{"id":265184,"date":"2025-05-31T10:46:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T10:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/accounting\/so-i-guess-were-just-talking-mad-sht-about-big-4-consulting-now\/"},"modified":"2025-05-31T10:46:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T10:46:49","slug":"so-i-guess-were-just-talking-mad-sht-about-big-4-consulting-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=265184","title":{"rendered":"So I Guess We’re Just Talking Mad Sh*t About Big 4 Consulting Now"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Have you seen this article in The Telegraph<\/em> today<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The headline gives away the gist of the 1,300 words that followed it but for funsies let\u2019s summarize the main points, namely the three instances of \u201cbullshit.\u201d Note they use quotes around the word \u2014 presumably someone they spoke to specifically used that word to describe Big 4 consulting \u2014 but don\u2019t attribute it to one source of the several they spoke to.<\/p>\n

\n

Working as an auditor at one of Britain\u2019s top accounting firms was once among the most prestigious jobs in the City [Ed. note: the City means London].<\/p>\n

In return for scrutinising the accounts of major companies to spot any potential fraud or irregularities, accountants were rewarded with good pay, long-term stability and steady progression.<\/p>\n

But today, jobs at the leading firms are viewed differently. Instead, in the words of one former \u201cbig four\u201d consultant, the roles are now about \u201cmaking money from bulls\u2013t by pretending to be an expert in front of large corporate clients\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why lead with auditors and immediately pivot to consulting? Why drag audit into this? Next\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just educated people making PowerPoint slides of nonsense for companies,\u201d one former big four consultant says. \u201cPeople would be working 13 hours a day to just stay slightly ahead of their clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says meetings could be painful. \u201cWe famously did one project on new laws facing the car industry. The whole time we were going: \u2018What are we doing?\u2019 We just really didn\u2019t have a clue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the final showdown meeting with the client, we were just rambling off laws, and the clients kept saying, \u2018Oh yeah we know that one.\u2019 We\u2019d basically spent hours trying to do this project and the client kept telling us, \u2018Oh yeah, we knew about that\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was this one really obscure law I\u2019d found from Arizona,\u201d the former consultant says. \u201cI\u2019d found it after hours of searching and we mentioned that one, and the client said, \u2018Oh we haven\u2019t heard about that one yet\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those still in the industry, it is an increasingly rare occurrence. They say it is becoming more difficult for consultants to outsmart their clients, threatening to call time on the \u201cbulls\u2013t jobs\u201d boom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well they\u2019re correct the boom appears to be over. The most recent boom came about thanks to money printers around the world going brrrr when the events of early 2020 brought everything to a screeching halt and when that dried up, the work seemed to dry up just as quickly. Firms have been struggling for the last few years to get the billing engine fired up again and last year\u2019s revenue reports across Big 4 all showed paltry growth, with the exception of Middle East work for firms with robust practices there. To the surprise of everyone, it was KPMG that came closest to hitting nearly<\/em> double-digit growth in one service line<\/a> (Tax and Legal at 9.9%, so close!) while everyone else reported low-to-mid single digits in all service lines across the board. <\/p>\n

For at least two years in a row we\u2019ve heard about slow demand in consulting, making us wonder if EY\u2019s failed Project Everest split was actually some kind of curse that came about because leadership forgot to knock on wood when they were rubbing their palms together in anticipation of buckets of cash they\u2019d make by separating consulting from audit<\/a>. By the way, EY just delayed consulting start dates for the third year in a row<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alright, here\u2019s the last bullshit from Telegraph<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

Insiders at the accountancy firms may agree that their ranks are filled with nonsense roles. But, for now at least, the big four are likely to keep the \u201cbulls\u2013t jobs\u201d boom going for as long as possible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Um. There\u2019s no doubt Big 4 are trying to keep the overpriced PowerPoint slides scheme going, the \u201cboom\u201d is long gone. For now. There are plenty of billable hours to be generated (no pun) by \u201cAI transformation,\u201d something firms are well aware of and already on top of<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But whatever. See the rest for yourself here:<\/p>\n

How a \u2018bulls\u2013t jobs\u2019 boom captured the Big Four accountants<\/strong> [Telegraph<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you seen this article in The Telegraph today? The headline gives away the gist of the 1,300 words that followed it but for funsies let\u2019s summarize the main points, namely the three instances of \u201cbullshit.\u201d Note they use quotes around the word \u2014 presumably someone they spoke to specifically used that word to describe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":265185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11759],"tags":[1022,62180,11268,1604,16853,5972,63721,3559,65517],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-265184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accounting","tag-big","tag-but-think-of-the-clients","tag-consulting","tag-guess","tag-mad","tag-sht","tag-stay-billable-my-friends","tag-talking","tag-the-economy-sucks"],"yoast_head":"\nSo I Guess We're Just Talking Mad Sh*t About Big 4 Consulting Now - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=265184\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"So I Guess We're Just Talking Mad Sh*t About Big 4 Consulting Now - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you seen this article in The Telegraph today? 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