Category: Deloitte

Compensation Watch ’10: Deloitte Wants to Keep Up with the Joneses

Or the Kylnvelds, Ernsts, Coopers (aka “c”). Take your pick.

From the mailbag:

All staff just received a voicemail from the firm stating that they will be performing a salary adjustment for all staff 2nd year through manager as they have realized the marketplace is providing different salaries than expected and would like to stay competitive. No word on amounts, one on one meetings with partners are occurring in the next week.


This little Friday Surprise was brought to you by Carlos Sabater (listen to the full message below) and the salary adjustment will be for audit professionals only. We’ll definitely be interested to hear what comes out of the meetings next week so keep us updated.

Reactions welcome.

Listen to voice message here

Unfounded Rumor of the Afternoon: PwC Courting Deloitte Employees in Chicago, New York

From the mailbag by way of a Deloittian in Rahmville:

[O]ur PPD (Principal, Partner, Direct) group has received word that PWC is going to send recruiting letters to every [Financial Services Industry] senior in the Chicago and New York offices. Apparently the letter states PWC is willing to offer $15,000 more than what Deloitte is paying.

The PPD group had a meeting with all of the FSI managers in Chicago yesterday regarding this situation. On top of that, all Seniors in FSI received a meeting request today from the PPD group. The meeting is schedule for Monday morning and according to the managers, the topic of dicussion is going to be these letters. Now I can’t speak for anyone in New York but in Chicago the PPD group is not taking this lightly. Word as it that one of our senior ranking partners actually called over to PWC. Again this is all a rumor, I have not seen one of these letter but apparently one of our partners said he/she has.

If you happen across this letter, do share it with us.

Earlier:
Experienced Recruiting Amongst The Big 4 Gets Aggressive

Attention Emerging Hedge Fund Managers: Deloitte Is Ready to Serve You at Your Beck and Call

Fancy yourself a savvy investor? Are you starting a new hedge fund? Need a professional services firm to cater to your every whim so you can concentrate on creating the next shop to be lovingly mocked by our sister from another mister?

SOLUTION: Deloitte’s global full-service hedge fund emerging manager platform. Never heard of it? Of course not! It’s a brand-spanking new platoon in the asset management practice that is just rolling out Project KATN circa now:

“In today’s environment, emerging managers need recognized industry heavyweights for professional services. Deloitte has launched the hedge fund emerging manager platform to provide emerging managers with a solution that offers access to our global network, and customized, creative and responsive service,” said Cary Stier, vice chairman and Deloitte’s U.S. asset management services leader. “If you launch with Deloitte, you stay with Deloitte. A client cannot outgrow our services. Deloitte delivers results that matter.”

And because Deloitte already has “70 percent of U.S. hedge funds with more than $20 billion in assets under management, and 75 percent of global hedge funds with more than $20 billion in assets under management,” they figured that it was about time they started thinking about the little people-cum-hedge fund managers out there. You aren’t going to turn your tiny flagship fund into a behemoth without some help, so why not go with the firm that already schleps for most of the big boys?

So when shopping around for your indentured professional servants budding hedgies, Deloitte’s HFEMP (?) will have you know that they will be there with you every step of the way. From the time you realize your ginormous fortune (pet jungle cats, gold-plated toilets, etc.) to the spectacular implosion (incessant posts by BL, perp walk).

Deloitte’s Asset Management Services Launches Hedge Fund Emerging Manager Platform [PR Newswire]

Former Deloitte Employee Wants to Know If Returning to Public Accounting Is a Good Idea

Back with more from the accounting career mailbag: a former Deloitte employee left the firm recently only to discover that life outside public accounting isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Should they return to the Greed Dot???

Have a question about your career? Looking for guidance on how to give your firm some honest feedback? Need some pointers on Twitter etiquette? Email us at advice@goingconcern.com and will whip something up for you.

Back to our ex-Del

Caleb,

I am writing to you in the hopes that you can provide some insight. Here is my situation, I worked at Deloitte for about four years now in the Pacific Southwest region of the US. I recently quit and took a job at one of the big public Companies in my city. After being there for a couple of months I’ve realized that I am kind of bored and am considering going back to public accounting.

The partner I worked for at DT told me to call him anytime. Before I make that call I wanted to get some input. If I go back I’ll be a manager within a year, does the job function change that much like they are telling me? I’m single and in the long term I’m not sure what I want, for now I just want to work get some more experience and then figure it out.

Considering Going Back

Dear Considering,

Your problem is not an uncommon one. Many people have spent their entire careers bitching about life inside public accounting only once they leave, they come to the conclusion that they never had it so good. There are a couple of ways to interpret this:

1. You really do love public accounting and you truly believe it is your calling in life.

2.

Of course every situation is different and in your case, you’re looking at a promotion to manager in a year. Let’s give the partner the benefit of the doubt here and consider your question about life as a manager. Personally, we didn’t have the pleasure of reaching the rank but know plenty of friends and colleagues who did and many, many, many of them said it was their toughest year of their career to date.

What happens is that your auditing skills become less important and your time management and people skills begin to take center stage. Can you handle staffing issues? Prepare a presentation for a RFP? Convince a partner that a client really isn’t that pissed and you’re not getting fired (when, in fact, the opposite is true)? This is just a taste of your responsibilities. OH! And do you like reviewing other people’s work? Because you’ll have to squeeze that in as well.

Now that we’ve scared the living daylights out of you – it sounds like you’re more concerned with enjoying your job and getting good experience rather than money. That’s rare around these parts, so good for you.

Bottom line is this – if you’re not happy at your current job and think that career bliss awaits you back at the Green Dot with Sharon and the Costanza Twins, you should go back.

Peanut gallery – what do we think here? Back into the belly of the beast or is it a huge mistake? Fire away.

Deloitte’s Sharon Allen Never Misses Date Night, Discovered Early on That She Wasn’t Meant to be a Car Hop

The L.A. Times ran a brief sit-down with Sharon Allen, the Deloitte Board Chairman (her preferred term) over the weekend and it has the typical clichéd whathaveyous about her background – education is important; her great-grandmother was an early role ght-talker, values are important, yada yada yada.

Anyway, despite those snoozy details, there are a few interesting bits to share including that she doesn’t live in New York (gasp), everyone in her entourage is in a different city and some profound insight into differences between her home state – Idaho – and her current state:

The former Midwesterner chooses to live in Pasadena instead of New York, where Deloitte maintains its headquarters. “California is quite different when you think that the whole state of Idaho has [1.5] million people,” Allen said [WOW!]. She’s lived in Southern California for years. Before being elected chairman, Allen was based in Los Angeles as Deloitte’s managing partner for the Pacific Southwest region. Technology and careful coordination allow Allen and other members of her team to live across the map: Her executive assistant is in Portland, Ore.; her chief of staff lives in New York; and her speechwriter is in Charlotte, N.C.

For now, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the head of the largest professional services firm on Earth can live somewhere other than New York. We realized that for a lot of you this is contrary to everything you stand for but apparently Deloitte is pulling it off.

As for her childhood, Sharon gave the more physical labor intensive and service industry path a shot but soon discovered that agriculture nor a career on roller skates were in her future:

She worked for a time on the farm as a kid and then as a car hop in high school, but said she lacked talent at both. “I learned very early that I wasn’t very good on the farm,” she said. “And as a car hop, I dumped an entire tray of soft drinks into someone’s car once.”

As for how she got hooked on accounting, it was like smack for her. One taste was all it took:

[H]er roommate was an accounting major and talked her into dipping a toe into the business world. “I was hooked from the time I took the first class,” she said. She switched her major to accounting soon after.

And she managed to resist the 1970s accounting firm boys’ club:

Allen was often the lone female in her accounting courses. The trend continued once she started at Touche Ross, a predecessor to Deloitte. Allen turned it to her advantage. “People found a way to recognize and notice me,” she said. “While being a woman in a predominantly male profession early in my career, it would have been easy to adjust my style and focus on doing stuff like the men did. I learned I could be successful by doing it my own way.”

Without more details, it’s difficult to determine what she means by “doing it my way.” It’s unlikely that they were asking her to pee standing up. Or that they expected her to go bald, like some people.

Now that she’s a bigwig at a Big 4 firm that has to jet all over the world doing…things, you might think it would be easy for her to forget where she came from. NOPE! No matter where she is, Sharon is always back in SoCal for Friday date night to make sure the man of the house isn’t just lying around, letting himself go while she’s out moving and shaking:

Friday date nights are sacred. No matter where Allen is in the world, she places top priority on flying home every week to spend time with her husband, Rich (they’ve been married for 38 years), who was also her high school sweetheart.

In other words, she’s heading back home to ensure that Richard chases off the freeloading friends and babes that are hanging out at the manse all week. Or maybe it’s love. Either way, it sounds like she runs a tight ship.

And no doubt, that obsession/love translated into something that helped SA become the highest ranking woman at a Big 4 firm. An impressive feat no matter where you stand. But frankly, from Deloitte’s perspective, she’s the most visible leader that’s not pulling a Costanza. You can’t put a price on that.

Accounting for her success [Los Angeles Times]

Jim Quigley Believes That ‘A Sustained Recovery Has Begun’

That’s what he told Fox Business Network anyway. He doesn’t stat it explicitly but Quigs is probably referring to his Big 4 and professional services brethren.


Not exactly sure why JQ thinks we aren’t headed for a double-dip after Team Jehovah gave the ‘fairly bad’ to ‘very bad’ outlook.

Is he still riding high on the biggest of the Big 4 news? Discuss.

Deloitte Is Officially The Biggest of the Big 4, Says Deloitte

Figuring that it couldn’t trust any of its direct competitors to call this one, Deloitte announced today that it is officially the biggest of the Big 4.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) is proud to announce that its member firms have risen to become the largest private professional services organization in the world for the first time in the organization’s history. With this milestone, Deloitte surpasses all competitors in the private professional services category to become the market leader based on revenue and headcount. As of the fiscal year ended 31 May 2010, Deloitte had aggregate member firm revenues of US$26.578 billion (US$26.6B) and employed approximately 170,000 people worldwide, including nearly 35 percent in priority markets.

Even though it’s against our natural inclination, we decided to fact check this little stat. Jumping over to PwC’s newly official rebranded site we added up the aggregated revenues by region to discover total revenues for P. Dubs of US$26.569 billion. That’s a difference of $9 million and some change. The proverbial photo finish.

As you can imagine, Jim Quigley and crew are pretty amped about the situation, even though this was never their goal:

“When Deloitte Haskins & Sells and Touche Ross & Co. merged in 1989 to form our modern organization, we were the smallest of what was then the Big Eight. Over the years, our goal was never to be the largest—we have always aimed to be the best, to be the standard of excellence,” said DTTL Global CEO Jim Quigley. “Deloitte professionals have pursued that goal by consistently delivering high-quality, world-class client service and demonstrating a strong focus on responsible business practices. Their commitment and dedication to living our values-based culture have transformed Deloitte into the world’s number one private professional services organization. This is a defining moment in our history.”

In other words, “Shucks, guys. We weren’t trying to be numero uno, it just kinda worked out that way. But DAMN, does it feel good or what?”

And this momentous occasion wouldn’t be complete with a little twist of the knife. Apparently Deloitte got so close that they ended up just wanting it more than the rest of the firms out there:

Over the years, Deloitte has consistently closed the gap and widened the lead among its major competitors. In fact, over the last five years, Deloitte was the fastest-growing private professional services organization based on total revenue among the Big Four. During the period from 2005-2009, Deloitte outgrew its peers by 2.7 to 3.3 percentage points annually. The organization has achieved its leadership position through a combination of organic growth, strategic acquisitions, a focus on quality, and bold investments in priority and emerging markets.

Of course it helps that the consulting business is still in-house but hey, no need to mention how the sausage is made, amiright? And who knows, PwC could always bounce back in FY2011 or maybe E&Y and KPMG will start courting each other again to create a super-firm. Okay, that last one is a stretch but we’re hoping for some surprises.

Deloitte ascends to become the largest private professional services organization worldwide [Deloitte]

Decision Time for One Recruit: Deloitte or KPMG?

Returning again with another edition of accounting career therapy, a recruit has two offers – one from Deloitte, one from KPMG. Rather than speak to their friends, family or flip a coin, they emailed us.

Need help making your next career move? Been taking a beating at work and need inspired? Need help deciding if you’re too hot for accounting? Send us your query (and pictures) to advice@goingconcern.com and we’ll be happy to help/judge.

I have an offer from Deloitte and KPMG. Where I reside, the local Deloitte is almost twice as large than the local KPMG, but is also known to work longer hours. Of course, rankings will say that Deloitte is better than KPMG and seemingly pays more according to my research done on this very site. I don’t want to seem shallow, but I am at the moment. Should I go for the money/prestigious name or the shorter hours?

On a side note, I’m honestly only looking to a 5- to 6-year plan in public accounting (hopefully to make manager). With that in mind, what route would you take between Deloitte and KPMG?


Ahhh, the firm versus firm debate. One of the oldest and stupidest to be had. But it’s fun, so let’s indulge, shall we?

Regardless of the back and forth you might read in the comments, judging the firms collectively is a waste of time. There are “good offices” and “bad offices” at each firm. How you choose to define “good” and “bad” is up to you but it sounds like you’ve painted yourself into a corner, saying “Big prestigious firm = good,” “Money = good” and “Long working hours = bad.” Choosing a firm based on this perception is futile exercise. The difference in money won’t be life changing and “shorter hours” probably won’t feel shorter. Trust us.

And you know who agrees with us? DWB.

Clearly in this situation, the KPMG recruiters did a better job managing (i.e. bullshitting) the “long hours” argument. Long hours are a simple fact of life. Unless you want to work at the Post Office, you’ll be hard pressed to find 9a-6p. Also, remember that regardless of where you start your career you will find yourself at the bottom of the food chain. Welcome to the Big 4, kid.

Try this on for size – forget money, prestige and long hours. What about – gasp – choosing the firm that seems like the best fit for you? Did you like the Deloitte people or were they snooty two-shoes? Did the KPMG people seem like a fun bunch or were they all work and no play, thus a bunch of dull mofos? You’re going to have to work with these people EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And many nights. And weekends. Do you want to be around people that you think you’ll enjoy working with or that you’ll consider suffocating with pillow or poisoning their late-night food?

With that in mind, make your choice. Hell, maybe it won’t be either firm but forget about money, perception and hours. If that’s your measuring stick for choosing a firm, then you may have bigger issues on your hands.

Deloitte Isn’t Buying This Big 4 Oligopoly Nonsense

Over the last 20 years or so, for one reason or another, accounting firms that were able to provide audit services to largest companies on Earth have been whittled down from 8 to 6 to 5 to 4. During this time, it became the concern of many (read: anyone not in the “Big” club) that the firms were too concentrated and audit quality was deteriorating due to the lack of competition.

Naturally, the firms at the top have dismissed this argument as bupkis. And because the public accounting industry is one that elected representatives and their constituents could give a rat crap about, the cries of the less fortunate firms have gone unheard.

Until recently that is. A report this summer that revealed the existence of “Big Four clauses” in credit agreements in the UK and that allowed the Grant Thorntons and BDOs of the world to have their “A-HA!” moment.

Deloitte, however, is not impressed with revelation and would like everyone to know that the audit biz is regular dog fight:

The audit market is “fiercely competitive and transparent” according to Big Four firm Deloitte, which sees no reason to open the top-heavy industry to greater competition.

Deloitte believes audit quality is “higher than ever” and said it has seen “no evidence of anti-competitive behaviour”, according to its submission to the upcoming House of Lords inquiry into audit competition.

“Our experience is that the listed-company audit market is one of the most competitive,” the firm said.

“The firm” presumably said this with a straight face.

Audit market is “fiercely competitive” Deloitte argue [Accountancy Age]

Deloitte Adding 11.5k New U.S. Employees in FY11; 5k Campus Hires

FINS has more details on Deloitte’s hiring bonanza, reporting yesterday that the firm will add 11,500 new U.S. employees during fiscal year 2011.

The company expects to hire 11,500 in the country, which includes 5,000 campus hires. The U.S. numbers are part of the more-than 40,000 hires the company anticipates in FY 2011, said Patty Pogemiller, national director of talent acquisition.

The company is hiring across all of its major businesses in the U.S., particularly in its financial services industries. According to Pogemiller, the company is looking for candidates with “superior analytical and problem-solving skills” as well as and team-building abilities.

The breakdown of “hiring across all of its major businesses” remains unclear, although since the consulting business is going gangbusters while audit, tax and advisory are more or less flat, you could reason that the demand for consultants would be be on the rise. Assuming normal (or abnormal) attrition, the other business lines will still have their typical demand for fresh faces but a source close to Deloitte indicated to us that if the hot pace of the consulting biz continues, it could easily outpace the rest of the firm’s services.

Our source also indicated that the recruiting levels of 11,500/5,000 is consistent with those the firm had in the pre-financial crisis years of 2007-2009, which could mean the firm’s demand for new people has normalized.

Deloitte Will Hire 11,500 in the U.S. in FY 2011 [FINS]

AT&T CEO Isn’t Impressed with Deloitte Study That Says Half of iPhone Users Would Switch to Verizon at the Drop of a Hat

Confidential to AT&T BSDs: Steve Jobs may be an asshole, but he’s not stupid.

Close to half of Apple Inc iPhone users in the United States would be “very interested” in dumping AT&T Inc for Verizon Wireless as a service provider, according to a study from professionals service firm Deloitte.

“If another carrier were to pick up the iPhone, you would probably see a number of defections,” said Ed Moran, director of insights and product innovation at Deloitte.

AT&T’S Chief Executive Randall Stephenson played down the potential impact of the loss of iPhone exclusivity at a Goldman Sachs conference on Tuesday.

Stephenson said about 80 percent of AT&T’s iPhone users were either in family plans making it difficult to cancel service or had received their phone through their business. [Ed. note: rumor has it that after making this statement, Stephenson was heard laughing maniacally]

Study finds iPhone owners want to switch to Verizon [Reuters]