Consulting work thrives all over again
Business Week Online notes that the accounting industry has embraced consulting all over again. The poster child for this movement is Deloitte & Touche, which resisted the trend a few years ago toward audit firms spinning out their consulting arms. The thought back then was that the conflicts of interest were inherent. Deloitte's choice was a good one from a business perspective. Demand for consulting services has soared. Now, all the big boys are reconstituting their consulting arms. That has raised old issues about the conflicts. The BDO Seidman disaster has featured a few conflict accusations based on the audit-consulting tension. But it seems like there is more than enough non-audit consulting work to go around. Forensic services, private equity related services. Sarbox compliance for firms that aren't tax clients. The list is long. Cross-selling is expected and effective it seems.
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- here's the article from Business Week Online
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Comments
By Anom | Posted 2:49pm | October 9, 2007
The controversies of the late 90s and early 00s were greatly overblown. A few deals/relationships, out of literally thousands, were conflicts. The public, watchdog groups and the Feds pushed for changes that have added little to no value - such benefits and more could easily have been achieved with more oversight of such deals by AICPA. The Big Four can assist clients in addressing virtually any problem that arises, and there is something to be said for long-term business advisory relationships.