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In this Dec 2003 issue of On
Target :
President's Message 2003 AGM
The Institute is now moving into its eighth year. We have
achieved a great deal and for the record I just want to list the
more important milestones over these formation years.
In reality the most remarkable achievement is that we were able
to establish ourselves and grow despite some opposition from
existing professional bodies. During this time, it has become
clear that all the reasons why the CMA was established in the
first place remain in the Australian environment. We are still
the only Australian grown membership organisation dedicated
exclusively to the nurturing of Management Accounting as a
professional alternative for accounting practitioners. We should
be proud of this and continue to slowly develop and grow our
membership striving for both strength in numbers and excellence
in their professional integrity and ability.
We have now established a number of overseas technical
alliances, with more currently being negotiated, and the
membership and Education committee chairmen will report on these
initiatives. Suffice to say that the CMA post graduate education
program has been firmly established in a number of overseas
markets, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Lebanon and Papua New Guinea. Plans are now well
advanced for the program to be introduced into China. The
program has also received recognition from three Australian
universities and in one case successful candidates receive 6
course credits to an MBA. The ICMA has also secured its GMA
Conversion and CMA subjects within MBA programs of the Royal
Roads University (Canada), Educatis University (Switzerland) and
the Herriott Watt University (UK).
Our web page, cmawebline.org attracts significant interest
from around the world and plans are underway to offer the GMA
and CMA subjects over the net, if our quality standards can be
met.
Membership continues to grow healthily both in Australia and
overseas, now mainly due to our Education programs. It is always
difficult picking exact numbers at this initial point in the
financial year because of the uncertainty surrounding renewals.
It would appear, however, that our current membership is now
over 700 CMAs and likely to be in the region of 800 by the same
time next year. Note that our webpage attracts far more
individuals interested in joining us, but approximately 2,000
individuals to date, most with work experience in the area have
been turn down as they don’t meet our educational standards.
These same individuals would have been given membership of our
“father” body, the Institute of Management Accountants of
USA, which has an “open” membership category for those
interested in the field. This is the reason for the Management
Accounting Affiliate (MAA) category of membership.
One of the foremost issues confronting the executive during
the period was the need to start raising the public profile of
the Institute.
Therefore in the last year, your Institute undertook a SWOT
Analysis of the Management Accounting Profession and found that
the biggest opportunity for the profession is also its biggest
threat, i.e. the need for more Corporate Governance in the
aftermath of the Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen debacles.
Whilst this has resulted in the demand for more Corporate
Reports that are forward looking (the area of expertise of
management accountants) it has also resulted in the need for
skills far more diverse than those processed by traditional CPAs
and CMAs. This has given a window of opportunity to other
professions, such as Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs),
Industrial Engineers, Insurance Professionals, and Lawyers, who
are now lobbying for a role that is currently (or in some cases
was formerly) performed by the accounting profession.
The accounting profession should therefore be more pro-active
and lobby Government appointed Regulatory Bodies to legislate as
mandatory (or at least recommended as best-practice) the various
audits for good Corporate Governance, such as Strategic Audits,
Cost Audits, Environmental Impact Audits and Risk Audits.
We believe that the major management accounting bodies around
the world, such as the IMA (USA), CIMA (UK), SMA (Canada), and
ICMA (Aust) should lobby for such audits, analyses and reports.
If a Regulatory body in any one of those three countries
mandates (or at least recommends) any of the above reports, then
the rest of the world will follow.
The threat in this area comes from two directions: First,
generalist bodies such as the CPA and Chartered Accounting
bodies around the world are trying to grow their membership in
these markets (at the expense of more specialist bodies such as
the CMA bodies) by claiming that their qualification covers all
accounting areas fully, including management accounting. The
second comes from the increasing need for “recognition” from
various accreditation bodies. Although the profession of
managerial accounting does not require this, various government
authorities provide various types of “recognition” and the
ICMA must seek these out.
The Membership and Education committee chairmen will discuss
strategies to counter these threats.
The strengths of the Institute of Certified Management
Accountants (Australia) is its education program, and the
resultant highly qualified membership (most Australian CMAs have
masters degrees). Another strength is the range of Membership
Services it offers for what is by far the lowest membership fee
of all professional bodies in Australia.
The weaknesses of the ICMA (Australia) stem from its limited
membership (with only 650 CMAs). The numbers are low mainly due
to its strong insistence of a masters-level education. This has
resulted from not being able to negotiate some much-needed
Membership Services such as Discount Programs, Referral Centers
and Branches in some Australian and Overseas markets.
The ICMA (Aust) also lacks a Professional Journal of its own
(currently beholden to IMA for its Strategic Finance journal)
and does not currently publish any Statements on Management
Accounting (SMAs) although its Cost Management Advisor handbook
provides best-practice guidelines. The Executive recognises
these weaknesses and its slowly addressing them. There have been
some concerns with members wanting a more Australian and Asian
region journal than one from the USA. If members want to comment
on this, please do contact me via our webline.
One response to the journal issue is the Journal of Applied
Management Accounting Research, published by the Institute in
both print and electronic form is now into its second edition.
Members are encouraged to submit papers that will be then
appropriately refereed to ensure that adequate academic and
professional standards are maintained I wish to thank the
Editors and the international panel of referees for their work
in assisting us to create this excellent resource that will
become an important tool for our public face over the coming
years.
Once more I must express my deep gratitude to a hard working
executive and council. It is unfair to single out individuals
but I am sure my colleagues will agree that the input of our
Education and Membership Committee Chairmen, and our Treasurer,
has been remarkable and well beyond the call of duty. I would
also like to thank Sandy Stewart, our Newsletter Editor, and Dr
Themin Suwardy, our webmaster, for their dedication and
professionalism brought to the task. Our biggest gratitude goes,
however, to the husbands, wives, sisters and children of our
members who have voluntarily given hours of their time to assist
with the management of our membership database, the design of
our promotional flyers, and the packaging of our journal.
It is time to bring new blood on to the executive to join
with some of the more seasoned campaigners whom I hope will
continue to serve on the committee. We saw the entry of some new
Councilors last year and they have all contributed
significantly. We are also hoping that more members will avail
themselves of the opportunity and seek to gain election to the
Council.
This coming year we need to make a concerted effort to build
the public profile of the ICMA and this will be the major task
for the incoming executive.
Finally a vote of thanks to our auditor Ben Kaplan (no
relation of Robert) who has once given his time do discharge his
duties very professionally.
Leon Duval
President
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