Rumours of impending doom
There's an interesting article found courtesy of Dennis, where one "Mr. Murphy" argues that the Big 4 are doomed to implode because of the way they operate.
He argues that the main problem is that he thinks that all young auditors are trained to be assembly line audit monkeys rather than professionals. I'd say, from personal experience, that he puts forward a scary sounding argument, but lacks some hard proof to back up his claims, or to at least contradict my personal experiences.
Yes, it's true that if you're a rainmaker - you bring in sales - that's a Good Thing, but is there any business where it's not?
The point that "Mr. Murphy" glosses over in trying to argue that "Sales are King" is that Professional firms rely on the expertise, wisdom, and knowledge of their professionals to make sales.
No sane client will pick incompetent fools as their auditors or advisors if given a choice. You want the smartest people with the best reputation to help you - unless you're really stuck on getting the 'lowest bidder', but then your disregard for quality work will probably bite you in the end and make you wish you hadn't.
And if, as the proposed professional, you lie about your abilities, you're a horrid choice for an auditor. Such a charlatan will be discovered and flogged until dead. Career-wise, anyway. Unless you're working with some really harsh business partners, then you might as well take the observation literally.
His other observation, that the "up or out" system is in effect is also true- anyone with a passing knowledge of audit firms knows that - but to simply tar the entire profession the way he does borders on libel - I say borders because he doesn't "out" any particular individual or firm, but if he had, there would be some explaining to do.
Unless of course he's aware of things going on very poorly in other firms.
Eyes widen at the thought. Which was the thrust of his article.
Perhaps I should be glad there wasn't any hard evidence presented to back up his views.
My next project should probably be to dislodge Francine's #2 position in Google searches for Auditing Standard #5. She wonders why there isn't more discussion of the new set of rules and guides for auditors. I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that you also can't easily read the CICA handbook online either. Neil and I mused about this recently and I'm thinking it might have something to do with leaving your golden advice inside the barn for the paying customers. More discussion is necessary though.