Accountants must embrace new normal

I battled Covid-19 and thankfully emerged unscathed - but in awe - of this dreadful disease. During the pandemic, it became apparent to me that businesses, regardless of size, sector, specialty or geography, were confronting a set of challenges for which there was no conventional wisdom or play book.

Most businesses appeared to maintain existing systems with information technology-based applications such as Zoom to ensure management teams and workers could continue serving customers from their homes.

Leading a team of research-active accountants located in England, Malaysia and Norway, we held several in-depth discussions. Based on our collective professional experience and environmental analysis, I contend that the following critical success factors are the key to survive and, crucially, thrive in this on-going crisis:

• Agile innovation.
• Rigorous cash management.
• All-encompassing fraud prevention and detection.
• Dynamic corporate governance.
  

This crisis can become a source of deep learning, if not renewal, once the pandemic subsides. It is argued that the aftermath of the European-wide, 14th century plague, which caused 200 million deaths, ushered in an era of positive economic growth, and laid the foundations for the European Renaissance and Industrial Age.

The workplace continues to evolve, and I believe remote working will remain a permanent fixture in many people’s professional lives. Knowledge workers, including accountants, will need to pivot into ‘i-mountaineers’, who are comfortable working across diverse digital platforms, time zones, acknowledging disparate opinions all underpinned by effective time management and subject to clear boundaries that ensure sound health and wellbeing.

Hence, resilience has become a hot topic and I have developed a model to promote this much needed skill:

Based on feedback from my students, regular practice of the Four Rs improves formal learning, wellbeing and critically quicker recovery from any type of setback.

While I believe that this pandemic is merely a warm-up and the next global crisis will be even worse, agility coupled with risk management will see us get through. Further information can be found in our forthcoming book entitled Calling out Covid-19: Business Strategies to survive a ‘Pompeii Event’, published by Business Expert Press.

Faisal Sheikh is an IFA fellow and accounting and business lecturer at Salford Business School