Tricks or treats?
| Author | Burns, John |
The role of management accountants is changing. John Burns and Hassan Yazdifar use the latest research findings to examine the threats and the opportunities these changes pose
The debate about the future of management accountancy rages on. Some argue that changes are undermining the basis of managing accounting, others see new opportunities opening up for those qualified to seize them. A recent survey funded by the University of Manchester considered the factors driving these changes, the management accountant's key tasks and the tools, skills and techniques needed to fulfil such tasks. The survey asked respondents about their experiences in the past five years (1995-2000), and their predictions for the next five years (2000-2005).
Table 1 shows the change drivers that were seen as vitally important. The results are consistent with other surveys of change drivers in management accounting practice. Information technology advances (particularly databases) and the development of enterprise resource planning systems (eg SAP) have expanded the capacity and speed of information provision to levels that were unthinkable just 10 years ago. It is also broadly accepted that fundamental shifts in organisational structures, and in managerial approaches have affected the management accountant's role.
TABLE 1 Respondents who believed the following were vitally important for driving changes in the tasks and roles of management accountants in their organisations over the past five years Change Drivers no. % Information technology 189 73 Organisational restructuring 139 53 New accounting software 109 41 Customer-orientated initiatives 103 39 New management styles 94 36 E-commerce/electronic business 83 32 External reporting requirements 63 24 Core competency aims 61 23 Globalisation 60 23 Takeover/merger 54 20 Quality-orientated initiatives 48 18 New accounting techniques 42 16 External consultants' advice 32 12 Production technologies 20 8 But some of the low response factors are more surprising. For instance, the relatively low response for takeovers and mergers suggests that acquired companies do not always have new roles imposed upon them. And consultants may be disappointed to learn how little impact they have on influencing change in the role of management accountants.
There was also a low response for the impact of new accounting techniques on carving out new roles. This may reinforce claims that accounting is now primarily done in the field by the business managers rather than by the accountants.
When it comes to the importance of different tasks over the past five years, table 2 highlights the top 10 results from a possible 32 choices, based on replies that indicated particular tasks to be vitally important.
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