Accounting Firms Need STEM as Partner in Today's Business World - 2019 Spring Spectrum Magazine

ACCOUNTING FIRMS Need STEM as Partner in Today’s Business World By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter As organizations continue to embrace digital advances to build their competitive advantage, Barley said, they Accounting may have always involved must use consumer data and extrapolate information numbers, but today’s marketplace demands from consumer buying and browsing habits. “This professionals with skills that go beyond intelligence provides guidance for clients who can use the traditional math. In response, the Uniform information to inform their business decisions,” he said. CPA Exam was revised in 2018 to include “Since many small and middle-market companies don’t tests of critical thinking, problem-solving have the resources to manage this work themselves, and analytical ability — attributes previously accounting firms are expanding their services to considered more relevant to science, provide data governance, data analytics, and blockchain technology, engineering, and mathematics resources. They are also increasing cybersecurity (STEM) than accounting. With that in mind, offerings to help companies use and protect key data NABA is looking at how STEM skills can assets.” prepare students in terms of passing the Last year’s changes to the Uniform CPA Exam mean that CPA exam and enhancing their chances at STEM students have “the opportunity to learn about employment in firms. techniques and skillsets through mathematics and related areas that correlate directly to the critical thinking “While the profession may have begun with the premise they need to pass the exam,” Barley said. “Gone are the of analyzing financial statements, it has expanded to the days of focusing solely on debits and credits; today’s point of true integration among business divisions, ranging exam requires that candidates not only embrace cost from boardrooms to technology departments to research accounting, but also interpret regulatory requirements and development divisions,” said Charles Barley Jr., a and their impact on clients of the future. Such analysis is principal in Risk Advisory Services-IT with RSM, US LLP key in the profession. in McLean, Va., as Southeast leader of the Security & Barley sees the present and future of the profession as Privacy solution and co-leader of the firm’s National Data evolving to accommodate and even demand a wider Privacy working group. range of skills — ones that might be unfamiliar to established accountants. Between CPA exam changes The global economy continues to see a shift in the and societal trends, “today’s students who seek careers complexities for businesses in delivering goods and in public accounting must possess an increased level of services in the marketplace. “This dynamic has been intellectual curiosity and eagerness to embrace the speed accelerated by the use of technology and the increasing of change,” he said. “A company’s business objectives importance of data analytics for understanding the evolve based on market conditions. Both accounting and marketplace better,” Barley said. This means that STEM students must be prepared to remain agile and “accounting firms must recruit and retain professionals flexible enough to understand and adapt to the ever- with diverse skillsets to keep up with how quickly things changing needs of their clients.” are changing to meet the needs of consumers” — and That may seem daunting, but it is also an opportunity STEM skills are among those in demand. for accounting to take a leadership role in responding to change and to partner with disciplines that seem new. “NABA professionals should continue to challenge their thinking and embrace the evolution of the accounting industry,” Barley concluded. That means including STEM in approaches to both hiring and serving clients. ▲ 44 SPECTRUM | SPRING 2019