INTRODUCTION
AICPA® & CIMA’s ongoing Future of Finance research programme explores the future state of the finance profession and its wider ecosystem, defining essential competencies, skills, knowledge, and behaviours. Our findings underpin the development of management accounting qualifications, thought leadership, and learning resources.
Building upon our ‘Re-inventing finance for a digital world’ white paper, published in 2019, it is again time to consider the future of finance and how the role and scope of our profession is evolving.
Future of Finance 2.0 examines and investigates the ambit of finance after recent global disruptions, highlighting the proficiencies necessary for the evolution and advancement of our profession.
This paper outlines our methodology and identifies key emerging themes from interviews (phase 1) and roundtables (phase 2), providing a wealth of qualitative data. More detailed findings, including the global survey results, will be published throughout 2023.
In 2017, we began to set out a vision for the future of finance, publishing our findings as ‘Accounting in extraordinary times: The future of finance’.
Given all that has happened in the intervening years, it is time to revisit the ways in which the role and scope of our profession are evolving.
Six years ago, our focus was very much on the relevance and employability of management accounting professionals who could lead their organisations to sustainable success. Since then, sustainability, once frequently dismissed as a marketing and public relations exercise, has become a global concern. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting agenda; and upcoming IFRS® sustainability disclosure standards are clear indicators that organisations can no longer focus primarily on profit at the expense of people and planet.
Scope and definitions related to data have also changed. Previously, where finance roles had focused on data collection and collation, we now deal with ever-increasing volumes of unstructured data, regulation, and security concerns. The ownership of and accountability for data within organisations is an area of some debate, but it is clear that the role of data and the skills needed for finance professionals has changed greatly.
Our research has shown that the role of the finance function is evolving due to digitalisation, the workplace environment, changing societal expectations, and new sustainability regulations, meaning that business partnering is increasingly important. Emerging technologies and the role of data have continued to shape how we work and the tools we use. For many of us, the workplace has changed, with hybrid working now commonplace. What has not changed is our core finding — in the digital world, the focus of finance has shifted from costs to value.