Recent digital disruptions and automation in the accounting industry
Question:
Discuss about then Trends in the corporate hiring of recent graduates.
The accounting industry is being in the limelight for reasons which are not a good sign for the industry. The different kinds of digital disruption in recent times are believed as potential threats to few accounting related tasks. Such tasks are now being automated with the help of technological disruption. Robots now can perform audit roles in larger firms. On the other hand, the cloud-based technology has outplayed several transactional accounting works at the global level across a number of industries (Burritt and Christ 2016). On the other hand, the Australian labour market has shown positive signs in recent years in the accounting industry. There has been strong recruitment in accounting and finance industry in Australia. Such a renewed market experience is a welcome boost for the job seekers across the country (Burritt and Christ 2016).
It is expected that coming years might also see the same kind of increment in the accounting industry. For job seekers who belong to the finance department, they might get preferred more for contract roles. Contractual basis job provides a good platform to learn the accounting related activities through various new projects which is important for a better professional career in accounting (O’Leary 2017).
This assignment is purposefully aimed at identifying the opportunities in the accounting industry in the Australian labour market. This is so because the learner belongs to the accounting industry and has intended to pursue their career in the accounting related jobs.
According to a report from IBIS World, the accounting industry in Australia has witnessed a modest growth in the past five years. This is largely due to positive business confidence and incrementing demands for industry definite advisory services (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). Audit services have remained as the one factor which the accounting industry has focussed a lot in the past five years. This is for a reason that such services require the governance of law which can be best managed by accounting firms. Advisory services were another high-point that clients irrespective of their industries have relied over accounting firms to get solutions on accounting challenges. Nevertheless, clients rely on accounting firms to access the advisory services in order to measure the total revenues at the different quarter of the same year (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). The dependency of clients on accounting firms have increased and with that, the competition in the accounting industry has also soared. Consequently, accounting firms are now switching to different technologies like data analytics and cloud-based computing to be ahead of others and attract the clients (Ibisworld.com.au 2018).
In future, there are few trends which are giving a new dimension to the accounting industry in Australia. Cloud-based accounting firms are a growing concern at the global level and also in Australia. It is a good time for accounting firms to capitalize on the opportunities before it becomes a common affair to every single accounting firm in Australia. This is when an accounting firm can actually attract clients and help its business to flourish (Rajiv, Chu and Jiang 2015). A large number of SMEs are expected to be in the cloud, hence, this is a real chance to attract the clients for numerous services like the advisory and the auditing services (Rajiv, Chu and Jiang 2015). The starting salaries are increasing which means the number of graduates might find accounting as their choice of industry (Rajiv, Chu and Jiang 2015). Advisory services are more in demand. Clients from different industries are looking for advisory firms which are a good sign for accounting firms in Australia and also at the global level (Osmani et al. 2015). This means that the future of accounting industry might see some positive trends in the form of technological advancement like the cloud-based accounting services. The other services like the auditing and the advisory are other heights which are bound to boost the accounting industry in nearing future.
Positive signs in the Australian labour market for accounting and finance industry
Australia like the other countries is at the boom in regards to the growth in the accounting industry. Automation is helping the industry to witness a transformational change. Such change has necessitated the urgency to have candidates with sound analytical skills, so that, rising demands for professionals could be satisfied. The modern accountant is not just limited to works like balance sheets and provides strategic trade insights. They are now required to think of tasks beyond that. Robots are taking up the audit responsibilities. Cloud-based technology is replacing the many transactional accounting jobs. However, despite the automation, there are ample of opportunities for accounting students (Faggian, Corcoran and Rowe 2016).
Automation has changed the work related responsibilities of accounting professionals in Australia. More and more clients are now heading for accounting firms to get their works done. They approach accounting firms for auditing based services. There are many SMEs which are open to working with the accounting professionals. They hire graduates on a contractual basis. Such jobs are good opportunities for accounting graduates. They at their career start get explored to a wide range of accounting projects which beautifully support their learning period. Such exploration is necessary to get used to different accounting related challenges (Nagano 2014).
There is a number of SMEs which are going to the cloud-based system. It means opportunities are ample for accounting firms and the accounting graduates in Australia. They may supposedly be approached by a large number of SMEs to get their issues done. The accounting industry can be said as evolving and are setting better trends for future. A lot of technological changes are happening in the industry. Consequently, the nature of accounting work is also evolving. Additionally, repeated tasks are being automated which means a lot more tasks are being left over for professionals who with their utmost capabilities in analytical thinking are becoming an asset (Jackson 2014). It was previously the case that accounting graduates had a very minimal exposure to the accounting projects at the start of their career. However, this is also changing and making up ways for the graduates to utilize the opportunities. Now, the graduates can expectedly get better opportunities to groom their career as accounting professionals and perform added responsibilities in the with the help of analytical skills (Jackson 2014).
Recruitment agencies have been one of the most preferred choices for employers when they look for a graduate professional in accounting positions. This is for several reasons like recruitment firms do a lot more filtration before they present their selected graduates to the respective employer. Such respective organizations can then proceed with their set of requirements fulfilling which graduates are eligible to work with them. The best part of referring to consulting agencies is they do release a bit of pressure from the overhead of the organizational human resource. They used to have many other challenges to take care of those. By preferring to consulting agencies they are just reducing their work pressure and are able to concentrate more on some other issues which are more critical to organizational operations (Okoro 2014). On the other hand, consulting agencies compete with each other in regards to attracting more and more clients. This is only possible if they have better proven track record of quality recruitment and also they have the competitive technologies to support their operational objectives (Okoro 2014).
Current state and trends in the Australian accounting industry – report from IBIS World
There are quite a few consulting agencies that are providing top notch assistance to their clients. One of such agencies is Cox Purtell which is currently based in Sydney. It came into existence in the year 1994, since then, they had not looked back and had continued to pile up the story of success (Cox Purtell 2018). They are a team of experienced and knowledgeable experts who are supporting and carrying the operational vision of the agency. They are different to others with respect to the service they deliver. This is also why they have positive reviews from their clients and the customers (Cox Purtell 2018). Richard Lloyd is another recruitment agency which is specialized in recruiting professionals in the accounting positions. They opened up in the year 2008 and since then, they are defining new ways to glory. They are one of the leading recruitment agencies in Sydney as few of their accounting recruiters do even have over 70 years of joint experience in recruitment. They have been providing one of the largest networks to accounting professionals in Sydney. They are one of the best solutions for the clients and also for the accounting professionals in the region (Richardlloyd.com.au 2018).
Competition has now increased and that can also be observed in the workplace. Apart from different factors for which graduates compete for, cultural interaction is one of those. To be more specific, it can be said that they do face the challenge when they start their career in the workplace. They find the challenge in the form of culture which is vividly distributed in the different formats of firms. It increases in severity with the size of the organization that means multinational companies offer greater challenges than the SMEs. The level of challenge is also different at the kind of work where graduates are into. The workplace where employees interact with each other and the managers they are at more challenge (Khan and Azeem 2014).
The level of severity increases with the nature of the job as discussed above. A graduate accounting professional is needed to interact with the others to discuss a few things like approaching the stock supervisor. It is needed to tally the accounting entries with that of the manual entries. This is done to find the error in the report. This process is followed to avoid any fraudulent practice. Accounting professionals do also interact with the managers in order to understand the work plan. The professionals do it accordingly (Barmeyer and Mayrhofer 2014).
There can be many cultural challenges. Language can be one of the issues as few professionals may not be the citizens of Australia and would have come from non-English speaking nations. It shows an evident language barrier. Professionals may find this challenging to make other understand their needs and the work related necessity (Khan and Azeem 2014). There are evident generational gaps in the workplace as there exist different generations of Millennials, Boomers, and Baby Boomers. There are differences in thoughts of different generations. The differences can be related to work related culture and others. Millennials are more in favour of smart work. They want to do thing fast. They rarely believe in putting had work to a task. Boomers are different to Millennials and believe in hard work. They have little or probably no connection to technologies. Baby Boomers form the midway path between the two generations. They have mixed views on both hard work and technological driven works (Khan and Azeem 2014).
Future trends and opportunities in the accounting industry in Australia
This is the point where cultural conflicts occur in the workplace. This is where professionalism matters the most. Professionalism can be understood from various perspectives which also include the workplace culture. According to Schnabel et al. (2015), the workplace culture is to understand each other’s capabilities & interest and then utilizing each other’s potentials to attain a productive outcome. It means there is a need for teamwork which means suppressing the differences and promoting the positive aspects.
The first and foremost step is to create a precise yet very communicative resume. The resume should include the detailed information of qualification and the job related experience. The next step will be to upload the soft copy of resume on the various online job portals and also mailing it to a few of selected recruiting consultancies. Job consultancies, in particular, are helpful in getting the profile specific jobs.
Conclusion:
Therefore, accounting industry is at the growth in Australia. Robotic systems have automated a few kinds of works; however, it has not yet replaced the human resource. It is currently being used to generate leads which are ultimately being processed by accounting professionals. In future also, accounting professionals will be in demand in Australia as multinational companies are dependent on accounting firm for auditing and advisory related services. Many SMEs are now available in the cloud which means technology will further the requirement of professionals in the accounting industry.
References:
Barmeyer, C. and Mayrhofer, U., 2014. How has the French context shaped the organization of the Airbus Group?. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(4), pp.426-448.
Burritt, R. and Christ, K., 2016. Industry 4.0 and environmental accounting: a new revolution?. Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, 1(1), pp.23-38.
Cox Purtell. 2018. Recruitment Agency Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. [online] Available at: https://www.coxpurtell.com.au/about-us/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].
Faggian, A., Corcoran, J. and Rowe, F., 2016. Evaluating the effects of Australian policy changes on human capital: the role of a graduate visa scheme. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 34(1), pp.151-170.
Ibisworld.com.au. 2018. Accounting Services – Australia Industry Research Reports | IBISWorld. [online] Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/professional-scientific-technical-services/accounting-services.html [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].
Jackson, D., 2014. Factors influencing job attainment in recent Bachelor graduates: evidence from Australia. Higher Education, 68(1), pp.135-153.
Khan, S.U. and Azeem, M.I., 2014. Intercultural challenges in offshore software development outsourcing relationships: an exploratory study using a systematic literature review. IET software, 8(4), pp.161-173.
Nagano, H., 2014. Trends in corporate hiring of recent graduates: Focus on developments since the global financial crisis. Japan Labor Review, 11(2), pp.23-36.
O’Leary, S., 2017. Graduates’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, the inclusion of employability-related support in undergraduate degree programmes; trends and variations by subject discipline and gender. Journal of Education and Work, 30(1), pp.84-105.
Okoro, J., 2014. Assessment of Accounting Competencies Possessed by Postgraduate University Business Education Students to Handle Entrepreneurship Business Challenges in Nigeria. World Journal of Education, 4(1), pp.1-10.
Osmani, M., Weerakkody, V., Hindi, N.M., Al?Esmail, R., Eldabi, T., Kapoor, K. and Irani, Z., 2015. Identifying the trends and impact of graduate attributes on employability: a literature review. Tertiary Education and Management, 21(4), pp.367-379.
Rajiv, S., Chu, J. and Jiang, Z., 2015. Publication, citation, career development, and recent trends: Empirical evidence for quantitative marketing researchers. Customer Needs and Solutions, 2(1), pp.71-90.
Richardlloyd.com.au. 2018. About Us – Our Richard Lloyd Story | Richard Lloyd Recruitment. [online] Available at: https://www.richardlloyd.com.au/about-us [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].
Schnabel, D.B., Kelava, A., Van de Vijver, F.J. and Seifert, L., 2015. Examining psychometric properties, measurement invariance, and construct validity of a short version of the Test to Measure Intercultural Competence (TMIC-S) in Germany and Brazil. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 49, pp.137-155.
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