Indian Students Perform Very Well Relative To The Global Benchmarks: Raymond Jack

What are your views on the education and training imparted globally vis-à-vis Chartered Accountant (CA) course with respect to the new age technologies?

For ACCA, it is all about thinking ahead. We have a broad vision in terms of what we teach and also how we examine the profession. I'll explain to you what I mean by that. In terms of its breadth, we try to make sure that ACCA professional accountants have not just technical skills, but they also have a range of other skills, including digital skills, emotional intelligence, and ethical skills. The combination of these skills and education are what we believe professional accountants of today and the future require. So it is the real future-proofing to make sure they remain relevant, and in particular relevant for employers. And in terms of depth, we are certainly seeing the desire more to be very skilled in the manipulation of data, the interpretation of data and also the insight that the data pervades.

An accountant of yesterday is seen to be very transactional, in terms of how they would be producing some of the data. Whereas today and going forward, they are very insightful.

According to you, how is the industry-transforming with the rapid changes that are taking place?

We are all very engaged in digital transformations and also making sure that organisations are developing data manipulation techniques and trying to make that data available in real-time to other parts of the organisation in order to make the best decisions. Digital transformations take a number of formats as both what we think what we call the ports and the hosts or of the port is developing tools and data manipulation tools, and different software packages to be able to make the data available. And then it's about developing the talent within the organisation to be able to utilize that data, interpret it and provide insight towards it.

What kind of approaches are required by the business and finance team to engage with emerging risks and take advantage of value creation opportunities? 

There are a few things that are topical at the moment, starting with risk management. I think CFOs and finance functions really need to have a highly developed skill around risk management as the environment is changing quite rapidly. CFOs and professional accountants must be very well attuned to incorporating things like cybersecurity, tax, international trade, etc. which are changing rapidly, to be ready to apply these things in their work.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of organisations are trying to consolidate data and particular hosts stored and making it accessible. So, a lot of thinking around the how to apply it in particular environments and organisations are being analysed. CFOs are talking to us about working across multiple platforms and we, at ACCA, can help them develop and train their talent to be able to deal with the demands that I've just described. We are now in a very strong position because of the nature of the ACCA’s qualification.

Do you think that Indian educational bodies offering CA training and education have adopted the new trends in their curriculum?

We are seeing a lot of students who are coming to study ACCA are very competent in these areas. We work with over 100 universities here in India. The ACCA courses are embedded within the universities and we are seeing good skill levels in these areas from the existing students. In fact, our Indian students perform very well relative to the global benchmarks that the ACCA set. Also, generally speaking, I think Indian students are well-positioned to study the ACCA qualification.

How do you propose that one can transform a mere finance professional into a strategic value creator?

I think it's across the whole range of the qualification. To start things, with both the technical aspects of the qualification and across into a strong digital understanding, ethical understanding, emotional understanding, it's really about educating the student more widely than just technical. The other thing that's unique about being a professional accountant is that every student has to have a professional experience record, in which they can develop that professional experience with a variety of different employers. They have to complete a record of professional experience which is endorsed and signed off by a qualified professional accountant. By the time they are qualified, an ACCA student has a wide range of skills that enable them to go into an organisation and deliver sustainable value. The reason I know that works is because we have a strong track record with employers who approach us and ask us to help them find and recruit ACCAs because they give, what we call, rating into organisations and deliver value.

Please elaborate on the SCG parameters and the obstacles in the widespread adoption of the same?

ACCA as a professional body advocates integrated reporting. We regard that as a very important way of reporting for an organisation to be sustainable. To help one describe that, and what that does it make for an organisation to report its outputs, how it delivers those outputs, the risks associated with those outputs, and also how it does that in a sustainable way is essential. If its done well, and it's specifically aligned, towards the organization, stakeholders b stakeholders of the believe it is important to them. So that's certainly something that ACCA is very proud of.

The other thing that we ask all our members and students to be very strong in is ethics and governance and these are a part of the syllabus as well as exams. We also have an ethics and professional skills module and an exam that the older students and members have to take. As part of being a professional accountant, you have to do continuous professional development and again, ethics and governance which is part of the sustainable at the delivery of the sustainability goals is something that we insist that our members need to be very professional.

I guess the other thing from an ACCA perspective is that we are very strong in what we do socially and have a public motive as part of the purpose. And we do a lot of work with the World Bank and other global economic institutions and also local institutions to help develop capital markets and developing countries. We also support Public Sector Accounting in developing countries. As an organisation, we do those things ourselves.

Looking more widely, we collaborate with other organisations to help in the measurement of sustainability. A lot of organisations are trying to now not just record the fact that they're having an impact on the environment, but trying to measure it. As a professional accounting body, we are very active in trying to help organisations measure the impact of their environmental sustainability.

What kind of collaborations or linkages are you trying to explore during your visit to India?

The linkages that we explore are in three main areas. First, as employers, we are now talking to a number of the best employers in India who are increasingly seeing the value of having ACCA. This is helping to create more opportunities for employment. The second one is that we collaborate with over 100 universities in India now and are developing more university partnerships and embedding the ACCA qualification into those universities. It is working well. And the third thing, is what we call our learning provider network. We need to work with specialists’ trainers who are highly skilled at teaching the ACCA syllabus. Those are the areas that I'm working on predominantly across my visit to India this week.

As the executive director, what are your future goals with respect to India?

My future goals are primarily about the growth and development of the ACCA qualification and promoting the public value that ACCA offers in a global environment. But the success of that is really taking the reach of ACCA more widely across the world and that's predominantly my focus.

The ACCA team has been growing very rapidly in India over the last three to four years. And certainly, we've got ambitions to continue with double-digit growth over the next five years.