Today the only constant is change.
Due to evolving technology, globalisation, enterprise and business need;
increasing regulation and compliance plus societal developments,
ever-changing is the new normal for professional accountants.
You can’t afford to stand still in such an environment.
So it’s vital the professional accountants of the future are strategic and forward-thinking.
ACCA qualified accountants are.
They understand the global business landscape and will deliver the right blend of technical, ethical and professional skills
that enterprise, employers, clients and wider society will demand.
Over the past two years we’ve been building on our reputation
of innovation and have developed a ground-breaking design for our Professional-level qualification.
The result?
The ACCA Qualification – the future.
To reinforce our commitment to creating those strategic forward-thinking
professional accountants, here are three of the key changes we’ve made...
The first is Strategic Business Leader
a new and innovative market-leading case study which uniquely blends technical,
ethics and professional skills to develop key competencies from strategy, leadership,
governance and risk, to innovation and sustainable performance management.
The new integrated case study I think has major benefits for the qualification.
First of all, it focuses on the real-life application of accounting,
so I think preparing you for real life is absolutely crucial.
And also, ACCA stands for global excellence in business
and the themes in this case study enable that to come out
and for you to develop that particular excellence.
So I think it’s a really exciting initiative, it’s certainly got a wow factor,
and I think it’s something that students will welcome being able to apply their knowledge to this integrated case study.
This is the natural evolution of the qualification and is really starting to align
the workplace and the qualification, which is absolutely vital as we go forward.
Our second, pivotal change is a world-first – our new and unique Ethics and Professional Skills module.
Building on our pioneering Professional Ethics module,
it continues to develop vitally important ethical behaviour and judgement,
complementing this with the broader communications, commercial, innovation, analysis and evaluation skills essential for career success.
You need to build a moral compass, a strong moral compass, right at the start of your career.
That’s going to serve you well as you go through your career.
And the issues and decisions and judgements become bigger, but you’ll see them right from the start, from day one.
And if you understand what’s the right side of the line and what are the right judgements to make,
that builds credibility, that builds respect in the organisation.
You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you need respect from everyone that you work with, and that’s what that will build.
And if you’ve got that base and that moral compass, then that will hold you in good stead going forward.
Our third key change is the revised Strategic Business Reporting exam,
which goes beyond the current syllabus to cover the complete business reporting environment.
One of the main attractions of the ACCA qualification is it’s reputation to focus on strategy and technical skills.
This new development builds on that strong reputation.
Business reporting has become increasingly important,
so by having an exam in this subject is a great development in itself.
These exciting changes will be introduced in the September 2018 session.
The ACCA Qualification – the future,
is ACCA at it’s best, doing what we do best:
evolving the future of accountancy from the firm foundations of our past.
You can choose the ACCA Qualification with complete confidence because our
research-driven and evolved qualification delivers change without compromise
all of our proven standards of quality, rigour, benchmarking and open access remain.
And we will continue to produce professional accountants with a great combination of
strategic thinking, broad, deep and up-to-date technical skills, the highest ethical standards and a practical, real-world approach.
From a redesigned Strategic Professional level with Strategic Business Leader
an innovative case study blending technical, professional and ethical skills
to the world-first Ethics and Professional Skills module developing a range of professional skills and ethical behaviour,
our evolved qualification will deliver the strategic forward-thinking professional accountants the world needs.
Whether you are a student, member or educator
find out more about the changes, benefits and latest updates by visiting our dedicated microsite at
accaglobal.com/thefuture