They can forecast how many projects are going to close 3 months ahead. ‘This is the kind of work that they do now and it is very much not an end-of-month exercise anymore. Whereas, before [the implementation of the new system], it was always getting everything together so that we can report it at the end of the month. Now on a daily basis, they are looking at what is happening in the business.’ In summary, the Management Accountants are involved in discussion with the business management team as to the progress-to-date on projects – is it profitable; what parts of the project are profitable and are the projects on time? ‘It is a massive change for them and it has taken them away from the old fashioned financial everybody works hard at the month-end, and comes in on a Saturday and Sunday, and then rushing around to try and get ready for the next month-end. A different concept.’ (d) Has the formal or informal communication structure involving the Management Accountants changed as a result of the new system implementation? The communication has expanded because of the way Management Accountants are now involved in discussions with the business management team. ‘Whether it is more formal or not is difficult to say, I think it is a company culture thing rather than a Management Accountant thing. We are in a fast moving industry, things change so rapidly a lot of what we do is informal.’ (e) How satisfied were the Management Accountants, both prior to and post the new system implementation? Before the implementation of the new system, there was turnover of about 1 every 6 months amongst the Management Accountants. Since the implementation, there has been no turnover in the past 3 years. (f) How have the Management Accountants contributed to the success of the new system? Although it was difficult to isolate the contribution alone of the Management Accountants, ‘the more [they] understood, the more it was going to do for them, the more involved they became the more positive they became and… they were probably were one of the big change agents. They were very much part of “the business up to now has been doing this, now it is going to do that” – they were really in the forefront of change.’ If the Management Accountants had resisted the changes, the new system would still have been successful but to a lesser degree. The company would still be better at procurement and managing the maintenance of the sites, ‘but not as good at working out whether or not we are going to make any money.
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