QUESTION 1 (25 MARKS)

A. Discuss THREE (3) reasons why business information should be appropriately managed. (6 Marks)

B. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is borderless. Many bookkeepers and low-level accountants whose primary daily tasks are recording business transactions for accounting entities are expected to lose their jobs due to automation in the coming decade.

REQUIRED: Do you agree with the above statement? Elaborate your answers by providing THREE (3) justifications. (7 Marks)

C. Meencha Company has twenty independent companies throughout Asia, covering the whole value chain of oil and gas exploration, production, and selling. The company's finance system is split into 20 independent accounting departments, which are operating multiple instances of four ERP systems, with over one hundred accountants throughout the countries. The consolidation functions used Malaysian accounting standards in Meencha Company's Headquarter in Kuala Lumpur, with a year-end closure often taking as long as seven months. The management later decided to implement a centralized shared service center for its finance and information technology (IT). Kuala Lumpur is chosen as a suitable location. A corporate wide SAP solution is identified to achieve Group-wide consistency based on an existing process model. In the process, however, they foresee some of the potential challenges that would be faced by the company.

REQUIRED: Advise FOUR (4) potential challenges that Meencha Company might be facing while implementing the shared services.