BCAS President CA Chirag Doshi’s Message for the Month of August 2023
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the beloved former President of India, once remarked, “Dream, dream, dream. Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action.”
I start my journey as the 75th President of this august association, the Bombay Chartered Accountants Society, with my first interaction through this message with you all, fellow professionals. I take this opportunity to thank all of you for having reposed trust and confidence in me to assume this responsibility. The responsibility comes with the onerous duty to chart a path for BCAS to reach greater heights not only in the coming year but also through its reaching centenary and which we, too, consider as the Amrit Kaal of BCAS to coincide with that of our motherland India.
As we entered our 75th year, a special logo has been designed for this memorable milestone. The Logo depicts multiple elements of our Society, the Book at the top signifies the symbol of knowledge sharing, the tree represents the BCAS as a community/family and the globe represents the overall development of professionals, which is the vision and mission of the Society. The blue colour in the logo represents a commitment to professionalism, expertise in financial matters, and maintaining high ethical standards and the green colour symbolises financial prosperity, trustworthiness, and a focus on sustainable business practices.
I have expressed in my opening speech at the AGM, that from this year onwards BCAS Managing Committee shall be presenting a 5-year plan for the Society with a vision to increase its Reach, Professional Development of its members, Networking opportunities, Advocacy, Yuva Shakti and Chartered for Change initiatives.
To achieve the above, we plan to invite 75 Sherpas in 75 cities who would be entrusted with the task of coordinating the events in their cities and spreading various other initiatives of BCAS. The technology initiative committee is entrusted with the task of increasing the presence of the Society on all its social media handles with the help of experts. Increase the reach of the journal of the Society, which is one of the most sought-after monthly publications amongst professionals.
Professional Development (harnessing talent) is the mission of our Society. It is always at the forefront as a think tank of the profession. All committees of the Society have planned several new initiatives to ensure that our members remain at the forefront in practice, in industry and are updated with the latest regulatory developments. Multiple events, seminars, lecture meetings, and online courses shall be planned to disseminate knowledge and the jewel in the crown would be the Mega Event – ReImagine which is planned on 4, 5, and 6th January, 2024 at the Jio World Centre, BKC, Mumbai to commemorate the 75th year of BCAS.
We plan to launch a members-only digital networking and crowdsourcing queries web-based community application. It shall be a networking platform for our members, wherein BCAS members can post their queries, seek advice and engage in knowledge-sharing discussions. Members can also post their achievements on their walls. In the future, it will also have a job search, membership renewals, work sharing, and many more features. This will be a real game changer for the members as it will increase the networking and visibility of members as thought leaders and domain experts. This will also provide a platform for young professionals to interact with ease with veterans of the profession.
To ensure that our members do take time out of their busy schedule for extracurricular activities and to provide opportunities to network, the Society shall be planning specific events like youth mixers, hackathons, cricket and also provide an organised platform to young Chartered Accountants to improve their soft skills.
The Managing Committee for the current year has planned 4 quarterly themes, namely Technology and other updates (July to September 2023), Change – Leaders – Charity (October to December 2023), Future Ready – Innovation, Growth & Succession (January to March 2024), Partnering in Business Growth – Industry Focus (March to June, 2024).
This year at the 75th Founding Day, we had leading industrialist, Mr Sajjan Jindal as the Guest Speaker, sharing his vision of India @ 2030. He highlighted several reforms which the present government has undertaken, like GST, Swachh Bharat, IBC, and Digitization which have resulted in greater awareness and responsible behaviour amongst citizens. He spoke about India’s demographics and young population, the digitisation drive, the energy transformation from fossil fuel to renewable energy, financial sector reforms undertaken, and the increasing global leadership role that would drive India towards a USD 30 trillion economy. He also appreciated CAs playing a very important role in providing a governance control mechanism to industry, which is of critical importance to be on the constant growth trajectory.
The first lecture meeting of the year was held on 12th July, 2023, on a very relevant topic of the “Role of Professionals in Governance” by CA Nawshir Mirza. He explained the importance of professionals in ensuring better governance. Accordingto him, protecting the environment and ensuring social security are important elements of society, however, governance is a process by which both can be achieved successfully. It was a very interesting and interactive session.
Technology is the theme of the quarter. I would like to state that role of technology in modern India has a strong focus on science and technology, realising that it is a key element for economic growth. India ranks third among the most attractive investment destinations for technology transactions in the world. With more and more multinational companies setting up their R&D centres in India, the sector has seen an uptrend in investment in recent years.
Recently I came across Compendium on “Responsible Artificial Intelligence” by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, which defined the use of Artificial Intelligence in Audits; in Public sector management and it also dealt with AI – tools and technology frameworks. According to Mr Girish Murmu, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, AI could contribute up to USD 15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. It has the potential to lead socio-economic growth and can be used to benefit citizens and the country through targeted and timely interventions. As organisations increasingly rely on technology to manage their business processes, there is a strong perspective among the auditing fraternity too to review our role in this change and to align ourselves with the changing technological environment.
The compendium also states that Auditors can use the AI technology in many ways like classifying the transaction into high and low-risk categories, clustering transactions having similar characteristics, summarisation of transactions, identifying related entities across multiple levels, predictions, and Image Analytics. The AI technology can be used to identify circular trading transactions in taxation or to detect non-existent beneficiaries claiming benefits from government schemes.
Before concluding, I would like to invite all, to the Mega Event of 75th year Celebration – ReImagine. Let us all celebrate this significant milestone with joy, gratitude, and a renewed commitment to our shared values.
All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” ~ Walt Disney
