Big Four firms

By Julie Ahadi.

Imagine if, after making his rousing speech to the Scottish army at Stirling, William Wallace had led his devoted tartan-clad warriors away from the English army and down a quiet, idyllic valley for a spot of tai chi. It would’ve been quite the anti-climax, really, not to mention a rubbish end to a film. Cheated out of the glory of dying a hideous death on the battlefield, many a solider would’ve felt rather hard done by. All fired up and nowhere to…fire (metaphorically speaking—firearms were firmly still in China at this point in history, unlike tai chi, apparently). But by my reckoning a large majority would’ve gone along with it, for a while at least. After all, they’d sworn allegiance to Wallace and if he thought tai chi was the right thing to be doing at the time then who were they to argue? Surely, they’d tell themselves as they sipped green tea and perfected their Needle at Sea Bottom posture, it would only be a matter of time before they were unleashed to fulfil their true destiny and got to give the English a good hiding.

By Edward Haigh.

It’s not entirely unusual to see the Big Four outperforming the market these days. In 2015 they did so in all of the five biggest consulting markets in the world, but nowhere has the difference between their performance and that of other firms been quite as stark as it has been in Australia. So why?

In part it’s because the Big Four are placing themselves in the sweet spot at the moment–sitting somewhere between strategy and technology and asserting their ability to do both of those and a whole lot else besides. In a market in which clients are often trying to do everything, the Big Four offer everything.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

I recently spent the day at PwC’s Experience Center in Miami. 

The Center itself is at least as good as ones we’ve seen elsewhere (personally, I was delighted to see more potted plants, and fewer soft toys and beanbags).  Most can be traced back to Capgemini’s pioneering Accelerated Solutions Centres, now more than a decade old.  It’s clearly a model that continues to work well for clients who find the different environment helps facilitate discussion, taking their employees out of their accustomed boxes.