CHANGING ROLES.

The new economy is creating a new generation of CMAs

When [grave{E}]ve Mailhot obtained her CMA designation in 1988, she had already been an assistant controller for a small Montreal firm for two years. Her job was limited to preparing reports, budgets and a string of financial statements. In short, she was dong the work of a traditional accountant and spent her days crunching numbers.

Today, Mailhot is a consultant with Groupe Performance, a division of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton that specializes in providing corporate consulting services. She is part of a multitalented team that includes accountants, engineers, computer specialists, management specialists and human resources management specialists.

Recently, Ms. Mailhot's services were enlisted by one of the practice's clients, a large metallurgy manufacturer with sales in the $150 million range. The company wanted to decentralize its decision-making process at the plant level and conduct a top-to-bottom review of its information system architecture. "I first met with the company president and vice-president at the head office in Montreal," says Mailhot, "and we've met a number of times over the last few months. These discussions allowed me to understand the company's needs, determine the tools available, and make the appropriate decisions."

There is no doubt that Mailhot's role has changed considerably over the last 10 years. Now, at 37, she is involved in making strategic decisions, and no longer does traditional accounting, although she does use her accounting knowledge to understand the internal corporate environments. With her new role, she interacts regularly with senior management, in addition to explaining and transmitting decisions to executives and employees. "It is only now that I finally have the impression I am applying everything I learned back in school," she comments.

Has Mailhot's career followed a normal progression, or is it the result of an evolution in the CMA profession? According to a study published in the United States in August 1999 by The Gary Siegel Organization Inc., the role of management accountants is very different now from what it was in the early 1980s. Back then, CMAs were stuck in accounting support positions, they were not involved in the decision-making process, and they spent most of their time on the mechanical aspects of accounting. "They have become the decision support specialists," says Siegel, author of the study and accounting professor at DePaul University.

Technology today has changed everything. Powerful accounting software programs -- also known as "killer applications"-- produced by the Oracles, PeopleSofts and SAPs of the world, make it possible for large companies to close their books almost immediately. What used to take weeks to produce now requires only a few minutes. "On some systems, as soon as you enter a transaction, the general ledger is automatically updated," explains Debra Stafford, vice-president of information technologies at The TDL Group, owners of the Tim Horton's chain.

Consequently, management accountants spend less time preparing reports and more time analyzing and interpreting information. Even better still, many of them have moved from the accounting departments to the heart of the company -- the operations and production departments. CMAs of the new millennium work in teams, interact personally at all levels of the organization, and advise senior management.

Annie Desnoyers is a good example of this new generation of CMAs. Desnoyers, 30, obtained her designation in 1995 and spent four years at the National Film Board. By the end of her employment at NFB, she had become accounting supervisor and was involved for two years in implementing the Oracle accounting system. "That is when I became interested in new technologies," she says. Desnoyers has since moved away from traditional accounting and into the realm of information technology. For two and a half years now, she has been an information technology consultant with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Montreal. Her role is to provide advice and implement large Oracle accounting systems in big companies.

Since March 1999, Denoyers, along with a team of and about 10 other consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers, have been working with senior executives and financiers off-site at a cable broadcasting company in Montreal. Part of her job is to review the firm's accounting processes, or "process re-engineering," as it has come to be called. Naturally, her accounting background has been useful for this project, as Desnoyers is the team leader for implementing the accounting modules for project costs, accounts payable and fixed assets. "We have to make sure that we follow generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)," she says.

One of the reasons Denoyers became a CMA was to find a more stimulating job than that of a traditional accountant. "As a CMA, you do a lot of different things that change from month to month. It is much more enriching as a job. Just doing accounting is boring!" Louiselle Paquin, a CMA and first vice-president of finance and protfolio management for SITQ, a large real estate promoter in Montreal, agrees. "Accounting is not a goal in itself," she says. "It is primarily the company's language, a toolbox that allows us to function." And in her opinion, that is the beauty of being a CMA: a different, more versatile profile, not just a person who produces financial information.

CMA Canada has anticipated and responded to the profession's evolution by changing the way its management development program is taught.

Now known as the Strategic Leadership Program, it equips the prospective CMA with the strategic management capabilities demanded by today's leading enterprises. The program integrates and enhances skills in strategic thinking, operations management, marketing and information technology, using the life cycle of a product or service to test new ideas and practices.

CMA Canada's Quebec partner was a pioneer in evolving the CMA Management development program, beginning to adapt it to the needs of Quebec-based CMAs in the early 1990s.

"The Quebec Order completely revolutionized its professional program," says Louiselle Paquin. "It was a conscious effort to redefine CMAs as managers in their own right, and not simply as cost specialists."

The [acute{E}]cole des Hautes [acute{E}]tudes Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal also examined the issue and developed a "control" option in the masters program that can be substituted for the professional program. But unlike the basic program in the bachelor's degree, this one emphasizes the learning of skills that are considered to be essential today. "Eighty percent of the courses in the program focus on management," says Hugues Boisvert, a CMA and full professor at HEC. "The students learn about better communication, a sense of leadership, the importance of strategy, and so forth."

Today, the increase in the number of accounting students who are obtaining their CMA designation clearly shows that the changes in CMA Canada's management development program are being met with success. As an example, in 1985, 95% of the students in accounting sciences at HEC were aiming to become CAs, while only 5% chose the CMA designation. Over the past 10 years, however, these statistics have dramatically changed; currently, 50% of the accounting students at HEC are taking the CMA route.

Rene Lewandowski is a Montreal-based freelance writer.

An Evolution in the Making

The results of Gary Siegel's study -- based on interviews with 300 management accountants -- reveals about 20 criteria that confirm that the rote of CMAs has become considerably more appealing:

- The value that CMAs bring to the organization is rising. Most of the CMAs interviewed said that other members outside finance now see their contribution to the company as more valuable than in the past.

- Communication with people from other departments has increased. Management accountants spend more time communicating now than they did five years ago.

- Business decisions are better. In companies where CMAs are seen as business partners, there are many cases that suggest that better business decisions have been made.

- Teamwork has grown. Over 50% of management accountants now work in cross-functional teams and many have leading roles.

- The type of work has changed. Over 80% of CMAs spend a large part of their time analyzing information and taking part in decisions. And most of them anticipate they will be spending even more time doing this type of activity over the next three years.

- The work is more exciting. The CMAs appreciate their new status. This sense of excitement is evident in the way they describe their involvement in the company.

- The name of the profession has become obsolete. The term "management accountant" still exists in academic literature, but it is used less and less in real life. CMAs see themselves more as "finance" people -- either as analysts, business partners, managers or controllers.

- Skills to Learn. For newcomers to this dynamic environment, the most important skills are good oral and written communication, the ability to work in a team, a good basic understanding of the accounting sciences, and, especially, an understanding of how the "business" works.

- Strategic planning and process improvement are the two most important activities for a company. The majority of CMAs share this belief; however, they also feel that these topics are not being taught enough in universities.