The future of the Accounting career and education

In his IFAC, International Federation of Accountants, article "Future of Accountancy Profession: Three Major Changes and Implications for Teaching and Research," www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/div-classtitlestakeholder-pressures-on-corporate-climate-change-related-accountability-and-disclosures-australian-evidencediv/74215C6182B535801C3512A5824BBADD), Muhammad Azizul Islam, PhD, states that "The accounting profession will face significant changes in the next three decades, and professional organizations, their members, and educational institutions should respond." The first of these changes has to do with changing to conform to the digital age. He states that the changes are "expected to be encountered by the year 2025" (Azizul Islam). This change by itself should be impacting education today. The implication this has on future generations of graduates, from Accounting programs, is expected to be huge. The possibility that parts of traditional accounting will be outsourced is high, as many companies are already outsourcing large parts of the job. Software programs are already changing to meet the growing need of clients and business. The other main changes have to do with meeting regulations that will be very different in the cloud accounting age. The need, at that point, for Accounting professionals to meet international regulations as opposed to meeting just regulations for the United States will be a very large change. Regulations differ greatly over the larger picture of the entire globe vs just one country and that will add to the job of Accountants to know much more than current professionals. The roles, challenges, and requirements is expected to change on a large scale basis. The normal role of Accountants as just financial information processors is changing to being a business advisor, making suggestions to help the overall business and help the company to make better decisions on a business wide basis is going to be the new normal. There will be greater need for education in digital accounting and the whole picture reporting method that is the new way to do the job. The educational changes may require colleges and universities to invest in additional education for professors and ongoing need to meet all the coming changes need to be met head on instead of waiting for change to happen and then to educate after the fact. It seems the needs for all cultures of differences in Accounting need to be brought togther and work as a team on a global level merging the ways of the future for the better of all involved. 

Azizul Islam, Muhhamad. International Federation of Accountants, "The Future of Accountancy Profession: Three Major Changes and Implications for Teaching and Research," 10 Feb. 2017, https://www.ifac.org/global-knowledge-gateway/business-reporting/discussion/future-accounting-profession-three-major

I definitely understand most of what this article is indicating but would like to know more about the regulations that will be different under a global picture. I am still a bit confused by the ways this will and should change the education of current accounting professionals. While there are some things between this source and the source of my first blog post that are similar I feel this article posed several other challenges. I think this source went further into detail and that may have been due to being an international article vs one more specific towards the subject in general. I am interested in researching much more to do with these areas that I was exposed to in this article and bring more detailed information to future blog posts. Stay tuned for more intense scrutiny of this subject!