IFRS: A Great Opportunity for Heads-Up Firms

Source: CPA Trendlines

Following are excerpts, reproduced with permission, from a blog post by Rick Telberg.

Many finance and accounting professionals, their firms and companies may be wasting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if they allow their capabilities to stagnate or their skills to go stale. Take, for example, IFRS, short for International Financial Reporting Standards.

In the latest stop-and-go story of the globalized rules, it's, well, if not “stop,” then at least “maybe later than last we thought.” As a result, some firms and corporations are putting their IFRS hiring and training programs on hold.

But that's a big mistake. For one thing, the worldwide demand for IFRS technicians will be huge, according to Craig Walker, accounting and finance practice director for the Mergis recruiting agency. Today, Walker figures there are 12,000 companies in 100 countries that will be on IFRS eventually. Half the Fortune 500 companies have already gotten a head start by beginning to compile a shadow set of statements based on expected IFRS rules.

Firms that are continuing to accumulate IFRS assets are only lengthening their leads over those that aren't. “There's a lot of planning and preparation that goes into getting up to speed with IFRS,” Walker says. “You can't afford to fall behind while everyone else scoops up the knowledgeable people.”

While IFRS represents an opportunity for firms and companies willing to invest early and for 20-something upwardly mobile professionals, it also represents an opportunity, oddly enough, for today's out-of-work senior financial executives.

“There are professionals out there who are studying IFRS, mastering it and actually doing consulting work in it today,” Walker says. “That's going to give them options in the future — either to grow their consulting practice or go back to work in a corporate environment.”

A lot of accountants today had mothers who told them something like: “Become an accountant; you'll always find work.” Walker agrees, and it's even better advice today applied to IFRS.

To read the entire post, click here.

From CPA Trendlines, May 20, 2010, “Are You Missing Next Big Boom in Accounting Careers?”