Exploration of Future Challenges that the Accounting Profession faces conducted by IMA and ACCA

The IMA and ACCA are now exploring the accounting and finance profession future through the launch of the latest initiative of research in multi-year signature. The initiative has just been launched with The Future Today, through the signature research SoMoClo report. This stands for Social, Mobile and Cloud.

After the announcement in November last year, the initiative of the IMA/ACCA research initiative is envisioned to serve finance and accounting professionals through provision of insights on what the future holds for the profession globally. This work is anchored by the website of the Future Today which houses joint research from IMA and ACCA as well as guest commentary, blogs and interactive features. Through the platform, the objective is in informing, educating and raising future debates about the future, accountancy and business world. This new website seeks to engage senior finance and business leaders as well as political and academic decision makers.

In the long run, the new initiative serves the public interest and enhances CFOs capability and all teams everywhere. The finance and accounting profession has got a responsibility of creating and nurturing ethical and stronger organizations.

SoMoClo

SoMoClo, the new signature of IMA and ACCA offers analytical insights regarding the effects of mobile, cloud and social technologies. It encompasses the views of many senior financial leaders from such global businesses like Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Microsoft and Intuit. While the converging technologies may raise new business opportunities, people will be central to this process ad not technology hence professionals in finance will evolve and change. From the report, the finance function could be behind the curve when it comes to adoption matters. However, maybe the caution comes with a scrutiny for risk management which is key to every finance professional.

Together with their teams, CFOs have got the obligation and opportunity of ensuring that the organization understands the information technology nature transformation on the value chain and such risks as information security. This also entails cyber breaches from accessibility of broader data.