cybersecurity, data analytics and ethics.
Will you say the new changes are comprehensive enough to address the noticed gaps as well as current realities in the workplace?
Through our extensive global Future of Finance research, we gathered relevant evidence and data to update our CIMA Professional Qualification, CGMA competency framework and CPD offerings, to ensure that our content remains relevant to professionals working businesses, charities, NGOs and government functions.
It has been included because employers and members specifically identified these skills and competencies as being required by accounting and finance professionals within their organisations. The content has been reviewed by academics, accounting education experts and members globally. It has also been reviewed, and is supported by a number of governance committees and Boards.
The updates continue to support current – and future – management accountants to develop the skills, competencies and mindsets employers told us they look for in the modern business world, including in new areas such as business models, integrated reporting, cyber-security and financial risks.
The new updates to your syllabus are expected to address the emerging digital skills gaps, particularly artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, etc. What took CIMA so long to make these updates, considering that the so-called “emerging digital skills” are not entirely new?
As the world’s largest professional body for management accountants, it is CIMA’s role to help its members and students successfully navigate disruptive times such as the one we are currently experiencing.
Understanding business and the impact of technology has featured within the syllabus for some time and what it covers remains relevant today. But what has changed since the 2015 update is the rapid expansion of technology, its adoption and new emerging opportunities associated with it. That is what sits behind refreshing the 2019 CIMA syllabus to ensure it captures the impact of new technologies on daily tasks, business models, reporting and risk management. We are now putting a greater emphasis on digital skills and competencies, which employers told us they need in the modern business world.
Considering that it took CIMA years to update its syllabus, how agile will the body be, going forward, in terms of periodic reviews of its learning resources to match the speed of change in the business/economic environment occasioned by technology.
To keep our members and students at the forefront of business for today and the future, we are moving from cyclical to rolling exam updates and will now be using blueprints to bring in new key areas, or take out outdated content, as needed. And perhaps more importantly for our members, it is about going beyond the exam and have a mindset that is about learning, unlearning and relearning. We provide members with access to a comprehensive library of reports, continuing education courses and events to keep their skills sharp and put themselves ahead of the game.
Of what relevance are the new learning resources when, according to your survey, carried out in 150 countries, 61% of finance professionals already believe some of their jobs will be given to machines/robots in the next 3 years.
As we are all aware, change is the new norm in our global digital economy. New technologies are disrupting the ways we work and this won’t slow down. This of course creates new challenges, but most importantly it creates new opportunities to free up time spent on repetitive activities and focus on areas that create value. With the integration of new digital skills in the updated CIMA Professional Qualification, CGMA Competency Framework and learning resources, we will help finance professionals gain the skills they need to work in the modern business world. It will expand finance professionals’ skills beyond just their accounting knowledge, equipping them with people skills and digital skills, allowing them to capitalise on new technologies to become influential business partners and value creators.
Your study ‘Re-inventing finance for a digital world’, which was released recently, seemed to suggest that outdated learning tools/models may have been responsible for the failure of finance teams and professionals to evolve their skills fast enough to take in AI, and other digital skills. Is that the case or will you say the finance professionals themselves are averse to these changes?
The rapid rise of technology has changed the way each and every one of us live our lives, from our shopping habits to the way we access information. This is equally true for the business world. Every industry, every sector and every business function is affected.
Apart from the finance professionals, what other categories of professionals can benefit from the updated learning resources?
We are investing heavily into providing finance professionals with access to the latest research, thought leadership reports (e.g. future of finance white paper), training (e.g. future focused CIMA Professional Qualification), a careers job board and a library of leading-edge resources (e.g. updated CGMA Competency Framework) to help them stay ahead, employable and competent for a digital world. You don’t have to be a CIMA member or student to access our CPD. We are all about accessibility and providing the very best learning resources for everyone.
Finance professionals must also remember that the finance function doesn’t work in isolation of other departments and should encourage their team to collaborate and partner with colleagues across the organisation, ensuring that they also benefit from their knowledge and insights to create and preserve organisational value.
How do you see the finance profession evolving over the next decade?
Going forward, the finance function will have a mandate to go beyond its core accounting role. Enabled by new technologies, the finance function is now capable of assessing a broader range of information and becoming a more influential player within the organisation.
But to make the most of the opportunities brought by new technologies, management accountants will need to broaden their skills, go beyond their core technical knowledge, and be recognised for questioning constructively, guiding strategic decision-making, partnering with peers, managing risks and implementing projects, as well as providing trusted management information.
They will also need to enhance their social and commercial skills to better tell the story of the business, generate new insights and business solutions, and collaborate effectively with colleagues across their organisation and external stakeholders.
The role of management accountants is changing as they shift their focus from cost compliance to value creation with expertise in areas such as data analytics, cyber risk management and business models. They are moving from being technical experts to becoming commercially minded strategic business partners, who can successfully combine human creativity and new technologies to augment their capabilities.
A key challenge in the accounting profession today, again due to rapid technological changes, is the constant regulatory changes to keep up with technology and the pressures that bring to accounting/finance professionals to guide clients through those changes seamlessly. How is CIMA as a body helping members to cope with such fast-paced changes?
We are – and always have been – committed to supporting members and students across the entirety of their careers from new entrants to the world of work through to CFOs and Chief Executives. We work hard every day to help them stay at the forefront of business and finance, providing them with the latest research, thought leadership, a careers job board and a library of leading-edge resources to help them stay ahead, employable and competent for a digital world. This includes: Access to reports, thought leadership research and courses, which provide the insights needed to succeed in a digital age, analysis on the future of the profession and guidance on changing the skills needed for the new world of finance; A future focused syllabus for the CIMA Professional Qualification, which focuses extensively on finance for digital world to deliver finance professionals who can harness the full power of technology and data to create and add organizational value; An updated CGMA competency framework, which advises employers and professionals on the skills finance professionals should be expected to perform, and support on non-technical areas such as leadership and emotional intelligence to help with people management and guiding non-finance professionals with areas like better decision-making.
A major issue in finance and accounting today, is the integrity and security of data, what with cloud computing, blockchain, etc. How are these concerns tackled by CIMA and other industry players?
Trust is critical for our profession. We have always been committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards, and to maintaining public confidence in management accounting. Our profession doesn’t work in isolation of others, and what we do and how we behave reflect on our colleagues, organisations, and society as a whole.
For finance professionals, we believe in helping them through education. We launched earlier this year our Digital Mindset programme, which covers automation, blockchain, cyber security and data-analytics. This is a free resource for paid up members and can be accessed by non-members too.
In terms of the broader societal and business issues, CIMA formed with the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association) with a vision to lead the accounting professional globally. The Association is active in advocacy and policy work, engaging with regulators, accounting bodies and standard setters around the world to look at these very problems and to help guide both public and management accounting professions forward.
Here in Africa we also actively work with global organisations and regional accounting bodies, and represent management accounting profession in many of the countries where our offices are located, to support the development of high-quality international, regional and local standards.
