Are we competent enough totake on

the Digital World ?

CA. R Vittal Raj

The trouble with our times is the future is notwhat it used to be!

-Paul Valery

Flight plan

• How Emerging tech is disrupting industries

• How the professional landscape is changing

• Professionals of the future?!

How valuable are we?

• Most popular services by CMAs

• What value do we deliver?

• How does the business and society look uponus? Why does the world need us?

Tone at the Top matters!

Source: Protiviti Top Risks

CEOSpeak !!

Factory

ML outcomes!

• Google’s DeepMind team has used MLsystems to improve the cooling efficiency atdata centers by more than 15%, even afterthey were optimized by human experts

• ML popular with Wall Street• Pay Pal and Banks use for Anti-Money

laundering and fraud detection• Alexa, Siri, Google Home, Dot!

• Shared Ledger• Smart Contracts

• Privacy• Consensus – No

confirmation!• Books always in agreement!

Source: IBM

Blockchain in action!

• Nasdaq is working with Chain.com, to offer technologyfor processing and validating financial transactions.

• Bank of America, JPMorgan, the New York StockExchange, Fidelity Investments, and StandardChartered are testing blockchain technology as areplacement for paper-based and manual transactionprocessing in such areas as trade finance, foreignexchange, cross-border settlement, and securitiessettlement.

• The Bank of Canada is testing a digital currency calledCAD-coin for interbank transfers.

Blockchain in action!

• Primechain: Blockchain based KYC programme

• Sofocle: Hyperledger based Smart Contracts,Supply chain, Finance, Insurance, Healthcare,and Manufacturing

• EzyRemit – blockchain based B2B remittances• Recordskeeper: blockchain based shared

record keeper to replace google drive and Box

Cryptocurrency – banks may be history

• Internet of Money• P2P money• Eliminates regulator

and all third parties• No costs and delays• Bitcoin accounts are

random QR codes of160 bits

• Rides on public keycryptography

Rick Falkvinge, another bitcoin enthusiastand Founder of the Swedish pirate party,came back with an interesting analogy,“Bitcoin (BTC) will do to banks what emaildid to the postal industry.”

Blockchain applications

• Blockchain government– Elections– Taxation– Citizen services – land records etc.– Governance

• Financial Sector• Logistics• E-commerce

Smart City differentiators

• Intelligent Transportation• Connected Healthcare• Data guided physical security• Wi-Fi – real Big data!• Meshed Critical Infrastructure• Open Data!• E-gov citizen Services• On the go taxes!

Top FiveTechnologiesBuildingsUtilitiesTransportation & road infrastructureDigital Governance

Future of Profession

How to know: Where we are and where weneed to go?

• “Digital Competency Maturity Model (DCMM)for Professional Accounting Firms – Version1.0”

• Provides a framework for self evaluation byaccounting firms of their digital competencymaturity level

• Help evolve your firm’s plan in taking steps tomove up the maturity model.

Three Dimension Approach to Self Evaluate DigitalCompetency of Professional Accounting Firms

a. Level of Automation of the Firm’s internal processes– Intending to cover aspects like, level of usage of IT for it’s own

internal processes like, billing, document management, employeeattendance and work tracking, protecting its digital identity like,domain name, social media presence, etc.

b. Availability of Qualified Resource Pool and Talent Development– relating to Digital Competencies Intending to cover aspects like

number of skilled staff with requisite qualifications, traininginitiatives on IT, On demand Online Training etc.

c. Level of Automation– relating to Audit Processes and Nature of Audit Services being

rendered Level of automation at client’s end, access to automatedaudit tools, training of employees on audit tools, ability to handledigital evidence, Information Technology Audits, etc.

Three Dimension Approach to Self Evaluate DigitalCompetency of Professional Accounting Firms

SECTION A: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF THE FIRM’S INTERNAL PROCESSES

SECTION A: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF THE FIRM’S INTERNAL PROCESSES

SECTION A: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF THE FIRM’S INTERNAL PROCESSES

SECTION A: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF THE FIRM’S INTERNAL PROCESSES

SECTION A: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF THE FIRM’S INTERNAL PROCESSES

Will Today’s Accounting Professionals be anextinct species?

• Costing & Accounting – Integrated/AutonomousSystems across partners

• Financial Systems – collaborative, digitalpayments/block-chain driven, DLTs

• External Audits – Flipkarts, Ubers etc.• Internal/Operational Audits – expanded scope with

technology integrations in scope• Systems Audits – Intelligent IT & security, Self healing

architectures• Taxation & Advisory – Intelligent applications• Auditing in Digital Age – driven by a mesh of Big Data,

Advanced Analytics, AI, Mobility and more

SECTION B: AVAILABILITY OF QUALIFIED RESOURCE POOL ANDTALENT DEVELOPMENT RELATING TO DIGITAL COMPETENCIES

SECTION B: AVAILABILITY OF QUALIFIED RESOURCE POOL ANDTALENT DEVELOPMENT RELATING TO DIGITAL COMPETENCIES

SECTION B: AVAILABILITY OF QUALIFIED RESOURCE POOL ANDTALENT DEVELOPMENT RELATING TO DIGITAL COMPETENCIES

SECTION B: AVAILABILITY OF QUALIFIED RESOURCE POOL ANDTALENT DEVELOPMENT RELATING TO DIGITAL COMPETENCIES

SECTION C: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION RELATING TO AUDIT PROCESSES ANDNATURE OF AUDIT SERVICES BEING RENDERED

SECTION C: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION RELATING TO AUDIT PROCESSES ANDNATURE OF AUDIT SERVICES BEING RENDERED

SECTION C: LEVEL OF AUTOMATION RELATING TO AUDIT PROCESSES ANDNATURE OF AUDIT SERVICES BEING RENDERED

Firm Rating and Evolving Recommendations

• Level 1 Firm: Indicates that the firm is in nascent stagesof adapting ICT and other digital technologies.Recommendation: Take immediate steps to upgrade its digitalcompetency or will be left lagging behind.

• Level 2 Firm: Indicates that the firm has reasonableadaption of ICT and other digital technologies.Recommendation: Take steps to reach the next level ofdigital competency.

• Level 3 Firm: Indicates that the firm has significantadaption of ICT and digital technologies.Recommendation: Focus on increasing score to full points ineach of the sections and to leverage present status to be inthe forefront of use of technologies like, Artificial Intelligenceand innovations like, block chain, use of drones, bots, etc forconducting audit

DCMM ROAD MAP FOR MOVING UP THE NEXT LEVEL OFMATURITY

Accountant of the Future

• Make data science your friend. Knowledge of data life cycler akey differentiator

• Data governance in accounting and financial programs, and inprofessional accountancy firms.

• TTP required to assure on who governs, who manages, whocontrols and is responsible for the acquisition of the data andits integrity.

• Help in dealing with the risk of disruptive technologies• Accounting professionals as Trust brokers will be more

profound, dimension is sure to change

Not far into the future!

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• Nanosensors and theInternet of Nanothings

• Next Generation Batteries• Blockchain• 2-D Materials• Autonomous Vehicles• Organs on chips• Peroskite Solar Cells• Open AI Systems• Optogenetics• Systems Metabolic

Engineering

Takeaways

• The cyber is here to stay and will be more profound!• Newer opportunities are emerging in newer

dimensions, disrupting profession’s conventions• Need to self assess digital competency and move up• Digital competency framework – a good place to

start!• Time to transform to the Digitally competent

professional!

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Your own Self-realization is thegreatest service you can render the

world !

Thank You !!!

vittal@krca.inLinkedin: vittalraj

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