Accounting Industry Trends and Professional Requirements

This assignment provides an overview of the accounting industry in Australia, focusing on the growing demand for professionals due to multinational companies' dependence on accounting firms for auditing and advisory services. The cloud-based availability of many SMEs is also discussed, highlighting the impact on technology and professional requirements in the accounting sector.

Running head: ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Australian Labour Market, Creative Job Seeking, Intercultural Theories
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Executive summary
The study is aimed at understanding the labour market in Australia in specific to the accounting
industry. The study finds some interesting facts such as automation of few accounting tasks. The
automation is helping to produce ample of leads which can be done if industry has sufficient
number of accounting professionals. The study also finds other industries as leaning towards the
various accounting firms across the globe to get the auditing services done. Advisory services are
also being done by accounting firms. Moreover, the paper also highlights the few intercultural
challenges which are quite common to contemporary workplace.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction:................................................................................................................................3
2. Body:............................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Australian labour market trends for the Accounting industry:..............................................3
2.2 Career opportunities in the Australian Labour Market and Accounting industry:................5
2.3 Recruitment agencies in the Accounting industry:................................................................6
2.4 Intercultural challenges:.........................................................................................................7
2.5 Recommendations: creative job seeking plan........................................................................9
3. Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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1. Introduction:
The accounting industry is being in the limelight for reasons which are not a good sign
for the industry. The different kinds of digital disruption in recent times are believed as potential
threats to few accounting related tasks. Such tasks are now being automated with the help of
technological disruption. Robots now can perform audit roles in larger firms. On the other hand,
the cloud-based technology has outplayed several transactional accounting works at the global
level across a number of industries (Burritt and Christ 2016). On the other hand, the Australian
labour market has shown positive signs in recent years in the accounting industry. There has
been strong recruitment in accounting and finance industry in Australia. Such a renewed market
experience is a welcome boost for the job seekers across the country (Burritt and Christ 2016).
It is expected that coming years might also see the same kind of increment in the
accounting industry. For job seekers who belong to the finance department, they might get
preferred more for contract roles. Contractual basis job provides a good platform to learn the
accounting related activities through various new projects which is important for a better
professional career in accounting (O’Leary 2017).
This assignment is purposefully aimed at identifying the opportunities in the accounting
industry in the Australian labour market. This is so because the learner belongs to the accounting
industry and has intended to pursue their career in the accounting related jobs.
2. Body:
2.1 Australian labour market trends for the Accounting industry:

4ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
According to a report from IBIS World, the accounting industry in Australia has
witnessed a modest growth in the past five years. This is largely due to positive business
confidence and incrementing demands for industry definite advisory services (Ibisworld.com.au
2018). Audit services have remained as the one factor which the accounting industry has
focussed a lot in the past five years. This is for a reason that such services require the governance
of law which can be best managed by accounting firms. Advisory services were another high-
point that clients irrespective of their industries have relied over accounting firms to get solutions
on accounting challenges. Nevertheless, clients rely on accounting firms to access the advisory
services in order to measure the total revenues at the different quarter of the same year
(Ibisworld.com.au 2018). The dependency of clients on accounting firms have increased and
with that, the competition in the accounting industry has also soared. Consequently, accounting
firms are now switching to different technologies like data analytics and cloud-based computing
to be ahead of others and attract the clients (Ibisworld.com.au 2018).
In future, there are few trends which are giving a new dimension to the accounting
industry in Australia. Cloud-based accounting firms are a growing concern at the global level
and also in Australia. It is a good time for accounting firms to capitalize on the opportunities
before it becomes a common affair to every single accounting firm in Australia. This is when an
accounting firm can actually attract clients and help its business to flourish (Rajiv, Chu and Jiang
2015). A large number of SMEs are expected to be in the cloud, hence, this is a real chance to
attract the clients for numerous services like the advisory and the auditing services (Rajiv, Chu
and Jiang 2015). The starting salaries are increasing which means the number of graduates might
find accounting as their choice of industry (Rajiv, Chu and Jiang 2015). Advisory services are
more in demand. Clients from different industries are looking for advisory firms which are a

5ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
good sign for accounting firms in Australia and also at the global level (Osmani et al. 2015).
This means that the future of accounting industry might see some positive trends in the form of
technological advancement like the cloud-based accounting services. The other services like the
auditing and the advisory are other heights which are bound to boost the accounting industry in
nearing future.
2.2 Career opportunities in the Australian Labour Market and Accounting industry:
Australia like the other countries is at the boom in regards to the growth in the accounting
industry. Automation is helping the industry to witness a transformational change. Such change
has necessitated the urgency to have candidates with sound analytical skills, so that, rising
demands for professionals could be satisfied. The modern accountant is not just limited to works
like balance sheets and provides strategic trade insights. They are now required to think of tasks
beyond that. Robots are taking up the audit responsibilities. Cloud-based technology is replacing
the many transactional accounting jobs. However, despite the automation, there are ample of
opportunities for accounting students (Faggian, Corcoran and Rowe 2016).
Automation has changed the work related responsibilities of accounting professionals in
Australia. More and more clients are now heading for accounting firms to get their works done.
They approach accounting firms for auditing based services. There are many SMEs which are
open to working with the accounting professionals. They hire graduates on a contractual basis.
Such jobs are good opportunities for accounting graduates. They at their career start get explored
to a wide range of accounting projects which beautifully support their learning period. Such
exploration is necessary to get used to different accounting related challenges (Nagano 2014).

6ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
There is a number of SMEs which are going to the cloud-based system. It means
opportunities are ample for accounting firms and the accounting graduates in Australia. They
may supposedly be approached by a large number of SMEs to get their issues done. The
accounting industry can be said as evolving and are setting better trends for future. A lot of
technological changes are happening in the industry. Consequently, the nature of accounting
work is also evolving. Additionally, repeated tasks are being automated which means a lot more
tasks are being left over for professionals who with their utmost capabilities in analytical
thinking are becoming an asset (Jackson 2014). It was previously the case that accounting
graduates had a very minimal exposure to the accounting projects at the start of their career.
However, this is also changing and making up ways for the graduates to utilize the opportunities.
Now, the graduates can expectedly get better opportunities to groom their career as accounting
professionals and perform added responsibilities in the with the help of analytical skills (Jackson
2014).
2.3 Recruitment agencies in the Accounting industry:
Recruitment agencies have been one of the most preferred choices for employers when
they look for a graduate professional in accounting positions. This is for several reasons like
recruitment firms do a lot more filtration before they present their selected graduates to the
respective employer. Such respective organizations can then proceed with their set of
requirements fulfilling which graduates are eligible to work with them. The best part of referring
to consulting agencies is they do release a bit of pressure from the overhead of the organizational
human resource. They used to have many other challenges to take care of those. By preferring to
consulting agencies they are just reducing their work pressure and are able to concentrate more
on some other issues which are more critical to organizational operations (Okoro 2014). On the

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other hand, consulting agencies compete with each other in regards to attracting more and more
clients. This is only possible if they have better proven track record of quality recruitment and
also they have the competitive technologies to support their operational objectives (Okoro 2014).
There are quite a few consulting agencies that are providing top notch assistance to their
clients. One of such agencies is Cox Purtell which is currently based in Sydney. It came into
existence in the year 1994, since then, they had not looked back and had continued to pile up the
story of success (Cox Purtell 2018). They are a team of experienced and knowledgeable experts
who are supporting and carrying the operational vision of the agency. They are different to others
with respect to the service they deliver. This is also why they have positive reviews from their
clients and the customers (Cox Purtell 2018). Richard Lloyd is another recruitment agency
which is specialized in recruiting professionals in the accounting positions. They opened up in
the year 2008 and since then, they are defining new ways to glory. They are one of the leading
recruitment agencies in Sydney as few of their accounting recruiters do even have over 70 years
of joint experience in recruitment. They have been providing one of the largest networks to
accounting professionals in Sydney. They are one of the best solutions for the clients and also for
the accounting professionals in the region (Richardlloyd.com.au 2018).
2.4 Intercultural challenges:
Competition has now increased and that can also be observed in the workplace. Apart
from different factors for which graduates compete for, cultural interaction is one of those. To be
more specific, it can be said that they do face the challenge when they start their career in the
workplace. They find the challenge in the form of culture which is vividly distributed in the
different formats of firms. It increases in severity with the size of the organization that means

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multinational companies offer greater challenges than the SMEs. The level of challenge is also
different at the kind of work where graduates are into. The workplace where employees interact
with each other and the managers they are at more challenge (Khan and Azeem 2014).
The level of severity increases with the nature of the job as discussed above. A graduate
accounting professional is needed to interact with the others to discuss a few things like
approaching the stock supervisor. It is needed to tally the accounting entries with that of the
manual entries. This is done to find the error in the report. This process is followed to avoid any
fraudulent practice. Accounting professionals do also interact with the managers in order to
understand the work plan. The professionals do it accordingly (Barmeyer and Mayrhofer 2014).
There can be many cultural challenges. Language can be one of the issues as few
professionals may not be the citizens of Australia and would have come from non-English
speaking nations. It shows an evident language barrier. Professionals may find this challenging
to make other understand their needs and the work related necessity (Khan and Azeem 2014).
There are evident generational gaps in the workplace as there exist different generations of
Millennials, Boomers, and Baby Boomers. There are differences in thoughts of different
generations. The differences can be related to work related culture and others. Millennials are
more in favour of smart work. They want to do thing fast. They rarely believe in putting had
work to a task. Boomers are different to Millennials and believe in hard work. They have little or
probably no connection to technologies. Baby Boomers form the midway path between the two
generations. They have mixed views on both hard work and technological driven works (Khan
and Azeem 2014).

9ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
This is the point where cultural conflicts occur in the workplace. This is where
professionalism matters the most. Professionalism can be understood from various perspectives
which also include the workplace culture. According to Schnabel et al. (2015), the workplace
culture is to understand each other’s capabilities & interest and then utilizing each other’s
potentials to attain a productive outcome. It means there is a need for teamwork which means
suppressing the differences and promoting the positive aspects.
2.5 Recommendations: creative job seeking plan
The first and foremost step is to create a precise yet very communicative resume. The
resume should include the detailed information of qualification and the job related experience.
The next step will be to upload the soft copy of resume on the various online job portals and
also mailing it to a few of selected recruiting consultancies. Job consultancies, in particular, are
helpful in getting the profile specific jobs.
3. Conclusion:
Therefore, accounting industry is at the growth in Australia. Robotic systems have
automated a few kinds of works; however, it has not yet replaced the human resource. It is
currently being used to generate leads which are ultimately being processed by accounting
professionals. In future also, accounting professionals will be in demand in Australia as
multinational companies are dependent on accounting firm for auditing and advisory related
services. Many SMEs are now available in the cloud which means technology will further the
requirement of professionals in the accounting industry.

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References:
Barmeyer, C. and Mayrhofer, U., 2014. How has the French context shaped the organization of
the Airbus Group?. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(4), pp.426-448.
Burritt, R. and Christ, K., 2016. Industry 4.0 and environmental accounting: a new
revolution?. Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, 1(1), pp.23-38.
Cox Purtell. 2018. Recruitment Agency Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. [online] Available at:
http://www.coxpurtell.com.au/about-us/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].
Faggian, A., Corcoran, J. and Rowe, F., 2016. Evaluating the effects of Australian policy
changes on human capital: the role of a graduate visa scheme. Environment and Planning C:
Government and Policy, 34(1), pp.151-170.
Ibisworld.com.au. 2018. Accounting Services – Australia Industry Research Reports |
IBISWorld. [online] Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-
research-reports/professional-scientific-technical-services/accounting-services.html [Accessed
12 Mar. 2018].
Jackson, D., 2014. Factors influencing job attainment in recent Bachelor graduates: evidence
from Australia. Higher Education, 68(1), pp.135-153.
Khan, S.U. and Azeem, M.I., 2014. Intercultural challenges in offshore software development
outsourcing relationships: an exploratory study using a systematic literature review. IET
software, 8(4), pp.161-173.
Nagano, H., 2014. Trends in corporate hiring of recent graduates: Focus on developments since
the global financial crisis. Japan Labor Review, 11(2), pp.23-36.

11ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
O’Leary, S., 2017. Graduates’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, the inclusion of
employability-related support in undergraduate degree programmes; trends and variations by
subject discipline and gender. Journal of Education and Work, 30(1), pp.84-105.
Okoro, J., 2014. Assessment of Accounting Competencies Possessed by Postgraduate University
Business Education Students to Handle Entrepreneurship Business Challenges in Nigeria. World
Journal of Education, 4(1), pp.1-10.
Osmani, M., Weerakkody, V., Hindi, N.M., Al‐Esmail, R., Eldabi, T., Kapoor, K. and Irani, Z.,
2015. Identifying the trends and impact of graduate attributes on employability: a literature
review. Tertiary Education and Management, 21(4), pp.367-379.
Rajiv, S., Chu, J. and Jiang, Z., 2015. Publication, citation, career development, and recent
trends: Empirical evidence for quantitative marketing researchers. Customer Needs and
Solutions, 2(1), pp.71-90.
Richardlloyd.com.au. 2018. About Us - Our Richard Lloyd Story | Richard Lloyd Recruitment.
[online] Available at: https://www.richardlloyd.com.au/about-us [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].
Schnabel, D.B., Kelava, A., Van de Vijver, F.J. and Seifert, L., 2015. Examining psychometric
properties, measurement invariance, and construct validity of a short version of the Test to
Measure Intercultural Competence (TMIC-S) in Germany and Brazil. International Journal of
Intercultural Relations, 49, pp.137-155.