Technology is a double-edged sword: Opportunities and challenges for the accountancy profession (Paper 2)

Professional accountants play a key role in helping organizations navigate technological changes in an ethical manner. To do so, they must understand how to respect technology’s double-edged sword—actively pursuing opportunities while safeguarding against challenges.

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The inevitable is upon us—change. In particular, the information technology revolution, which is a key driver of complexity faced by CPAs. CPAs must learn to navigate through the opportunities and challenges brought forth by this revolution while paying close attention to the world’s new golden commodity, data.

Data is the lifeblood of data analytics systems that offer insights and information impacting every part of society. Advanced data analytics and AI now make it possible to understand and influence consumer behaviour like never before, making the need for ethical leadership very important.

As CPAs grow to balance the double-edged sword that is technology, a crucial uptake will be that many of their current skills and knowledge in managing financial systems and controls and setting standards and auditing can be upskilled to accommodate a progressively digitized world.

Read this publication to learn how CPAs can leverage digital transformation by employing a broader skillset that will help them flourish in their organizations.

Additional content

You may also be interested in the other three papers from the series:

Artificial Intelligence in network space

Complexity: Guidance for ethical decision-making

The accountancy profession is evolving to address changing stakeholder needs while continuing to meet public interest responsibilities. Get practical guidance on ethical decision-making as a professional accountant, professional accountancy organization, educator or employer.

Identifying and mitigating bias, mis- and disinformation

Fake news. Misinformation. Bias. These unfortunate realities create opportunities and challenges for accountants responsible for providing reliable and trustworthy information to their clients.

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Mindsets of professional accountants

In our data-driven and AI-enabled world, CPAs need to explore new ways to bring value to their organizations. The paradigm shift towards competence points towards technological literacy and highly-tuned human skills.

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