How Accountants can Cope with Covid-19 Inspired Work place changes – ICAN

Professional Accountants must embrace five career zones of opportunity to remain relevant and contribute to building sustainable business after the corona virus pandemic.

According to Mr. Jamiu Olakisan FCA, Partner, Ernst & Young, these skills areas are non-accounting in nature but “hold the key to how accounting will adapt, how skills will transfer and how learning will evolve as the profession takes centre stage in building and protecting business and organizations in future”.

Speaking at the 52nd AATWA Induction ceremony recently Mr. Olaktsen identified the career zones and the new experts that would emerge as the assurance advocate, the business transformer and the data navigator as well as the digital playmaker and the sustainability trailblazer.

He pointed out that those who are able to use technology to maintain operations and adapt business models by fast-tracking digital transformation will be more relevant in the new work environment.

The assurance advocate are those who would use digital tools and technologies to transform the risk, reporting and internal control landscape to create and preserve values. They would also use digital tools to support responsible business practices and drive transparency and trust in business.

The business transformer refers to the professional who embraces technology as the catalyst for business transformation, implying that size would no longer matter as smaller players can leverage on digital technology to compete with big players.

Whereas to the data navigator the ability to develop and apply rich data sets and analytical tools to provide real-time insights will be very critical, the digital playmaker would “act as technology evangelists, identifying the potential of robotics and machine learning to transform finance, and working with tech teams would drive productivity and better decision support”.

The Sustainability trailblazer “can set frameworks that capture, measure and report on activities that truly drive value, providing more meaningful and transparent information about the organization’s performance”, Mr. Olakisan explained.

Also speaking at the AATWA induction the Managing Partner, IE Consulting and former Registrar/CE of ICAN Mr. John Evbodaghe FCA, asserted that accountants must remain within the rounds of ethical requirements even as technology-driven changes take place. He said that while accountants require knowledge, skills, competence and excellence in the profession they must rise above ethical dilemmas including self-interest, familiarity due to a close relationship with a client or employer and intimidation including attempts to exercise undue influence by clients or employers, among others.