Preparing for continual change.

• Author: Pounder, Bruce
• Position: Professional Education

As the end of 2011 nears, financial executives find themselves facing significant, onging changes in nearly every aspect of their work. This "new normal" of continual change is expected to persist through the foreseeable future.

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With continual change comes a need for continual preparation, which in turn requires relevant and timely education. As always, Financial Executives International is committed to identifying and meeting the learning needs of its members. FEI, through its research affiliate Financial Executives Research Foundation and its strategic partner SmartPros Ltd., recently conducted its first Financial Executive Learning Survey. The purpose of the survey was to identify the professional education topics that financial executives perceive as most important to themselves and their staff members in the immediate future.

In August, FERF published "Preparing for Change: A Report on the 2011 Financial Executive Learning Survey" which explains how the survey was conducted and the key findings. The report also includes commentary on why the findings are significant and provides specific recommendations to guide financial executives in making sound professional educational decisions. This article summarizes the report.

Survey Administration and Key Findings

The survey was conducted in April and May 2011. Respondents included FEI members and other users of SmartPros' educational services. A total of 768 responses were obtained: 725 using an Internet-based version of the survey, plus 43 participating with a paper-and-pencil version.

The survey's first item presented respondents with a list of 48 specific professionai education topics grouped into 10 named categories. The categorized topic list was developed on the basis of FERF's and SmartPros' consensus expectations of significant, imminent developments. Referencing the list, the survey item directed respondents to identify one or more "topics that are of most importance to you and your staff members."

For this item, respondents were not asked to rank or otherwise make distinctions among their topic choices. Most respondents chose the suggested limit of five topics.

The topics that respondents most frequently chose as important were:

* U.S. GAAP/1 FRS convergence (chosen by 49 percent of all respondents);

* Internal controls (41 percent);

* Accounting practices/policies (34 percent); and

* Financial reporting regulations (30 percent).

Of the four topics most...