Are you a number lover? Are you a number genius?
You think it is odd that you spend more time playing with numbers than with a cricket ball?
Think again as few years down the line you might be the most sought after in the job world!
A study released by CareerCast.com, a job site that evaluated 200 professions on five criteria: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress, determined that the best of the jobs is of mathematicians!
Mathematics as we know had been a part and parcel of the business world since the inception of trade. However, for a long time it had been practiced only to maintain logs and keep an account of loss and profit. Of late accountancy has undergone as huge a transformation as the business world itself not only in its terminology but also in its scope.
Performing complex and lengthy numerical calculations or determining something by mathematical or logical methods is now known as Number Crunching. Huge calculations or number crunching has found new avenues of work. An employee with the gift of calculations can look at any of the following fields to make a mark according to his own interests.
• Insurance or financial planning: For those who dislike compliance but enjoy solving problems, these professions would allow one to find solutions on a more year-round basis.
• Actuarial science: For those who have the ability to assess the financial impact of an uncertain future event.
• Technical compliance: Those who love research and following regulations and codes, working in a technical compliance role at a private company could be a good match.
• Operational accounting: This could be a fit for professionals interested in the process-driven approach to accounting but tired of the finance aspect.
• Risk management: A strong demand for risk-management pros exists across an array of industries.
• Inventory manager: Responsibilities include forecasting sales, which may make it an attractive option for those who like the tax-planning aspect of accounting.
• Tech implementation: CPAs who like to crunch tech as much as numbers, working on a company’s global implementation of software might be a more appropriate fit.
Accountants are also needed in the media, arts, retail and the public sector.
Scope of Number Crunching:
It is no revelation then that graduates with finance specialization are the most sought after in the market. With an opportunity thrown at them to work with the leading banks, Non-banking Finance Companies and Finance Companies other than Banks, these students have a wide spectrum of fields to venture into. Gone are the days when accountants were stereotyped as shy people who are good at doing taxes and balancing books but somewhat inept when it comes to dealing with people or business directly. By the numbers 23% of top officers (chair, CEO, president, CFO, COO and corporate secretary) in Report on Business (ROB) Top 1000 companies were chartered accountants in 2006 while it went up to 61% in 2010.
“The qualifications of an accountant are highly desirable today for companies looking to fill a CEO position” says Peter Grech, managing director at Grech Associates Executive Search Inc., an executive recruitment firm in Toronto. In the wake of corporate scandals, executives with financial education are more marketable as CEOs because they’re viewed as someone who can be held to a higher level of accountability.Many companies see mergers and acquisitions as critical to survival and growth, and having a CEO with a strong grasp of financial structures and the ability to read meaning into the numbers on a financial statement can give a company a distinct edge in complex business deals. CEOs are particularly valuable during tough economic times, when companies must often make cuts to their operations. Having someone at the helm who truly understands the financial implications of each decision can make a huge difference, he says.
Today’s accountants thus are a new breed of professionals, many are strong managers, entrepreneurs and business strategists, and they’re taking on broader roles in their companies.
Number crunching in India especially in the government sector has also undergone a sea change. The Indian Economic Service (IES) offers excellent growth prospects. Moreover, in today’s rapidly globalising environment, one could play an important role in major policy decisions of the government. The Indian Statistical Service (ISS) and the Subordinate Statistical Service (SSS), currently employs 3,344 people and faces a staff shortage of 30% implying that in this field demand always exceeds supply.
Number Crunching has opened up new avenues of outsourcing and thus job opportunities. New Zealand may have 30,000 chartered accountants, but an increasing portion of its number-crunching is being done in India.
At least two New Zealand accountancy firms, including Polson Higgs, have been progressively outsourcing back-office accounting to India, taking advantage of cheaper labour and different time-zones. Polson Higgs has 120 staff in Christchurch and Dunedin and seven chartered accountants in Coimbatore. Auckland firm Gilligan Sheppard has also out-sourced back-office accounting to India in the past three years and has started offering the service directly to small-scale rural accounting firms through a related company, Connect Accounting. Connect Accountants has 50 chartered accountants in Chandigarh.
Getting Started
Apart from an ability to crunch numbers, one would also need a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and commerce from any university to become an accounts professional. Once that is completed, one can do an internship or start off as an assistant to any reputed chartered accountant or join any business at an entry level job.
Some institutions like banks may insist on a professional degree like an MBA or CA. Others require a basic graduate/post graduate qualification, but with the necessary knowledge and skills.
It is possible to be extremely successful in finance without a master’s degree from a top-ranked school. Some areas of finance, particularly relationship management and sales, only require the knowledge of basics. One’s people and sales skills will allow them to succeed. However anyone eyeing at developing adaptive quantitative trading or economic models, will need a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) at the minimum, with top jobs usually going to holders of doctorates in math, statistics, economics or finance.
The most sought after professional degree in the Commerce stream is Chartered Accountancy. In India, only Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is legislatively competent to award the degree of CA. The Institute has its headquarters at New Delhi. In addition, it has five Regional Councils located in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kanpur and New Delhi and 116 Branches spread all over the country. Common Proficiency Test (CPT) is an entry level test for Chartered Accountancy Course. It is a test of four subjects i.e., Accounting, Mercantile Laws, General Economics and Quantitative Aptitude. A student may register with the Board of Studies of the Institute for Common Proficiency Test (CPT) after passing Class 10 examination and may appear for the same after appearing in the 10+2 examination. After passing CPT and 10+2 one may join the Chartered Accountancy Course.
In the Government sector, ISS is the senior service and SSS, the junior one. One will need a post-graduate degree in maths or statistics or economics to apply for ISS. SSS applicants need to have a graduate degree in these subjects.
To become an actuary, one must be a Fellow of a recognised professional examining body like the Actuarial Society of India (ASI), Mumbai or the Institute of Actuaries, London. The Institute of Actuaries Of India (IAI or formally ASI) is the only professional body of Actuaries in India.
The Road Ahead…
The most important part of any professional education is the scope to earn and grow. In the accounting business, sky is the limit in terms of money one can make. There is no dearth of opportunities in the industry. But it solely depends upon the individual approach to grab them coupled with one’s own interest, willingness to work, and of course the willingness to learn.
People with accounting skills can work anywhere. Recognizing the skills that go beyond number crunching is important when considering career paths that deviate from the traditional CA trajectory. There’s a range of fields where the skills of a certified accountant can apply from risk management to recruiting, making a career change possible. People with inclination towards soft skills or people management also find their calling in marketing, human resources, client acquisition and development.
On a lighter note, one can say that accounting is a great employment option because this is one of those jobs where, one can always send in a fat bill to the client irrespective of the amount of time spent on the work!
You think it is odd that you spend more time playing with numbers than with a cricket ball?
Think again as few years down the line you might be the most sought after in the job world!
A study released by CareerCast.com, a job site that evaluated 200 professions on five criteria: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress, determined that the best of the jobs is of mathematicians!
Mathematics as we know had been a part and parcel of the business world since the inception of trade. However, for a long time it had been practiced only to maintain logs and keep an account of loss and profit. Of late accountancy has undergone as huge a transformation as the business world itself not only in its terminology but also in its scope.
Performing complex and lengthy numerical calculations or determining something by mathematical or logical methods is now known as Number Crunching. Huge calculations or number crunching has found new avenues of work. An employee with the gift of calculations can look at any of the following fields to make a mark according to his own interests.
• Insurance or financial planning: For those who dislike compliance but enjoy solving problems, these professions would allow one to find solutions on a more year-round basis.
• Actuarial science: For those who have the ability to assess the financial impact of an uncertain future event.
• Technical compliance: Those who love research and following regulations and codes, working in a technical compliance role at a private company could be a good match.
• Operational accounting: This could be a fit for professionals interested in the process-driven approach to accounting but tired of the finance aspect.
• Risk management: A strong demand for risk-management pros exists across an array of industries.
• Inventory manager: Responsibilities include forecasting sales, which may make it an attractive option for those who like the tax-planning aspect of accounting.
• Tech implementation: CPAs who like to crunch tech as much as numbers, working on a company’s global implementation of software might be a more appropriate fit.
Accountants are also needed in the media, arts, retail and the public sector.
Scope of Number Crunching:
It is no revelation then that graduates with finance specialization are the most sought after in the market. With an opportunity thrown at them to work with the leading banks, Non-banking Finance Companies and Finance Companies other than Banks, these students have a wide spectrum of fields to venture into. Gone are the days when accountants were stereotyped as shy people who are good at doing taxes and balancing books but somewhat inept when it comes to dealing with people or business directly. By the numbers 23% of top officers (chair, CEO, president, CFO, COO and corporate secretary) in Report on Business (ROB) Top 1000 companies were chartered accountants in 2006 while it went up to 61% in 2010.
“The qualifications of an accountant are highly desirable today for companies looking to fill a CEO position” says Peter Grech, managing director at Grech Associates Executive Search Inc., an executive recruitment firm in Toronto. In the wake of corporate scandals, executives with financial education are more marketable as CEOs because they’re viewed as someone who can be held to a higher level of accountability.Many companies see mergers and acquisitions as critical to survival and growth, and having a CEO with a strong grasp of financial structures and the ability to read meaning into the numbers on a financial statement can give a company a distinct edge in complex business deals. CEOs are particularly valuable during tough economic times, when companies must often make cuts to their operations. Having someone at the helm who truly understands the financial implications of each decision can make a huge difference, he says.
Today’s accountants thus are a new breed of professionals, many are strong managers, entrepreneurs and business strategists, and they’re taking on broader roles in their companies.
Number crunching in India especially in the government sector has also undergone a sea change. The Indian Economic Service (IES) offers excellent growth prospects. Moreover, in today’s rapidly globalising environment, one could play an important role in major policy decisions of the government. The Indian Statistical Service (ISS) and the Subordinate Statistical Service (SSS), currently employs 3,344 people and faces a staff shortage of 30% implying that in this field demand always exceeds supply.
Number Crunching has opened up new avenues of outsourcing and thus job opportunities. New Zealand may have 30,000 chartered accountants, but an increasing portion of its number-crunching is being done in India.
At least two New Zealand accountancy firms, including Polson Higgs, have been progressively outsourcing back-office accounting to India, taking advantage of cheaper labour and different time-zones. Polson Higgs has 120 staff in Christchurch and Dunedin and seven chartered accountants in Coimbatore. Auckland firm Gilligan Sheppard has also out-sourced back-office accounting to India in the past three years and has started offering the service directly to small-scale rural accounting firms through a related company, Connect Accounting. Connect Accountants has 50 chartered accountants in Chandigarh.
Getting Started
Apart from an ability to crunch numbers, one would also need a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and commerce from any university to become an accounts professional. Once that is completed, one can do an internship or start off as an assistant to any reputed chartered accountant or join any business at an entry level job.
Some institutions like banks may insist on a professional degree like an MBA or CA. Others require a basic graduate/post graduate qualification, but with the necessary knowledge and skills.
It is possible to be extremely successful in finance without a master’s degree from a top-ranked school. Some areas of finance, particularly relationship management and sales, only require the knowledge of basics. One’s people and sales skills will allow them to succeed. However anyone eyeing at developing adaptive quantitative trading or economic models, will need a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) at the minimum, with top jobs usually going to holders of doctorates in math, statistics, economics or finance.
The most sought after professional degree in the Commerce stream is Chartered Accountancy. In India, only Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is legislatively competent to award the degree of CA. The Institute has its headquarters at New Delhi. In addition, it has five Regional Councils located in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kanpur and New Delhi and 116 Branches spread all over the country. Common Proficiency Test (CPT) is an entry level test for Chartered Accountancy Course. It is a test of four subjects i.e., Accounting, Mercantile Laws, General Economics and Quantitative Aptitude. A student may register with the Board of Studies of the Institute for Common Proficiency Test (CPT) after passing Class 10 examination and may appear for the same after appearing in the 10+2 examination. After passing CPT and 10+2 one may join the Chartered Accountancy Course.
In the Government sector, ISS is the senior service and SSS, the junior one. One will need a post-graduate degree in maths or statistics or economics to apply for ISS. SSS applicants need to have a graduate degree in these subjects.
To become an actuary, one must be a Fellow of a recognised professional examining body like the Actuarial Society of India (ASI), Mumbai or the Institute of Actuaries, London. The Institute of Actuaries Of India (IAI or formally ASI) is the only professional body of Actuaries in India.
The Road Ahead…
The most important part of any professional education is the scope to earn and grow. In the accounting business, sky is the limit in terms of money one can make. There is no dearth of opportunities in the industry. But it solely depends upon the individual approach to grab them coupled with one’s own interest, willingness to work, and of course the willingness to learn.
People with accounting skills can work anywhere. Recognizing the skills that go beyond number crunching is important when considering career paths that deviate from the traditional CA trajectory. There’s a range of fields where the skills of a certified accountant can apply from risk management to recruiting, making a career change possible. People with inclination towards soft skills or people management also find their calling in marketing, human resources, client acquisition and development.
On a lighter note, one can say that accounting is a great employment option because this is one of those jobs where, one can always send in a fat bill to the client irrespective of the amount of time spent on the work!
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