The importance of future-focused accounting professionals

Studies have shown that most people believe that their future personal lives will carry on pretty much as before without any upheaval or calamities. However, the same people anticipate a rather dull and catastrophic future for the world, anticipating severe changes such as wars, climatic catastrophes and the AI threat to job security.

Strategic Foresight is a discipline that assists us in examining change and potential change so that we might ‘see’ the future in a clear manner. It gives us tools and methodologies to think about the future in a meaningful way.

Why do professional accountants need to know the future? Well, we know that besides death and taxes, the only other certainty in life, is that things will change. We do not know what type of change to expect but we can research and study signals of change before they happen and create scenarios of potential alternative futures.

Scenarios will reveal how trends and potential change could change life and the business environment. It is not a full and certain representation of the future, because to develop scenarios, we must make assumptions and rely on key uncertainties, identified by research. Then we can take action to influence the future, steering our lives and businesses towards a preferred future.

SAICA commissioned Professor Andre Roux (Stellenbosch Business School) and Dr Gideon Botha (CA SA) to develop a range of alternative scenarios to explore the future role of accountants in South Africa towards 2035 (Foresight-Project.pdf). The scenarios identify potential impacts for the profession in South Africa (table 7).

What is clear is the importance of post-graduation education and skills development to remain relevant in a changing world. Other considerations include:

• The importance of ethical behaviour, in the face of increasing fraud and corruption (and litigation on these matters).
• The need to act as advisors and play a more prominent role in ensuring that credible information is shared with clients.
• Collaboration with regulators and stakeholders.
• Increased ESG reporting requirements.
• The increased use of advanced analytics.
• Becoming the go-to source of information for foreign investors.
• Building trust with the public,
• And guarding against the loss of skills to other countries (a declining pipeline of talent).

Professional accountants are no longer the ‘bookkeepers’ of the business world, their responsibilities have become more onerous and the need for them to act as advisors and business strategists is critical.

The Milpark BCom Accounting degree incorporates Strategic Foresight and Economic Principles in the degree course work. Graduates will no longer be required to simply understand traditional subjects such as financial reporting, audit and taxation, but they will need to understand the business context (local and global), the economic challenges (now and potentially in the future) and ethical responsibility of the clients they work with.

It is important that professional accountants understand the complexity and the anticipatory practices that underly strategy development and decision-making processes. It gives graduates a broader business perspective and they are better equipped to assist clients to adapt to change, to remain agile and resilient, and to maintain competitive in the market.

Lastly, a word about AI. Can AI help professional accountants? Yes, it can, but at this stage, should we trust it with more than the mundane tasks or analytics? Humans, and especially educated humans, offer so much more than AI.