Earlier this month, BR Research sat down with Kashif Ansari, the CEO of Sachal Energy Development - a wind power IPP project in Pakistan - now has just taken charge as the president of Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAP).
Formed in 1951 with the support of Canadian government, the ICMAP has traditionally had an important role in Pakistan's economy. However, and despite the growth in its number of students in recent years, we believe that ICMAP's brand power has weakened as other qualifications such as MBA Finance, MSc Accounting and audit based accountancy professions have gathered steam.
In this interview, we asked Kashif what he thinks about ICMAP's brand power and what is he planning to do to turn the dynamic around. And from what it appears Kashif, who is a Fellow of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan, plans to tap on his learning that he took from Harvard Business School to give ICMAP a facelift that he thinks it truly deserves.
Kashif starts off by challenging the notion that ICMAP is losing its brand power. "Over the course of years, the role of management accountancy has evolved from simple bookkeeping to reporting, financial management and strategic management," he said, adding that management accountants trained from ICMAP are currently holding important portfolios of CFOs and CEOs in many big ticket corporations in and outside Pakistan.
Explaining his stance, Kashif said that during the days of production economies, when management accountancy was in its early phase, the profession was aimed at reporting and controlling costs to bring in efficiencies. However, now you would find more management accountant working as CEOs than was the case before, as management accountants have now ventured more and more into broader spectrums. Management accountancy has evolved from traditional and limited areas to business efficiency, alignment of organisational strategies to its processes and far beyond.
"We maintain that management accountants are distinctively more trained to work in the management, inside the companies. The expanse of their syllabus is much broader than other accountants because whosoever has to work in the management has to look beyond the numbers and towards broader business management and strategy making," said Kashif.
But surely the ICMAP must be facing some competition, we ask, and so how does it plan to deal with the situation. "Indeed, any institution needs to align itself with the changing realities in local as well as global economies. Our plan is to further enhance the quality of our products, which are our existing members as well as our students, by exposing them further to broader aspects of business, new areas of expertise and frontiers of new thought and knowledge," Kashif said.
"These may be achieved by linkages through international universities and professional bodies, by venturing into areas of new research, and by virtue of exposure into areas which relate to strategy, and higher business concepts," he said.
Kashif says the linkages with universities and professional bodies would be based on good mutual reciprocal agreements. "We will be working towards tie-ups with universities here and abroad for mutual recognition with our institution; as a policy we are open to both university granting degrees and also professional bodies that give out certifications," he said.
"We are also planning to give our members and students the exposure to those areas of knowledge that are rather unconventional in Pakistan's environment," he explained. These would not only take the shape of ICMAP's continued professional development (CPD), which is a voluntary activity and lasts about 4-6 hours at the most, but also, for example, 2-4 week long certification programmes for our members aimed at providing targeted in-depth expertise in certain areas of knowledge," he said.
Kashif says that its certification programmes and CPD will be looking at peripheral areas of knowledge because core areas of knowledge are already covered in the syllabus everywhere. "I think the name of the game is now adaptation; embracing and aligning new concepts with the traditional ones, so that your overall productivity and relevance to the new business environment is enhanced. This is why these certifications, for example, will be in relatively new areas such as strategy, negotiations, decision biases and application of game theory and so forth," he said,
Going back to tie-up arrangement with universities, don't you think that ICMAP would need to revise its syllabus, especially in so far business communication is concerned, we asked.
"Our curriculum is already quite well rounded since we have never stayed put on any curriculum for long. As any other good education body our curriculum is always under review, although of course it takes time because it is a well thought out process to avoid too frequent changes in curriculum which too has its own problems," he explained, while stressing that there wouldn't be a need to change curriculum for reciprocal arrangements with universities.
However, Kashif is cognisant of that fact that accounting profession need to improve their communication, report writing, presentation and basic management skills. He plans to tackle this problem in two ways. The first strategy involves engaging the students in voluntary activities and encouraging them to take part in the peripheral certifications.
The second involves making business communication a part of every subject that is taught at the 11 teaching campuses of ICMAP. "It is one thing to teach communication as a subject and it's another thing to make it a key element of a large number of courses by virtue of having presentations and report writing in various subjects - that is what we will be looking at instead of simply having a one-off communication subject," said Kashif.
Stakeholder interaction
Kashif says he also plans to increase ICMAP's engagement with the stakeholders of Pakistan's economy "to further enhance its brand recognition, because even today many people do not understand what management accountancy is and what does it stands for," he said.
What kind of interaction are we talking about, we inquired. "Well, one of our plans is to engage with the SECP, the FBR, the CCP, and various ministries, to give our professional input. These may also take the shape of publishing our position papers or resource papers relating to the economy at large and to specific sectors," Kashif said.
"The second is to gain access for our members in areas where at the moment there is a blackout. So for instance, there might be certain positions for which no specific qualification is mentioned; or in certain places only one qualification is advertised for, whereas ACMA is equally good or internationally recognised for the same positions. These, for instance, include audits of up to certain size by the FBR or engagement of consultants, or if the SECP wants some consultation in some professional matters. So to ensure that ACMAs can compete for positions we would like to engage the stakeholders," he said.
Giving an example of the kind of work stakeholder engagement would entail, Kashif said that he would like ICMAP to collaborate with the SECP, the CCP and other regulatory agencies and support them in their work by providing them relevant sector-specific research input compiled by ICMAP research fellows. "Our intention is to get very serious about research and we plan to develop a strong research team to enhance the relevance, quality and the depth and also the outreach of our research," he said.
Ethics code
When questioned about the lack of ethics modules in accounting professions in Pakistan, Kashif said that the ICMAP will soon be working to come with its ethics policy and a teaching course on ethics at a later stage. "We take ethics very seriously; the ethics code will have serious implications and we intend to make this thing a make or break issue," he said.
"But while we do plan to have a zero tolerance policy on issues related to ethics, we are cognisant of the fact that this is a task easier said than done because this is a cultural change. So the first thing is to create a code and generate a buy in and enforce the code - and then ensure that the level of enforcements will grow over the passage of time," he explained.
"The ethics code is planned to be introduced within year's time whereas ethics as a subject will be introduced at a later stage, as making ethics a part of the course means tinkering with the curriculum, which we always do in a very considered manner," he said.
With more than 15000 students all over Pakistan, the ICMAP has seen a threefold growth in its students in the last five odd years. The logical question to the new president, therefore, was what kind of number he would be targeting by the time his tenure ends in the next three years.
"We are happy with the numbers, so we won't be chasing the numbers. Improving quality, credibility and reputation forms the core for us right now," Kashif concluded.
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