Policy & Insights

An ACCA led panel discussion at the 2020 UK Labour Party Conference with former Labour Leader and current Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Industrial Strategy and Energy, Ed Miliband MP on green recovery post-Covid-19. Chaired by ACCA's Head of Sustainability Jimmy Greer, guest speakers included ACCA Corporate Reporting and Tax expert, Yen-Pei Chen, Chief Executive, ShareAction, Catherine H...

The role of the chief financial officer, the CFO, is one that continues to evolve and grow in breadth. How has the pandemic reinforced the importance of the CFO role beyond financial stewardship? Clive Webb, ACCA's Senior Insights Manager, Professional Insights discusses this and other trends in our joint report with the IMA 'The CFO of the Future' with Helen Morgan, CFO Character.com, ACCA Panel...

Big data and analytics present a significant opportunity for finance professionals. Report authors Clive Webb, Senior Insights Manager, ACCA Professional insights, Charlotte Evett, and Suresh Sood of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand discuss our joint report Analytics in Finance and Accountancy, the importance of forward-looking analytics, data strategy and the skills finance and acc...

Narayanan and the panellists share their closing views on the report Meaningful work for the digital professional series with Ernst & Young (EY). This fourth and final episode covers the positive changes to digital that have occurred in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the potential long-term consequences on businesses and their employees. Panellists include ACCA Chief Executive Helen Bra...

Part 3 of our ‘Meaningful work for the digital professional’ series with Ernst & Young (EY) hosted by Narayanan Vaidyanathan focuses on how professional accountants can build their digital skills and the importance of balancing those skills with other skill sets. Panellists include ACCA Chief Executive Helen Brand EY EMEA Public Policy Leader Andrew Hobbs; EY Canada Assurance Digital & Inn...

In part two of our series on ‘Meaningful work for the digital professional’ with Ernst & Young (EY), hosted by Narayanan Vaidyanathan, the panellists explore the benefits of digital adoption in accounting and how the new ways of working due to Covid-19 have positively influenced the importance of enhancing digital capabilities. Panellists include ACCA Chief Executive, Helen Brand; EY EMEA Publ...

The Sustainable Development Goals Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations, authored by Carol Adams, Professor of Accounting, with Paul Druckman and Russell Picot, Honorary Professors at Durham University Business School, offer a new approach for organizations to address sustainable development issues. They attempt to establish a best practice for corporate reporting on the SDGs and enable more effective...

As the business environment changes and businesses evolve to meet expectations and demands, finance functions are increasingly required to support strategic decision making through data-driven insights. Clive Webb, Senior Insights Manager, ACCA Professional Insights speaks with Claus Thorne Madsen, a PwC Partner in Copenhagen, to discuss how finance business partners can become proactive, to add m...

Finance functions are increasingly being required to support strategic decision making through data-driven insights. Clive Webb, Senior Insights Manager, ACCA Professional insights, Brian Furness, PwC Partner and Global Head of Finance Consulting and Jamie Lyon, Portfolio Lead, ACCA Professional Insights, explore the role of finance business partners, how it's changing, the breadth of skills they...

Finance functions are increasingly being required to support strategic decision making through data-driven insights. In the first of this three-part conversation, report authors Clive Webb, Senior Insights Manager ACCA Professional Insights, Brian Furness, PwC Partner and Global Head of Finance Consulting and Jamie Lyon, Portfolio Lead at ACCA Professional Insights, discuss why insights matter and...

In the first of a four-part series on Meaningful work for the digital professional, which is based on our joint report of the same title with Ernst & Young (EY), Head of Business Insights in Professional Insights, Narayanan Vaidyanathan introduces the start of an engaging discussion with four panellists about what meaningful work means to each of them. The series will explore: Part 2 - the sta...

Why is it especially important to ensure that we grow our skills and continuously learn? What approaches can we adopt to ensure that we are successful? How do we remain relevant? Dr Nigel Spencer of Oxford Said Business School, Keith Jones, Executive Partner at Alchemy Worldwide and Senior Insights Manager ACCA Professional Insights, Clive Webb explore the importance of learning in turbulent times...

In this podcast, Neil MacLean, patner at EY, explores the nature of digital transformation and how it impacts the finance function. He explores the impacts of technology and the implications for skills for the accountancy and finance professional and how these need to evolve. In a survey with over 4,200 ACCA members, affiliates and students we reviewed the digital skills that a professional needs...

In this podcast, Stephen Dowling, Founder and CEO of ETM considers why the accountancy and finance professional needs to develop their digital skills and the steps that they need to take to ensure that they remain relevant. He considers the importance of learning and unlearning in this context. Digital transformation is one of the key conversations around businesses at present. The evolution of th...

In this podcast, Brendan Sheehan, ACCA council member and CEO of digital transformation company White Squires, explores the nature of digital transformation and how it impacts the accountancy and finance professional. He considers the role that they need to play and why it is relevant. He specifically considers the implications for the finance leaders (as discussed in the companion report, "Digita...

In October 2019 Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and ACCA published an article Creating effective learning ‘eco-systems’ for the future world of professional services. This podcast is a discussion between the two report authors: senior insights manager for ACCA, Clive Webb, and leadership development specialist and adviser on talent development based at the business school, Nigel Spencer...

Finance functions are facing a number of potentially disruptive challenges led by technological innovations, changing business models and evolving consumer expectations. Based on a series of interactive workshops and interviews with leading finance professionals around the world, as well as through an online survey of over a 1,000 ACCA members and PwC contacts, we have set out in a new report what...

On 18th July we launched the Global Economic Conditions Survey: Q2, 2019 (GECS) for the second quarter of 2019. GECS, carried out jointly by ACCA and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants), is the largest regular economic survey of accountants around the world. This podcast features Michael Taylor, chief economist at ACCA, discussing the global economy and looking at the current picture and...

Finance functions are facing a number of potentially disruptive challenges led by technological innovations, changing business models and evolving consumer expectations. Based on a series of interactive workshops and interviews with leading finance professionals around the world, as well as through an online survey of over a 1,000 ACCA members and PwC contacts, we have set out in a new report what...

Cyber security is one of the most significant risks that an organisation faces. ACCA and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand’s recent survey of over 1,500 members suggests that it is an issue that most accountants see as belonging to somebody else. Is this valid? What is the nature of threat? In our series of podcasts that accompany the report, Cyber and the CFO, Clive Webb, a Senior I...

Cyber security is one of the most significant risks that an organisation faces. ACCA and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand’s recent survey of over 1,500 members suggests that it is an issue that most accountants see as belonging to somebody else. Is this valid? What is the nature of threat? In our series of podcasts that accompany the report, Cyber and the CFO, Clive Webb, a Senior I...

Cyber security is one of the most significant risks that an organisation faces. ACCA and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand’s recent survey of over 1,500 members suggests that it is an issue that most accountants see as belonging to somebody else. Is this valid? What is the nature of threat? In our series of podcasts that accompany the report, Cyber and the CFO, Clive Webb, a Senior I...

As with any technology, with power comes responsibility. And in the case of machine learning, ethical considerations are never far away. Professional accountants need to consider and appropriately manage, potential ethical compromise from decision making by an algorithm. In this podcast, Narayanan Vaidyanathan, who is leading on ACCA's futures research is speaking to some of the leading voices in...

In this podcast @jimmygreer talks to entrepreneurs, policy makers and academics about what has become known as the future of work. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of online platform working; why it is so important and to make this new way of working fair; how some freelancers are making the most of digital; the impact of automation (or should that be ‘automatability’?) on emerging and...

The so called ‘intangibles gap’ refers to the difference between the stock market value of companies and the net asset value that accountants are reporting. There are concerns that financial statements no longer reflect the underpinning drivers of value in modern business. Such concerns are particularly relevant to accounting for ‘intangibles’, including R&D costs. In this podcast, Richard Mar...