Vice Chancellor Quality Award Finalist

ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy took part in the Vice Chancelor Quality Award presentation which was held today at the Bistari Hall Intekma Resorts Shah Alam. Eleven teams made to the final round.
They are namely: UiTM Perak, UiTM Johor, UiTM Kelantan, UiTM Pahang; Faculty of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Accountancy, Faculty of Computer Science and Quantitative Analysis, Faculty of Accountancy, Faculty of Allied Health; Student Affairs Department and the Tun Andul Razak Library. It was indeed a very stiff competition with participants trying to showcase their strengths and initiatives. The winner will be announced at an annual Quality Award event to be held on 9th December 2009. ARI wishes to congratulate all members who have contributed so much for this event.

Forensic Accountants - New Professionals

In view of the current fraudulent landscapes involving financial statements, ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy are working very hard to produce a new breed of professional investigators. Through our very own Master in Forensic Accounting and Financial Criminology and supported by our Centre of Excellence Asia-Pacific Forensic Accounting Research Centre (AFARE), Universiti Teknologi MARA is producing highly talented forensic accounting investigators and criminologists.
In ensuring that that our graduates are marketable the curriculum have been designed to incorporate both theory and practice into the classrooms. Forensic practitioners have been invited to share their experiences with the students. By the end of 2009, we hope to produce fifty (50) forensic accounting professionals.
In addition, we are also working very closely with regulatory agencies such as the Inland Revenue Board, Royal Malaysian Police, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commissioner, Central Bank, Malaysian Institute of Accountants and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in training professionals.

Audit Quality Workshop for Small and Medium Practitioners (SMP)

A one-day seminar cum workshop on the need for Malaysian Small and Medium accounting firm practitioners to adopt the International Standard on Quality Control(ISQC 1)will be co-organised by ARI, MIA, MAREF and AMCAF. The seminar will be held on 1st December 2009 at the Putra Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. About fifty SMPs have registered for the event. More seminars on ISQC 1 will be organised nationwide in 2010.

Road to NAfMA 2009 Excellence

Today the assessors met for the second moderation meeting of NAfMA 2009. The competition is getting better year after year. The national award for management accounting (NAfMA) was introduced in 2004 and this is the 6th year competition. NAfMA competition is basically divided into five phases. In the first phase, interested companies from three categories - public listed, non-listed and SMEs submitted their self assessment questionnaire. If they obtain at least 70% of the allocated points, they will be invited to the next phase. Phase two invites qualified participants to submit a written report known as NAfMA Submission Report (NSR). Assessors review the NSR and shortlist companies that would be selected for the first NAfMA site visits. Phase Three involves the first site visit. The visit normally will take the whole day and participants are to make a presentation and assessors will review evidences. Once the visits are completed the first moderation meeting would be held. Another shortlisting exercise will be made and selected companies would be informed of a second site visit. The fourth phase is the second site visit and the visits would be reviewed by the same team of assessors. The second visit would be for half a day. Once the second visit assessment is completed a second moderation meeting is held to nominate companies who are potential winners in different categories of the award.
The final stage is the deliberation by the judges (who are key industry players) and they will decide on the winners. The whole process is very stringent. The penicle event is the award ceremony. This year it will be held on 8th December 2009 at the One World Hotel in Bandar Utama. Congratulations to all who participated or are involved with the NAfMA 2009 activities.

Discussion with the Institute of Journalism Studies

ARI was invited to give a talk to members of the Institute of Journalism Studies (IJS) today.
IJS was having its two-day strategic planning workshop at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies. The talk was mainly an experience sharing session. The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) was also there to give his keynote address. The potential for IJS to grow is great.
It just needs to decide which thrust it wants to focus on as a centre of excellence: Research & Innovation; Services or Academic Programs?. Perhaps focussing on research and innovation is not a bad idea at all....

Surveilence Audit

ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy underwent the surveilance audit today. This time around, the assessment theme was on Risk Management. Our ISO 9000 team came up with a framework to compute risk assessment in terms of likelihood and severity. MR Ramli from Lyods Registry came for the audit. Thank you to all ISO team members.

Two New Deputy Presidents

The Chartered Institute of Practising Accountants (CPA Australia) Malaysian Divisional Council elected two new Deputy Presidents for next term.
The election was conducted at a monthly meeting held recently. All council members had to choose two out of four candidates who were nominated for the position. Congratulations Ms Josephine and Mr Alex our brand new deputy presidents.

Young Entrepreneur StartUP (YES)

ARI was invited to attend the Red Carpet Event which was organised by the Money Tree Young Entrepreneur Start Up Challenge.
The Red Carpet Event is an annual event organised by Monet Tree to recognise five teams of young entrepreneurs whose products have great potential for commercialisation. Fourteen institutions of higher learning participated in the year-long competition. ARI and the faculty hope to participate in the forthcoming events. Prof Dr Normah brought along four Bachelor of Accountancy students to attend the award ceremony which was held at the Eastin Hotel, Petaling Jaya. This year's winner named their project as "Try This Out!". Basically the idea was to marry three marketing avenues - sampling, advertising and market research - into a single platform targetting youth. To date, the project has successfully developed an online data pooling, statistical enabled reporting system.

Visits to Sime Darby Property and Alliance Bank

The NAfMA second visits came to a closure today with two corporate visits to Sime Darby Property in USJ and Alliance Bank in Kuala Lumpur.
From both visits, we the assessors saw it very clearly that management accounting is very much alive and MA tools have been strategically and successfully utilised in all shortlisted companies. In that sense, NAfMA has been successful in promoting management accounting tools. It is also through NAfMA that the CIMA-UiTM Asian Management Accounting Research Centre (ARI's unit of excellence) has successfully completed the write up of several case study books.
It is indeed a win-win situation for the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), Malaysian Productivity Corporation (MPC) and UiTM.

NAfMA Visits to Bank Islam & Faber Medi Serve

Today we (NAfMA Second Visit Assessors) visited two more shortlisted companies namely Faber Medi Serve and Bank Islam Berhad. Both companies underwent some form of a corporate Reengineering or corporate rationalization exercise and management accounting techniques have been showcased as playing a significant role in both companies. It is interesting to note that traditional management accounting techniques such as financial statement analysis, standard costing and budgetary control are still very much used in today's organisations. Similarly, the usage of contemporary tools such as Balanced Scorecard, Lean Six Sigma and Risk Management have been adapted by companies to suit their own organizational environment. Another non-financial measure often cited by the participating companies is "talent management".

A Day at MIDF

The Malaysian Industrial Development Finance (MIDF) is one of the shortlisted companies for the NAfMA second round visits. MIDF is a development bank which had recently completed a merger exercise with Amanah Capital Berhad. Currently MIDF is wholly owned by the Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). The company was delisted and taken private in October 2009. Our visit was hosted by both the CFO and COO. MIDF had recently signed an MOU with UiTM. It was indeed heartwarming to see MIDF showcasing and displaying so many of UiTM's art works as part of its corporate interior decoration.

External Examiners Meeting

Three external examiners: Mr Hamid Ghows, Ms Habibah and Mr Raub are all from the industry.
In a meeting with the management team today, they highlighted some very interesting feedback related to the curriculum contents of our accountancy programs. The need to be at par with what the industry wants is extremely important if we wish to lead the accounting profession in term of knowledge creation.

We are in the AKNC Final....

Congratulations to all members of the Faculty of Accountancy for making it to the final round of the Vice Chancellor Quality Award (AKNC). The final presentation will be held on 30th November 2009 and the faculty will be given fifteen minutes to showcase its achievements throughout the year 2008. Today, the faculty management team held a meeting to discuss the best strategy for the presentation. Congratulations and Good Luck everyone...

Management Best Practice Competition

Thirteen teams from various departments of the university entered the final stage of the competition which was held today.
Innovative practices range from migrating data management system (from manual to digital) to cost saving measures through the invention of electronic device for early detective of computer malfunctions.
All in all, each of these innovative practices should be adopted throughout the university system so that our aspiration to embrace a paperless management environment could be realized.

MORPA Competition

This year, the MAREF Outstanding Research Paper Award (MORPA)will be co-organized by both MAREF and the Malaysian Accounting Academic (MyAA) Association. All ARI members are encouraged to submit their research papers for the competition. Beside receiving cash prizes, the papers will also be publish in the forthcoming publication of the Malaysian Accounting Review (MAR) Journal.

ARI November Meeting

Today ARI held its monthly meeting to discuss improvement strategies on some important activities which include international research funding, FRGS & escience proposals, publication in ISI-indexed journals, innovation participation in the university's forthcoming exhibition,the publication of books of readings and COE launching by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).

NAfMA Visit to MAB

Malaysia Airport Berhad (MAB) is one of the NAfMA finalists shortlisted for the second round visit.
MAB chose the theme "MAB Transformation Agenda" for its presentation to NAfMA assessors. Basically the visit was to confirm management accounting practices that have been effectively utilised for the transformation agenda. The presentation was headed by Encik Faisal, the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Practices include effective use of the Value Management Team (VMT). One of the main tasks of the team is to evaluate core practices of the company and isolates "value added" versus "non-value added" activities. By getting rid of non value added activities, the company was able to improve efficiency of its practices, increase saving and profits as well as minimize waste. The four NAfMA assessors assigned to evaluate MAB were Prof Normah, Mr Abd Hamid Ghows, Mr Lim Kian Hui and Mr Robert Lam.

Greetings from Saigon

I am writing from Saigon, Vietnam. Gone for a short holiday here with my family and some friends. I can see that Vietnam is an upcoming economy in Asia. Almost everyone in this country is involved in some kind of business. Most shops are open at 7.30 am and close at 11.30 pm. Saigon is a city with eight million population and four million motorbikes (so I was told by the tour guide).
Tough the population is high, the traffic jam is bearable as the motorbikes help to reduce traffic congestion. Moreover, I am fairly impressed by the high level of tolerance (to others) shown by the drivers here. As a result, there's not much traffic accident. ARI should certainly do a research on this topic: traffic accidents and drivers' tollerance?,,, just a thought.

NAfMA 2009 Second Round Visits

The NAfMA second round visit will commence on 12th November 2009 (Thurs). Nine companies have been shortlisted with two groups of assessors. One group headed by Prof Dr Ibrahim will visit the SME finalists and another group headed by Prof Dr Normah will assess the PLCs and non PLCs. The final moderation meeting will be held on 25th November at the Malaysian Institute of Accountants office in Kuala Lumpur.

Journal Consolidation Meeting

As the Research Management Institute is now entrusted to monitor the progress of university's journal publications, there will be a monthly meeting of all managing editors of journals with the PNC (Research & Innovation), Prof Abu Bakar Majeed and his publication coordinator Associate Prof Dr Razidah Ismail. The main purpose of the meeting is to ensure that all fifteen UiTM-indexed journals are published on time.
All managing editors are to ensure that all articles will go through stringent double-blind review process before they are published.

IBIMA Conference 2010

The International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA) will be organising its 14th international conference on 23-24 June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. IBIMA conferences' proceedings are listed in:
1. The Thomson ISI Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings® (ISTP®)
2. The Thomson ISI Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings (ISTP/ISI
Proceedings)
3. The Thomson ISI Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings® (ISSHP®)
4. The Thomson ISI Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP/ISI
Proceedings)
All ARI members are encouraged to submit their papers to the conference. For details, please visit http://www.ibima.org/

NAfMA Moderation Meeting

The first moderation meeting of the National Award for Management Accounting (NAfMA) 2009 competition of which UiTM is a partner was held on Friday, 6th November at the Malaysian Institute of Accountants Boardroom in Kuala Lumpur. The moderation meeting was to deliberate on the results of NAfMA's first visits of the shortlisted companies. The second NAfMA visits will take place within the next two weeks after which the winners of the competition will be decided. The NAfMA award night will be held in December 2009.

Sharing a Vision....

As part of the professorial council activities, we (UiTM professors) had a meeting cum hi-tea with the vice chancellor, Y. Bhg Tan Sri Dato' Seri Professor Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah yesterday afternoon at the International Cafe, UIC. It was a "heart-to-heart" discussion on how the professors can effectively contribute towards the university's short & long-term agendas. Centres of Excellence such as ARI can certainly play a big role in spearheading research and publications in high impact journals.
The vice chancellor also announced the university's willingness to allow leacturers who are serious about research and publications to be given reduced teaching workloads but to be located at COEs over a specified period. During the periods the researchers would have to fulfill certain prescribed KPIs related to research and publications.

Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Forum

Prof Ibrahim and Dr Wee Shu Hui represented UiTM and Malaysia for the international annual forum. ARI just received some photos from Dr Wee who arrived yesterday to share with all members. This year's event saw the appointment of new office bearers to the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA) with Professor Susumo Ueno from Kobe University taking over the president post from Prof Akira Nishimura, Beppu University. . Apart from serious management accounting forum, this year's participants had also enjoyed the foot-bath session. Foot bath theraphy is very famous in Japan and usually every university has the facility at the campus... Next year's Forum will be hosted by Taiwan.

Forum on Human Governance

The Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA)organized a half-day forum on Human Governance at the Impiana KLCC Hotel & Spa, Kuala Lumpur. Themed “Profit Maximisation as the Future Way to Do Business – A Myth or Reality”, the forum discussed a recent research monograph authored by Professor Dr Aziuddin Ahmad and Associate Professor Dr Arfah Salleh from the Graduate School of Management, UPM. Apart from Prof Aziuddin himself, three other invited panelists who were involved with the forum comprised Y. Bhg Tan Sri Megat Najmuddin Megat Khas (President of MICG), Y. Bhg Dato' Dr Abdul Samad Alias (Chairman of MAREF)and Y. Bhg Tuan Haji Rahim (President of MIA). The forum discussion was moderated by MIA past president, Mr Nik Mohd Hasyudeen.

Collaboration with the Ukrainian Academy of Banking

Prof Rashidah & I had just received an e-mail from Prof. Alex Kostyuk from the
Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine. Prof Kostyuk is also the editor-in-chief of an international refereed journal, Corporate Ownership and Control journal. The email: “…At this time the Ukrainian Academy of Banking is going to fulfil a just approved new strategy of its development. According to this strategy we are going to concentrate our cooperation on Asian countries. We would like to consider the Accounting Research Institute to cooperate. There are many ways of cooperation we could propose: the student and teachers exchange, research cooperation, etc…”. Another potential international collaboration for ARI...

Management Accounting Forum in Japan

The fifth Management Accounting Forum, the annual activity of the Asia-Pacific management Accounting Association (APAMA) of which UiTM is one of the founding members is being held at Beppu, Japan on 31/10/09 - 2/11/09. UiTM is represented by Prof Dr Ibrahim Kamal Abdul Rahman, Dean, Faculty of Accountancy and Associate Professor Dr Wee Shu Hui, Journal Adminstrator of the asia-Pacific Management Accounting Journal (APMAJ). APMAJ is the official journal of the APMA association.

Recent Applied Research Titles

ARI is glad to announce the submission of new applied research monographs by our Master in Forensic Accounting & Financial Criminology:
1. Managing Revenue Recognition: A Case Study of HP Sdn Bhd
2. Creditors Aging Issues at Aldwich Nerhad
3. Money Politics: Legislation Issues and Prevention
4. Collection Discrepencies in the YDEF: A Case Study
5. Inventory Management Towards the VMI Implementation for NGV Business at ACE Sdn Bhd
6. Financial Statement Integrity Through Financial Statement Analysis of Non-Listed
Companies by the CCM: A case Study
7. The Importance of Anti-Corruption Strategies in the Malaysian Public Sector
8. Enforcement of PN17 Conditions and Obligation to Revive Distress Companies
9. Employee Theft and Fraud Prevention Mechanism: An Assessment of a Chocolate
Manufacturing Multi National Corporation in Malaysia
10. Identity Theft: A Case Study on Fraud Prevention Initiatives at a Malaysian
Bank: A Case Study
11. A Study on Tax Auditors' Capabilities and Competency and their Influence Towards
Tax Audit Productivity
12. Ah Long: An Enforcer perspective on the failure to Prosecute
13. Review into Inland Revenue Board Malaysia's Field tax Audit Duration for Sole
Proprietorship
14. Overspending in a Government Agency - A Case Study
15. Audit Quality Control Self-Assessment for Small and Medium Practices
16. Corporate Governance Costs and the Privatisation of Public Listed Companies in
Malaysia: An Assessment
17. An Assessment of the Internal Control System of an International University

Congratulations guys and gals. We are proud of all of you

Call for New FRGS Proposals

The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) is now calling for new Fundamental Research proposals from researchers. FRGS is a very competitive grant. First and foremost, the research proposals must focus on fandamental or basic research with specific outcomes through: new methodology, new model, new theory, new policy, improve quality of life. Please submit your proposal by 20th November 2009 to the Research Management Institute (RMI).