Changes in the Role of the Management accountant

Until the early 80’s there had been very little change in the skills of the Management accountant but there has been massive changed in the business environment and this raised a lot of criticism. Although the skills of the management accountant have had to change in the past number of years, the traditional skills have become less central yet remain still important. A broader range of skills, not all purely accountancy related, have come into the skills portfolio of a management accountant.

Yasin et Al 2005 presents the new skills of the management account as “Hard & Soft Skills”. The hard skills included a know-how if information technology. With technologies changing all the time a management accountant needs to be able to understand, design & communicate new systems using these technologies. I am not saying they need to be an expert in this field but the MA does not want the business to fall behind others because they cannot (or will not) change their old techniques to suit the change in the business environment. A broad business understanding is also considered a hard skill according to Yasin 2005. The MA needs to understand all areas of the business now, not just the figures and numbers end of it. Production, purchasing, distribution etc, is important now to understand along with the economy changes in the business area specific to where they work.

We are then introduced to the soft skills. The IFAC stated in 2002 that these were the skills that management accountants lacked in the most. Communication skills were one of those skills that seemed to be missing. The importance of being able to communicate their findings in ways that were easy understood by the reader has now become a major skill to be held by a management accountant. Communication is also important in decision making with other management in the company, being able to listen and take on-board other view points and understanding other factors within the business that are not just in the