Avenues available for CA's in Emerging Indian Economy

We are talking in difficult era of economy; wherein complaining will get us nowhere with negative thoughts; so we shall remain positive to design our career with new avenues. This is the time, we shall reinvent ourselves, and shall focus to design our intellectuals to new dynamic world post Covid, rather than shielding our current job portfolio. Human is inbuilt with specific talent, expertise, likes, abilities etc; only thing is timely redesigning of career matrix makes us fit to the working world. Change is painful and not getting changed is more painful, when your existence is ignored, due to obsolesce; so be adaptive to change.

Like employees, employers are also searching for new avenues for better productivity with lower cost in corona times. People may feel this restrict zone, but we feel its filtration zone for deserving CAs. Covid is greatest ever disaster for manking and its spreading abilities turning the world upside down for a longer period. Large number of industries from capex to opex, are likely to get terribly affected. Cash flows of all businesses eg. Infrastructure, hospitality, banking, tourism, airlines, manufacturing, support services etc will be highly affected; wherein relief will be towards healthcare, online education, cloud working industries etc.

The prefix CA, put before your name is authenticity of a talented and better guided person. Talent is to be proven in bad times, so it’s a wakeup call for all potential talented CAs and finance management professionals, lets prepare your own decision matrix and think on available opportunities. Generally CAs are geared up to assume career in following portfolios :

1. Taxation - Domestic and International

2. Auditing and Statutory practice

3. Management Consultancy Services

4. Project Consultancy

5. Budgeting and Financial management

6. Business management strategies

7. Investment Banking

8. Equity & Debt management services

9. CA to CEO

10. Entrepreneurship

Pre-Covid or Post-Covid, in both scenarios, India was emerging economy with outperforming growth prospects, comparing to economy of developing nations. Post-covid India will be considered as preferred investment destination in manufacturing setup by developed nations across the world and especially migrant industries from China. This will bring bigger opportunities for Chartered Accountants in all verticals of trade and industry. Lockdown period in India has taught new working practices from home, working smartly with remote servers, working with cloud environment, working with informal staffing, working without visiting client’s and customers, working with social meeting apps, working in more dynamic environment.

Negative people consider corona pandemic as hit to economy, but we professionals shall identify, how smartly we have learned so many working strategies sitting at home. Now new business practices will be designed as work from home concept, with reduces manpower infrastructure cost, with lesser travel cost, enhancing working time etc. So be prepared for the same and be flexible enough to adapt all these changes for better productivity within your own periphery. Out of approx. 10 options above, I feel entrepreneurship shall be preferred by CAs in India’s growing economy; wherein automation of processes will be must and will have larger brainstorming field, which can be catered only by CAs. Increasing compliances in Income Tax, GST, MCA, ROC, Banking, SEBI etc. are bringing opportunities in developing new Information Technology tools, Artificial Intelligence, cloud compounding tools to cater employers / clients at very low cost.

Businesses are taking new shape and following new strategies with automated process tools, CAs shall enhance their skills to audit InfoTech processes of these large business groups and MNCs. Startup business needs mentoring from accounting, compliance filings, budgeting, angel funding, PE series A funding etc.; large number of CAs shall target these areas for their job / entrepreneurship. Corona is hitting hard on Europe and USA; bringing more cloud based working to be outsourced from India; CAs must take advantage of this opportunity by learning new skills online and adopt new working avenues, with high margin and bigger volume deliveries. Equity markets will be another big demand job areas for CAs, with their enhanced analytical skills.

Before concluding this article, I will draw your attention; why CA’s cant become CEO (and only target to become CFO). In my management speeches at various professional / social platforms; I take up this subject of CA education syllabus. ICAI syllabus is superb and teaching all of us with all integral aspects of business management, then why CAs develop themselves only in finance and accounting functions; why not develop themselves with extended business management functions. There is no such thing that only management graduates can be CEO, CAs are more qualified and fit for the position of CEO. Most important thing is the managerial skills, as the CEO has to manage the whole organisation, now to attain those managerial skills, keep learning from business surrounding environment and gain expertise. Corona is bringing more opportunities for smart working Chartered Accountants, so lets gear-up to turn new milestones. I always feel pleased to mentor professional colleagues and professionals with my subject knowledge, so we can be contacted thru our email.

Written by :

CA Yogesh Birla

Director
Birla WP Management
visit us at : www.YogeshBirlaCA.blogspot.com