Talking about the recent economic downturn, long-term and short-term goals and changes in the models of corporate ownership, Andrew Harding, MD, Chartered Institutes of Management Accountants (CIMA), got candid in an exclusive interview with Nitika Gupta. Excerpts:

What made you come up with the new Chartered Global Management Accountant designation together with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)? What was the objective behind it?

The objective is to provide a common management accounting designation for the whole world. There is no global designation with common global standards and this new designation with the AICPA is the first of its kind.

What are your investment plans in India for the next few years? How much has CIMA already invested in terms of money, manpower and infrastructure?

At the moment, we have one office in Mumbai. That is, eight full-time staff in India. Those people are involved in providing information on the CIMA qualification. What we strongly believe in is developing strong management accountant skills for Indian businesses, which is what we very much believe it needs in the future.

Are any Indian B-schools the members of CIMA?

Business schools themselves aren?t members of CIMA. It?s only individual people who qualify through the CIMA examinations, but there are a number of schools across the country that teach in the same programme. We are working with the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai and we have recently signed an MoU with the Indira Gandhi National Open University, where the first year would be an MBA programme and then in the second year one would start learning from CIMA. The Christ University in Bangalore has also integrated CIMA as a part of their BCom programme.

With regard to the latest report that CIMA has come up with?the one on building businesses for the long term?what are the key takeaways?

What we?ve learnt from the 2008 crisis is that most western businesses place emphasis on short-term targets and incentives and not much emphasis on the longer-term health and sustainability of the businesses. The first lesson for Indian businesses is, don?t go the western way. When it actually comes to the way businesses run, Indian businesses need to think about corporate governance, the non-executive representation on boards, the skills of the non-executive representation and the empowerment of the non-executive representation.

The second lesson is around competitiveness in the changing world. A lot of services have been commoditised in the world and a lot of companies make provisions through India. But there are other countries that are willing and able to provide those services themselves. Some months ago, The Times in London carried an article saying that businesses were increasingly looking away from India and starting to move towards countries like Sri Lanka where the cost base is lower and the individual workforce were highly trained and competent. In India, it is decreasing and it can go away as easily as it came.

What are the parameters that businesses should focus on so as to ensure that their short-term actions support their long-term goals?

Businesses need to look at their long-term goals. Once they have done that, they can set their business strategy and then cascade into short-term plans?but it means that they are all driven by that one long-term objective.

In the end, how do organisations incorporate new challenges such as population growth, global warming and loss of biodiversity into their planning processes?

I think it?s a case of prioritising. Businesses can target recycling. And that brings the cost base down as well. Having a resource agenda can work towards engaging and inspiring its own workforce, which is a circle of innovation itself. So, there are ways in which these things can be incorporated.