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Are Booz Consultants Hoping to Get Poached Ahead of the PwC Deal?

Apparently, some folks at Booz are busy little bees on LinkedIn:

Booz & Company management consultants have rushed to update their resumes and LinkedIn profiles after a proposed takeover by big four accounting firm PwC was announced last Thursday.

It has raised concerns about how much talent and inherent value will evacuate the $80 million domestic branch of the management consultancy before PwC gets its hands on it.

Recruiters have seen a number of Booz’s 210 Australian employees posting new CVs on the popular social media website LinkedIn.

The flurry of activity has been interpreted as a sign that Booz staffers are either angling to be poached, with plenty of rivals willing to oblige, or they are job hunting.

Go read the entire article at the link, it's pretty interesting. Like this bit:

But ex-Booz partners believe the strategy house may not remain completely intact for that long.

They think Booz partners are more likely to leave and set up their own consultancies. “There are big gaps in culture,” said one former Booz employee.

“Big four firms rule their partners with accountability – review forms, income allocation committees, marks out of five with bell curve normalisation, etc. This is a disastrous way of managing consultants who at the worst see themselves as the intellectual elite compared to an accountant-type manager,” said another industry insider.

Former SEC Chair Arthur Levitt already said the PwC/Booz deal is "slipping back," and is more than a little skeptical about the potential for conflict. “As the accounting profession becomes more committed to consulting, their audit activities have got to be questioned,” he said.

PwC doesn't see a problem, though, with Dennis Nally bragging that the mashup "would create a stand-out professional services organisation that delivers first class quality services to a broad range of stakeholders. In particular, it would give CEOs the opportunity to work with a global consulting team that could provide services from strategy development right through to execution." Yeah, OK, buddy, we hear you loud and clear, you're excited.

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