Page 48 - The Pakistan Accountant July-September 2017

Signature Qualification CA that Empowers to Lead PAKISTAN Perspective Future of Smart software systems (including cloud computing) will support the trend toward outsourcing services (including more overseas outsourcing), and greater use of social media via smart Accounting technology will improve collaboration, disclosure, engagement with stakeholders and broader communities (see ACCA research, above). Social media (including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Profession: search) will reveal more data (including alternative reporting) than any corporate assurance report and stakeholders will use tools to interpret “big data” (see ACCA’s Big Data: It’s Power and Perils). Three Major Future accountants will increasingly need education in Changes & digital technology, globalisation, Implications and evolving regulations. Second, continued globalisation will create more opportunities for Teaching and challenges for members of the accounting profession. While globalisation encourages the free flow of money from one capital market to another, enhanced overseas outsourcing & Research activities and the transfer of technical and professional skills will simultaneously continue to pose threats to resolving local problems (with different cultural, financial, and tax systems). Accounting firms in the US, EU, and Australia are outsourcing services to India and China for the purpose of cost minimisation, which will create a shift in employment within the accounting industry in the West. As globalisation has already been negatively impacted by Brexit and Trump’s presidential victory, accounting professionals are likely to see themselves having a role in this transformation. Third, increased regulation, and the associated disclosure rules, will have the greatest impact on the profession for years to come. For example, increased regulation is imminent because of massive tax avoidance, transfer pricing, and money laundering as exposed via the panama papers. Many professional (tax) accountants will be affected by intergovernmental tax action to limit base erosion and profit-shifting. The regulatory concern for different social and environmental issues, along with the associated measurement and he accounting profession will face significant changes in reporting complexities of these the next three decades, and professional organisations, their members, and educational institutions should issues, has allowed accounting Trespond. The three changes—evolving smart and digital professionals to open their minds technology, continued globalisation of reporting/disclosure standards, and new forms of regulation—are also major challenges to the possibility that accounting for the profession. Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) research, Drivers of Change and Future Skills, has explored has the capacity to change. these important changes, expected to be encountered by the year 2025. Three are highlighted here: Additionally, because of greater public pressures and stakeholder First, accountants will use increasingly sophisticated and smart expectations, social and environmental considerations are getting technologies to enhance their traditional ways of working, and importance alongside economic concerns in contemporary these technologies might even replace the traditional approach. organisations. We see a range of stakeholder groups* including 46 The Pakistan Accountant July - September 2017