CPA Australia

The View: It’s time to go home

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The following article is reproduced from an article written by Micheal Axelsen and published in CPA Australia’s “InTheBlack” journal, December 2005.  The article is also published under my publications section (it’s an opinion piece, in case you can’t tell).

The View:  It’s time to go home

Home is where the blackberry is?I’m in a coffee shop in Melbourne the morning after Hurricane Katrina hits. In a rather surreal twist I can connect to the internet to chat in online forums with people that had just left the devastated areas, or were in the process of being devastated. Such events lead to cheerful considerations of whether information technology is a universally positive thing, like, say, the invention of low-fat chocolate, or something slightly more sinister. If you had found yourself in such a horrific situation, ask yourself this: “What is the one thing I need when my house is about to be blown away by a hurricane?”. For one person at least, it was to make a post to an online forum and then take his hard drive – with him to the storm shelter.

In walking to this coffee shop from the hotel, I saw three people cross the road while staring fixedly at their mobile phone and texting someone or browsing the internet. One woman was nearly run over and seemed to consider the situation to be a somewhat annoying break in the middle of her conversation.

As further evidence of technology’s strident dictatorship of our lives, I continue to receive emails on that most addictive of devices, the insidious Blackberry even though the office is 2000 km away.

I increasingly find that clients are rushing towards the sweetly seductive promises of technology: that a particular gadget will “make your business more competitive”, that it will “decrease your turnaround time”, and it will “make you productive on the road”.

The salesmen for these mobile torture instruments rarely discuss the side-effects: that you will acquire a nervous tic in your eye every time you hear a high-pitched beep, never be able to completely relax anywhere, or develop a low opinion of those who do not answer their emails within 12.5 seconds.

All that time we spend in the back of taxis, apparently, is what we need to use more productively to keep ourselves effective and on track as the successful advisers to business we CPAs are.

I happen to think that I was already using that downtime effectively, thanks very much. I need it to recharge my batteries to keep interested in the job at hand. As far as my clients are concerned, they deserve to know that I am on top of my game and worth what I am charging them. If I haven’t had time to properly look over their work, or have been constantly distracted by office disasters that someone else should be looking after, I haven’t met their expectations of me as a professional.

We are all human and if you want to achieve the best business results, you need to down tools and go home. Forty or fifty productive hours a week is much better than eighty hours wondering whether your “significant other” would understand if you were to stand them up tonight.

This Christmas, think about the technological tools used in your business. There are definite business benefits to these gadgets and mobile devices – but you need to be careful. If you’re thinking about that gadget in the shiny plastic wrapper, and how desperately you need it, ask yourself how you survived to your current age without it, and then ask how you will really use it. If the answer is “poorly” – then don’t buy it.

Your first rule this summer should be “No Christmas presents that need electricity!”. Buy yourself an abacus if you feel you need to keep in touch with numbers, or do a jigsaw puzzle with your family.

Australian Accounting Review Supplement

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The Australian Accounting Review (Supplement #37, November 2005) issue devoted to information technology/systems issues was released in November. I reproduce a small portion of the supplementary edition editorial (which was co-written by John Campbell, Shauna Kelly, and myself – but mostly John) below:

The traditional objective of accounting is to provide information about the pecuniary affairs of an organisation. While this is largely a historical activity that focuses on past performance, the information that accounting provides also forms a useful basis for future action. In this historical context, information technology is commonly viewed as providing a productivity-enhancing and cost-effective means of storing and monitoring transactions, standardising fundamental accounting operations and facilitating compliance and financial reporting obligations. Information technology has reduced the cost of these traditional accounting functions by facilitating the processing and monitoring of large amounts of information about organisational performance. Despite the accretion of these and other benefits to the profession in general, there still exists a degree of uncertainty about the role of accounting professionals in the selection, use and management of information technology in organisations.

The papers in this special Australian Accounting Review supplement address important aspects of information technology that are of relevance to accounting practitioners and researchers. The supplement has been commissioned by CPA Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Information Technology and Management.*

The call for papers for this special edition attracted a large number of high-quality submissions, making the final selection process difficult. All research papers were peer-reviewed and carefully scrutinised by the Centre of Excellence to ensure that those selected for publication reflect the diversity of information technology issues relevant to the profession. The papers that follow deal with a broad range of topics, from discussion and research on IT governance, the impact of IT on business models, electronic business evaluation and adoption, information systems audit and control, IT investment decision-making and strategic planning in government agencies.

You can access this online through CPA Australia, or sometimes authors will provide copies upon request.

Feature articles from the November 2005 edition of Australian Accounting Review (Supplement #37 only) include:

Editorial: information technology – impacts and implications for accounting
Editorial for edition 37 of the Australian Accounting Review information technology supplement.

IT governance – are boards and business executives interested onlookers or committed participants?
This paper looks at what has to be governed and what IT governance needs to encompass to be effective, examines some of the issues of current IT governance practices from boardroom and business perspectives.

IT investment practices in large Australian firms
This review explores the procedures used by large Australian firms during the four major decisionmaking stages of the IT investment cycle: planning, evaluation, implementation and postimplementation review.

The social dimension of business and IS/IT alignment: case studies of six public-sector organisations
This paper presents the results of a study of the social dimension of the alignment of business strategy with information systems and information technology.

The pervasiveness of information and communication technology: its effects on business models and implications for the accounting profession
This paper discusses the main challenge that confronts firms because of the continued development in information and communication technologies (ICT) is the reduction in information asymmetry as product markets become increasingly information driven.

Consideration of options from an entrepreneuria, technical and operational perspective – an e-business design framework approach
This paper draws upon the emergent knowledge of e-business, together with traditional strategy theory, and provide a simple framework for the evaluation of business models for e-business.

The effect of e-commerce adoption on small/medium enterprise industry structure, competitive advantage and long-term profitability
This paper seeks to evaluate the relationship between e-commerce adoption and long-term profitability in small/medium enterprises (SMEs).

Information systems audit and control issues for enterprise management systems: qualitative evidence
This paper presents the results of a study on how the introduction of such software creates a new set of information systems audit and control problems.

Supplement on information technology
This issue of Australian Accounting Review is accompanied by a special supplement dedicated to new research work on Information Technology and Management.

Enterprise resource planning systems – implications for managers and management
This paper analyses the implications of enterprise resource planning systems for organisations in general and for managers and professionals in particular.

Feel free to email me if you you need details – these articles can usually be purchased through CPA Australia if you are not a subscriber.

CPA PNG Photos

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I did promise to post some photos from CPA PNG. The below photos, hopefully, communicate some of the breadth of the conference.


This photo shows Jim Dickson with Peter Pokawin – Jim is being awarded his fellowship of CPA PNG. Jim is CPA Australia’s International Director, and this was his fifth (?) trip to the conference – although it has been a while due to a small bout of Ross River fever.

Peter is the President of CPA PNG, and all of us on that trip should thank Peter and CPA PNG for their never-ending hospitality and ability to make us – the interlopers from Australia – feel welcome.
James Kruse, a partner from Deloitte PNG, is presenting Colin Clarke (Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at Victoria University) with his gifts as a presenter to the conference in the photo below, although knowing James one is uncertain as to exactly what he’s going to find in that bag…


And Colin, James, and Bob Wheeler (Executive Officer of CPA PNG) in post-speech euphoria:

More photos will be posted as events warrant.

Presentation for CPA PNG

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My presentation slides from the CPA PNG conference, as promised in my previous post, have now been loaded up here on my blog (they’re available in PDF). Also the text of the speech is available here as a PDF as well (although it does lack my impromptu embellishments).

I very much enjoyed the opportunity to see an emerging profession in PNG, and it gives a bit of encouragement sitting back here in Brisbane where security guards are few and far between and it’s reasonably likely that water and power supplies will be kept going indefinitely. The members of the profession there have a big challenge but with people like Chris, Lucy, Lia and Leeanne (? unfortunately they’re the only names I recall, the Pondo Tavern was very dark and smoky and a few non-accounting sherbets may have been involved ?) the profession does have a bright beacon there.

And a big thank-you to CPA Australia & CPA PNG for the opportunity to present, and maybe one day I’ll get the opportunity again.

Welcome from Sunny PNG

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It has been a long time between posts – this seems to be the downfall of most bloggers.

Some time ago I was asked by CPA Australia to present on the topic ‘Management Information Reporting, including the IT Aspects’ at the annual CPA Australia/CPA PNG joint conference in Port Moresby. I accepted despite the trepidation one gets when you know you’ll have a 10-week-old baby, as well as a fractious two-year old, to look after (or rather, that you will have to leave with your loving wife when you go overseas!).

This blog post is coming from PNG (Crowne Plaza Hotel). I am here with Jim Dickson (International Director CPA Australia), Professor Colin Clarke (Vice President CPA Australia), and Patrick Hoiberg (former ‘king poobah’ of the ICAA),

The conference started yesterday with an opening by Jim Dickson and a keynote address by Colin Clarke, and then my presentation (after morning tea, of course).

The reaction seems to have been very positive (the audience was very kind, all 600 of them!), and I enjoyed giving the speech although we ran out of time for questions at the end (I had planned on an hour and a quarter but I had not reckoned on the logistics of the situation – getting 600 people to their seats is no easy task so every session tends to start late). If I can coax Jim Dickson to give me some photos, I will post them online here (tends to brighten up a blog!).

The IT Governance guide has rated a mention or two along the way, and everyone who has seen it has been very impressed. Jan Barned tells me sales have probably gone into the 200s already, which is very impressive for a newly launched guide. I understand I have a launch luncheon to attend on 1st December in Melbourne – so that should be good.

When I have access to my web storage (when I get back to Brisbane on Sunday) I will post the presentation slides and the text of my speech as near as I can get it, and we’ll have that sorted then.

It’s been very energising in PNG, and it seems to have been worth it.