The Rise of the Creative Accountant
Make an empty space in the corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it – Dee Hock, credit card visionary, founder and former CEO of Visa.
Accounting’s role in keeping businesses and whole economies on an even keel is impressive, but it’s generally not associated with creativity. But this may be set to change with the emergence of AI paving the way for a shift in how creativity is encouraged in the accounting industry.
Accounting services are experiencing a rapid escalation in the adoption of AI. Last month Bloomberg Tax reported that all Big Four accounting firms were among 12 leaders in AI services. Following this, last week KPMG announced a multibillion-dollar investment in Microsoft cloud and AI services over the next five years.
The KPMG investment on its own is forecast to help unlock over US$12 billion of incremental growth opportunities. As AI takes over grunt work such as data ingestion and aggregation, the newfound capacity within the workforce raises a question about how it will be harnessed to unlock this additional value.
With KPMG announcing 1,950 job cuts from its US business (5% of its workforce) in June, one could speculate that some of this value will come workforce reductions, however KPMG has indicated that these cuts are not related to technology factors or automation.
Instead, KPMG has indicated that its new AI and cloud capabilities will empower employees to unleash their creativity, provide faster analysis and spend more time on strategic advice. However unleashing creativity creates a challenge. In a field where precision and accuracy are paramount, this can work against creativity which requires a level of comfort with experimentation and embracing the possibility of failure.
Additionally, creativity itself is a skill that can be honed, much like physical fitness. However, it is frequently underestimated and overlooked in non-traditional creative roles like accounting. Surprisingly, the LinkedIn 2022 Workplace Learning Report reveals that only 18% of learning and development respondents expected to implement creativity programs, while 42% anticipated deploying programs focused on leading through change.
This discrepancy highlights a significant gap between the investment in creativity training and the growing demand for creativity. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2023 identified that creativity and analytical thinking remain the two most important skills in 2023 and surveyed businesses indicated creativity will grow slightly in importance over analytical thinking in the next five years.
While the need to harness and leverage the innate creativity of a workforce is not unique to accounting, what is unique to accounting is the capacity to lean into the space that has been created by this significant adoption of AI. As AI and cloud technologies continue to gain momentum, other industries will undoubtedly observe and learn from the outcomes of this significant shift.
Creatomica
Creatomica leverages experience working in traditionally non-creative roles in startups and global organisations with data driven insights to deliver workshops to help teams improve their creativity at work.
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