The Institute of Management Accountants reported record growth in 2020 despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the accounting profession.
The IMA’s annual report for its fiscal year ended June 30, 2020 showed a record number of more than 144,000 global IMA members, representing a 3 percent year-over-year growth rate, and 17 percent year-over-year global growth for new Certified Management Accountants. The 10-year compound annual growth rate for CMA candidates has been 14 percent.
“In many ways, this may have been one of IMA’s best years,” IMA president and CEO Jeff Thomson told Accounting Today. “From a pure numbers perspective, it may not have been our best year, but it’s more than the numbers. It’s your reputation. It's your relationships. It’s how you comport yourself when times are tough, and I can’t think of a time when times were tougher in terms of how we comported ourselves during a global pandemic.”
The report highlighted a number of points. Over the course of the year, the IMA offered over 100 CPE credits to members, an 18 percent increase from fiscal year 2019, and a total of 405,144 CPE hours achieved.
“We're very proud of the hours of free CPE that we offered,” said Thomson. “We listened to our members and freely extended our hardship policy. We offered well over 400,000 hours of free CPE.”
The IMA’s 2020 exam for the CMA credential was updated to reflect the most relevant digital and strategic skills, with new career-focused CPE courses on data analytics, blockchain, strategy and competitive analysis, among others.
“Data analytics and technology are very important for upskilling,” said Thomson. “We offered that [data analytics certificate program] for free for many, many months. Did that earn us a single dollar of revenue or gain us a single member? Probably not. Did it earn us the enduring respect and connectivity with members, maybe for life? Absolutely. And more than anything else, that's what matters for us.”
The IMA held hundreds of virtual chapter events and educational courses in different parts of the world to provide support during the pandemic. During a year in which Black Lives Matters protests across the world highlighted racial injustice, the IMA strengthened its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives through a new webpage, toolkit, staff training programs and diversity studies. The IMA also produced reports covering a variety of topics affecting management accountants, including crisis management, technology, and sustainability reporting.
“We talk about the growth in membership and the growth of CMA candidates as a means to an end,” said Thomson. “We are proud of the fact that we did grow to a record 144,000 members through June 30, our fiscal year. I think that was a 3 percent year-over-year growth rate. Not too many associations grew. In terms of CMA candidates, I think we’re at about 38,000 or so new CMA candidates. We actually grew new CMA candidates 12 percent in the U.S., our home market, which is a pretty good number. That all contributed to our financial health and the future of our members. We also launched year five of our CMA ad campaign, a multichannel global ad campaign. In the face of a tragic pandemic that put businesses out of business and contracted economic conditions and GDPs by 25, 50, 75 percent, we held our own. We kept the community together and we invested in the future of our members and the profession. I’m so proud of the team and of our members.”
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For next year, Thomson has many plans for leveraging the success of the past year and to deal with the continuing pandemic, including an unusual partnership with the California State Society of CPAs.
“You’ve got to manage the balance sheet and cash flow in the short term so you can invest in the long term,” said Thomson. “Certainly the CMA ad campaign is part of that investment in awareness. Our mobile-first website and user experience will be a multiphase project. Certainly we have many new exciting educational programs, especially in the digital space. Much more is coming out every day in blockchain, in process mining, in the research area. We just put a call out for research in coping with COVID-19. We are partnering with the California State Society of CPAs, and in the first quarter we will be launching a groundbreaking study in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion. We’re partnering with Becker, one of the most prestigious CPA review training organizations, to offer CMA CPE, and you'll see much more in the way of partnering with Deloitte on various C-suite studies. We did a major study with them earlier this year on the future of the workforce and the workplace.”
The IMA also partners with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants on quarterly global economic conditions surveys of accountants as well as other research. Thomson intends to continue expanding the IMA internationally, even though travel has been curtailed during the pandemic.
“We want to continue to expand in China as we continue to be one of the most influential global organizations,” said Thomson. “In India we continue to do well. We want to expand in other parts of the world where we aren’t quite as influential. New markets, new partners, new products and services, especially in the digital space. We've become very prominent in our thought leadership in RPA [robotic process automation], blockchain, process mining, artificial intelligence, machine learning and cognitive computing.”
He plans to expand the IMA in parts of Europe such as Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, as well as the Asia Pacific region, including Indonesia. In addition to creating a Data Analytics Center of Excellence, the IMA also plans to do more work and research on sustainability accounting. “I think 2021 is going to be a seminal year for sustainability accounting and sustainability analytics,” said Thomson.
He is hoping next year will be a better one than 2020. “It was a good year because we showed our resilience as a community,” said Thomson. “We showed our courage. We showed our compassion. I think we're poised as an organization and as a society for 2021. Let’s hope for a go od year, not just because we took the blows. We took the blows and we continued to invest in upskilling, in technologies, in the ad campaign. CMAs make a difference, saving a hospital, saving a factory. That's what it's all about, helping organizations.”
