They have always been closely linked IMO but I’ve enjoyed my time in accounting but telling the story of data has really captivated me, ever since I heard of Big Data circa 2013 – 2015, I have felt a pull to it.
I’ve tried to push this desire aside but it’s clear, my enjoyment of consuming information and relaying it in my own words, keeps me engaged.
I believe with Data you can improve products/services and make money, sharing data benefits everyone, concealing data keeps us blind and births distrust and conspiracies.
Google is a great example of how data has changed our lives, it’s mission is to ‘organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’.
I can say they are achieving this, I’m older than Google and the mainstream use of the internet, Google has given us a world of information for free and it uses algorithms behind the scenes to improve the information we receive.
We use the data provided by Google to help us in our corporate and everyday lives, whether it be searching an Excel formula or searching for adventure days, search engines are our lives and the internet at some point will have to become a human right, as you can’t function without it.
I once worked with a Finance Director, he said one of the most interesting things to me, he wanted our accounts department to be more like Apple, easy to use and understand, as he explained his vision to me, I got it straight away.
A previous Accounts Payable Manager in the same company once told me “if you don’t move forward with technology, then you are standing still, and by standing still you’re falling behind”, I couldn’t agree more.
ACCA and AAT have mentioned big data to us for years and whilst new accounting practices have improved in the services they offer, data analytics in general still feels like an after thought and to be fair, accountants do have a lot going on; in some roles, you can often feel like you are firefighting as an accountant which can make taking on more feel like an unnecessary burden.
It doesn’t have to be something too frustrating, I helped a company save on shipping costs because I was able to provide useful insight on their shipping, granted, I did this as a side project on my own time but the results were worth it, my analytical skills helped them save money and is a small example of what embracing Data can do.
My Thoughts:
The two careers are not as far apart as you may think, I would argue that accountants are in a great position to change into data related roles with the strongest candidates being those that worked in Financial Performance & Analysis or Management Accounting.
These two roles often have you explaining what’s happening with the company finances, and as story telling is a huge part of data, we have the software skills as many of us live with Excel, Power BI and SQL which are good starting points for data collation.
If you have the capacity, start trying to find unused data in the company and start looking for insights that are useful to the business, DO NOT report for reporting sake.
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