Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

Inauguration for Prof. Dr. Didi Achjari, S.E., M.Com., Akt., as the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) UGM was officially held on Tuesday (12/10). The event took place offline, attended by limited guests at the Senate Hall of Universitas Gadjah Mada and was also broadcasted live through the Youtube channel of Universitas Gadjah Mada. Didi Achjari became one of 351 active professors at UGM and 27 active professors at FEB UGM. Prior to being appointed as Professor, Didi Achjari completed his undergraduate studies at the accounting study program at FEB UGM, earned a Master of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales, and earned a Doctor of Business Administration degree at Curtin University of Technology.

In front of the guests present, Didi Achjari delivered an inaugural speech entitled "The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on the Relevance of Accounting Information". The background of this speech is the phenomenon of the fantastic value of startups or digital companies. However, when compared to their book value, the market value of these companies is very unequal. This indicates that there are other factors that become the basis for assessment by investors or creditors as economic potential in the future but do not appear in the financial statements. This inaugural speech aims to explain this phenomenon from an accounting perspective.

In his speech he explained, digital companies including startups spend a lot of investment costs to create efficient businesses, research and create new products, create competitive business models, develop competent and innovative human resources, and to develop information and communication technology (ICT). These costs, especially the use of ICT, which in this era has become a kind of production factor and are mandatory, will make a winning and high value company, but in reality the costs are not easy to be recognized as an asset in the financial statements.

This condition raises 3 problems: imposing large investment expenditures will result in the company potentially having to admit losses for years at its inception, the company does not have many assets because its expenses are costed, poor financial reports will make it difficult for the company to get financing from investors or creditors. "The declining role of financial information in investor decision-making is a sharp critique of accounting science because it is unable to provide relevant information for its users," he said.

At the end of the speech, Didi Achjari concluded that with the increasing number of digital companies that were present, the challenge for accounting science was how to accurately capitalize investment expenditures. According to him, if these problems can be overcome, the impact will be significant for the Indonesian economy. Startups and digital companies will be able to perform better in financial statements so that more investors and creditors can be involved to fund prospective and innovative businesses. This then has the potential to give birth to more unicorn and even decacorn companies that will be able to advance the economy of Indonesia.

Reportage: Kirana Lalita Pristy/Sony Budiarso.