By Tim Reed, Big4.com Guest Blogger    

Cloud Driven – SLAs – The Keys to Performance

The movement to Cloud delivery provides us with a myriad of new capabilities. The promise of converting capital expense into operating expense, adding resources only when needed and significantly reducing the cycles of IT procurement and cost are hard to ignore.   The reality is that the cloud can meet the business requirements of immediate sense and response, reduce the current complex model of IT delivery and truly offer self service.  Moving to the cloud will remove the current internal delivery challenges and reset your current operational model and the direct ownership of the resources needed to deliver the capability.

To limit the exposure and concern that comes with moving to the cloud and upsetting your current delivery model, the best deployments of cloud capability are using Cloud driven SLA’s to drive performance, address risk and meet the performance requirements for Cloud delivery.

Effective Cloud SLA’s should adhere to key principles,  namely;

• The Cloud SLA should be measurable, simple to understand and readily available
• The  Cloud SLA should identify the service to be performed and expectations  you have for specific outcomes
• The client should be able to identify Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and what is the level of acceptable performance
• The Cloud SLA must  explain how will the service be measured – does 1 bad transaction or missed backup trigger an SLA measurement?
• The Cloud SLA must define when it will be measured – does this happen daily, monthly, quarterly?
• How will success be defined – Are you happy with availability of 99.9 or 99.9999 %
• The Cloud SLA should note the responsibilities of the client and the service provider – who will perform the backup and restore going forward?
• What are your Cloud Reporting requirements –  how often do you need to know that the Cloud solution is working?
• What are Incentives (or penalties) that are needed to meet your expectations for levels of service and quality

When challenged to make a cloud procurement decision, there is an opportunity to address the key questions noted above and establish the terms and conditions that are required for Cloud Service Delivery SLAs and clarify the expectations for Service Delivery and Performance Management.

Service Delivery and Performance Management – Cloud SLAs

One of the best practices we use when identifying  Cloud Performance and Service required SLA’s is to define a DevOps framework and model that takes into account the  use the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) approach to setup the key Cloud performance areas of;

• Service Requests
• Incident Management & Continuity
• Problem Resolution
• Change Release
• Capacity
• Configuration Management
• Availability
• Security

Each performance area is relevant to Cloud delivery and should be examined carefully to understand what will be provided by the Cloud provider.

Once you complete a deep look  at each Cloud performance area, it is critical to drill down a bit deeper into the types of performance metrics that will really make a difference when signing up for Cloud Delivery. For example, each of us should be taking a deep breath and looking into the answers to the following key questions;

• Time to Respond – How long does it take for the Service to handle your request?
• Time to Transact – How much time does it take to complete a transaction?
• Resolution – What is the time it takes from identifying a service problem to providing resolution?
• How reliable is the Cloud Solution – When you look at the setup of hardware and software and connections.. How reliable is the solution?
• Availability – What is the uptime of the Cloud Service?

It is also important to keep in mind that the Cloud does not address every aspect of application or infrastructure delivery.   The wise user will be able to understand the difference and distinguish the requirements that are unique to network performance, application performance and infrastructure performance. Depending on your specific Cloud solution, you may have all or only portions of IT performance to consider when establishing Cloud SLA’s.

The key to really understanding what is needed for Cloud SLA’s is to know your internal boundaries and what the Cloud solution will deliver.  Be aware of what you will be doing and what the Cloud provider will be doing, once you have moved to production.

Tim Reed, Principal at ReedITC worked at E&Y , focusing on Global Fortune 50 Firms. ReedITC is a strategic IT & Operations consulting firm focused on Cost (Ability to operate efficiently at scale ), Growth (Ability to drive top line growth) and Compliance (Ability to provide services securely).  Working for multiple global firms, the ReedITC Team  has led several  IT and Operational initiatives, including Data and Enterprise Cloud Transformations. For more information, please visit www.reeditc.com or contact tim.reed@reeditc.com

The post Cloud Driven SLAs – The Keys to Performance appeared first on Big4.com.

WeiserMazars LLP,, is strengthening its commitment to the field with the addition of Ron Ries as a Partner in its Not-for-Profit Group.   Ries brings more than 20 years of experience to the position and  most recently, he served as Chief Financial Officer at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services.

Mr. Ries sits on several boards of not-for-profit organizations including Selfhelp Community Services, Inc. and Wall Street Technology Association, serving as chair of the Audit Committee and treasurer, respectively.  He also chairs the AICPA Not-for-Profit Financial Executive Forum, an annual conference.

Mitchell Lewis, WeiserMazars’ Partner-in-Charge, Not-for-Profit Group commented:

“Our Not-for-Profit Group is well positioned to meet the unique needs of this sector and Ron’s expertise will complement the skills of our existing team,” he said. “Ron’s hands-on experience in the not-for-profit field will provide us with additional insight into the unique accounting and management issues of clients in this space, allowing us to closely tailor our services to their needs.” 

Since 1921, WeiserMazars LLP has provided a unique combination of foresight and experience when fulfilling client needs in accounting, tax and advisory services.  WeiserMazars’ team of over 100 partners and approximately 700 professionals is based out of six U.S. offices, Israel and the Cayman Islands. As the independent U.S. member firm of the Mazars Group – a prominent international accounting, audit, tax and advisory services organization with nearly 14,000 professionals in more than 70 countries on six continents – WeiserMazars represents clients of all types, including owner-managed businesses, complex, multi-national organizations and high net worth individuals in a multitude of industries.

from WEISERMAZARS files

The post WEISERMAZARS: RON RIES ADDED TO NOT-FOR-PROFIT GROUP appeared first on Big4.com.

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com        

Like a lot of other traditional service institutions, postal services have seen major transformations that have them diversifying services and leveraging the latest technologies to stay relevant and cost efficient. A new study by Accenture tracked these changes. Recently, Brody Buhler, managing director for Accenture’s global postal industry practice talked with Big4.com about the high points and trends in Achieving High Performance in the Postal Industry: Accenture Research and Insights 2013.

He started out by noting Accenture’s research has been ongoing since 2006 and the nearly 50-billion piece decline seen in the last three years slowed in 2011 but has picked up its pace again recently. Buhler also spoke to how technology accelerated the change.

“There is a technology substitution challenge that comes in two ways,” he said. “The first is receiving those communications online, paying  a bill for example. But there’s also much more aggressive competition in the advertising space.”

Accenture research

The Accenture research found that posts worldwide were actually losing market share to online advertising. The study started with Accenture looking at the postal systems of 16 countries. Since then, the research has grown to cover a total of 24 posts and two commercial companies.

However, Buhler notes the study also found that posts are benefitting from a rise in package volume that the Internet economy has created.

“They’re obviously benefitting from the increased shipping that comes with increased ecommerce and they are also exploring entering other pieces of that value chain,” he said citing an example in Belgium where the post office offers small businesses website hosting and other fulfillment services.

The Accenture research also shows that posts in general are looking for ways to get further embedded in the value chain that includes ecommerce. In fact, the study specifically points to growing trends in cross border ecommerce which involves delivery to surrounding countries and other types of retail diversification like bill payment centers and government services.

Diversification

Rising employee pension costs were another factor causing worldwide posts to look at diversifying to stay competitive.

“We call those monopolistic ghosts in the research,” Buhler says. “What we’re finding is there are private postal operators that are entering the market and they enter with a much slimmer capital base and are much more agile. That poses a real competitive threat,” he says.

He also says that more traditional posts will need to address some of these legacy costs if they are going to compete. The latest version of the survey shows little changes in the top ten rankings with the exception of Norway which rose five positions and Finland which fell eight slots.

The research has also highlighted the advantages to posts that leverage their retail networks to provide services like in Italy where you can buy phones or microwaves through the outlets.

“Those posts that use their retail outlets as a true asset are high performers,” Buhler said. He also said although the Accenture research was able to classify four broad strategies that were being used, those posts classified as service providers that have diversified into new lines of business were the most successful.

The post Accenture’s Brody Buhler Talks New Postal Trends appeared first on Big4.com.

When someone has a career spanning 30 years in business auditing and consulting and ranks as one of the founding members of a major player in the industry like Protiviti, it comes as no surprise they’ve been inducted into the Hall of Distinguished Audit Practitioners. Protiviti’s senior managing director, Bob Hirth, had both those credentials and more on his illustrious resume when he talked with Big4.com just after the induction ceremony, which was held at this year’s IIA General Audit Management conference in Las Vegas.

He started the conversation by telling us about the beginnings of his present company.

Bob Hirth

“I’m an alumnus from Arthur Andersen and spent more than 25 years there,” he said, adding that he started working there when there were eight large accounting firms. Hirth’s road to prominence in the profession also had an international leg when he went to Melbourne to work before returning to the United States in 1991 to California.

“I had about a 10-year stint here in the U.S. after my three years in Australia before the firm ‘ceased operations’ as we sometimes say in 2002, and we formed Protiviti,” he said.

New Venture

Of course, more than just a timeline and some circumstances went into the new venture. Hirth was also happy to talk about the motivation that steered what was a fledgling operation and helped to carve out its path to prominence.

“The absolute number one motivation for everybody in founding Protiviti was the philosophy that the status quo was not an option.”

He went on to say that everyone working at Arthur Andersen at the time understood their current jobs were soon coming to an end, and what needed to be done became quite clear.

“Survival is an important emotion or instinct,” he said, giving a nod to the practical side of the transformation.

Positive Drivers

There were other factors as well, and Hirth went on to explain some of the underlying, positive drivers.

“We had a value at Arthur Andersen called stewardship,” he said. “The idea being that when you became a partner at our firm you agreed to try to make it stronger before you left than what you had inherited.”

Hirth said although the concept changed slightly when it became apparent to everyone they needed to find another place to work, there was a general consensus that the idea of stewardship needed to follow Arthur Andersen’s ex-employees wherever they went.

“I like to suggest then that the founding of Protiviti became a group event,” he said. “I would say that for every night in the early part of 2002, conference calls were held with a regular group of people trying to figure out how we could demonstrate this value of stewardship and possibly take our Business Process Risk Consulting (BPRC) practice somewhere.”

So, on May 22^nd 2002, Hirth and a group of his fellow partners and colleagues were employees of Arthur Andersen, and on the next day, 650 people started what was first called Newco since the new firm didn’t have a name as yet. The philosophy behind what was to become Protiviti was one of the first priorities.

“There were some words surrounding values we wanted to bring forward,” Hirth said, “and those values were around words like professionalism, productivity, objectivity, integrity, creativity and the like.”

Branding Efforts

The branding efforts that followed resulted in Newco’s name transforming to Protiviti.

Hirth’s internal auditing presentations have brought him international recognition and he’s written or published numerous articles, white papers, resource guides and research studies. He has served as the San Francisco IIA chapter president and multiple terms on the San Francisco chapter of The IIA Board of Governors, as well as other volunteer positions for IIA organizations. His insights into the challenges faced by the internal auditing profession today are highly valued.

He categorized the pace of change, emerging risks and global operations under one heading.

“Because of technology, primarily, the rate of change is a lot faster,” he said. “Things can happen in minutes or almost seconds today and ripple across the globe.” He went on to say the pace of change creates the emerging risks mentioned, and these risks can impact all companies, even those that don’t think of themselves as global in nature.

Finally, among the highlights in his illustrious career, Hirth includes the people he’s met and the ability to mentor them at the top.

“Like any coach, there’s been satisfaction in seeing people grow, mature, fail a little bit, but ultimately succeed,” he said.

The post Hall of Distinguished Audit Practitioners Latest Inductee Bob Hirth talks about the birth of Protiviti and his Career appeared first on Big4.com.

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com     

By all accounts, the new Accenture Delivery Center in Austin Texas will work to enhance the company’s health and public sector work across North America by providing software development and support with consulting and technology services.

David McCurley, managing director of Accenture’s public sector software business recently talked with Big4.com and provided an overview of the software to be supported by the new Delivery Center in Austin that will add 300 jobs by the end of the calendar year and streamline government social service programs.  

David McCurley

“This has been along time in the planning,” McCurley says. “We worked very hard to verify some assumptions we had about the marketplace and then drive something new and different into it.” 

Software Applications

Recently, Accenture has spent time developing and launching a flexible, service-based technology platform. There have been software applications to enable public agencies to upgrade or replace legacy IT systems added as well in an integrated, flexible manner to reduce technology and management costs and improve service delivery. These new software products include the Accenture Public Service Platform, the Accenture Benefits Management System, the Accenture Citizen Self-Service Portal and the Accenture Public Health Platform.

McCurley was the logical choice as the front man for this project. He will have 29 years with Accenture in May and most of that time has been spent working with government agencies. One of his endeavors with Accenture was looking at the benefits and service delivery programs that governments across the globe were offering their citizens. 

“In the course of that we started a process of looking across the globe looking at programs our clients were offering their citizens and if there was a more economical and business successful way that we could look at that service delivery model that was being accomplished.”

Software Capabilities

Accenture and McCurley found the answer lay with the company’s software capabilities and the understanding that people’s needs often crisscross from one government agency to another.

“Historically these services have been provided through a series of stovepipe funding mechanisms,” McCurley said. “For example, cash assistance is provided through one agency, medical assistance is provided through another agency, housing assistance is through another agency. Each agency has their funding sources and their own manner in which they deal with the public.”

One of the issues that Accenture tackled sprung from the fact they found most people’s issues didn’t fall neatly under the umbrella of just one program and many of the existing business systems Accenture’s clients were using didn’t take into account this crossover.

“The business systems that our clients had to bring to bear on those problems are not designed to be integrated and to share information and give a broad perspective on the underlying cause,” McCurley said adding that in response Accenture has developed a model for social services to look at these types of issues.

“We made a decision to look at the way software was being provided to this marketplace about three years ago.”

Stovepipe method

Historically, software was provided to the relevant agencies either using a ‘stovepipe’ method where significant customization was needed or off the shelf systems that were often a bad fit. Accenture saw the opportunity presented here.

“What we saw was the need for  purpose built software solutions that bring the benefits of an off the shelf solution which includes the functional purpose and depth of custom solutions that have been out there historically for decades,” he said.

These hybrid software programs also include, among other advancements, a self service portal for citizens.

“We know that governments are being faced more and more with pressures to take work out of their offices and citizens want access to information about their programs and case,” he said.

The post Accenture’s David McCurley Talks About Software Supported By The New Delivery Center in Austin appeared first on Big4.com.

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com  

Despite its unique and critical position in our society, healthcare is often subject to the same budgetary restrictions as other American industries. Now more than ever, hospitals and other facilities are facing the daunting task of improving patient care with shrinking funds.

A milestone in this ongoing battle was reached recently with the announcement that Trinity Health  worked with Accenture on a three-year initiative resulting in a new healthcare model that saved $17 million in annual costs while reducing patient mortality rates by almost 20 percent. Manuel Lowenhaupt M.D., Managing Director of Clinical Services in North America for Accenture, recently spoke with Big4.com about this important innovation that demonstrates how the old adage was at the center of the new model’s origins and successes.

Health care and digital technology

Manuel Lowenhaupt MD

He started our talk by acknowledging that healthcare has been slow to embrace some of the digital technologies that have become more commonplace with other industries.

“I would also gently suggest that healthcare as an industry has less experience with some of the tools that consulting and other major industrial models have brought,” he said, also noting that the lag was understandable in the context of the fact the industry has only started building out large national organizations in the last few decades that could use scalable industrial strength tools.

The partnership between Trinity Health and Accenture used those two concepts as a spring board. However, before the end of the three-year collaboration that resulted in a patient care delivery model for improving care coordination, standardization of care practices and enhanced patient outcomes, one key question needed to be addressed.

Descriptive Analytics

“The story with Trinity,” Lowenhaupt said, “goes to those two premises and asks, ‘What could you do if you brought information systems and predictive and descriptive analytics to the table. What could you do if you brought industrial strength change management to the table?’”

The idea took shape to bring the kinds of things that Big Four companies do in other industries to healthcare, but the question was would they work? The exciting answer to Lowenhaupt and Accenture was a resounding “yes” with notable benchmarks achieved like streamlined processes for medication reconciliation, a reduction in mortality rates and a reduced likelihood of patient falls through enhanced documentation of risk.

The scale of the achievement left little doubt.

“Trinity is a fifty hospital national system going from California to Maryland with fine hospitals of all sizes,” Lowenhaupt said. “In many ways part of the excitement for us was the fact that Trinity reflects healthcare on a usual day in the United States.”

Once Accenture was chosen with Lowenhaupt as the lead resource for the team that would consult with Trinity, some of the best-in-class capabilities were implemented. The Harvard Medical School trained physician is quick to point out what he considers to be the biggest benefit the Unified Clinical Organization model produced.

“The part that gets me most excited at the end of the day,” he said, “is information systems and digital technology really does improve the care of patients when it’s used well.”

Improving care coordination was one of the focal points of the collaboration and a topic that Lowenhaupt was happy to speak to. He started by saying that while there were many “ individual heroes in healthcare” one of the challenges faced by everyone working the field was in the transition of care that patients experience when they move from one provider to another or one care setting to another.

“We’re (the health care industry) really bad at the hand offs,” he said, adding that the new care coordination part of the process was in fact managing the mechanics of these hand offs. The Trinity improvement supported by Accenture focused on having “a management model that didn’t let you drop into the cracks and disappear as a patient.”

Backed By Accenture

There were other areas under the umbrella of the Trinity Health initiative, backed by Accenture, like patient outcomes and advancing standards of care practices. Being able to standardize the processes involved was, according to Lowenhaupt, one of the biggest accomplishments of the collaboration.

“Personalizing care is a critical component of high-performance care,” he said noting that standardization and building out models that really look toward a common set of tools and processes was one of the goals that increased both efficiency and the quality of patient care.

“Something that Trinity Health system should be extremely proud of was their ability to build out a single formulary for all their hospitals across the country.”

The post Necessity really is the Mother of Invention. Accenture’s Manuel Lowenhaupt M.D. discusses Trinity Health’s transformative new health care model. appeared first on Big4.com.

Making a bank a successful business has taken on a special importance and significance since the fiscal crisis of 2008 ended.  When WeiserMazars recently announced their participation in The Good Bank Initiative that will look to put together the ingredient list for these post financial crisis institutions, they joined as one of the participating countries in the Mazars Group, along with Credit Suisse and SAP in a global dialogue.

WeiserMazars’ Stephen Brecher recently talked with Big4.com about the origins of the five month program that will stimulate a debate around what makes a socially engaged bank a good enterprise.

“There are four countries that are heavily involved in this project,” Brecher said. “France where Mazars was founded, the UK where our partner was (until fairly recently) the Irish Bank regulator, the US and Italy.”

He went on to say two initial motivators sparked the global conversation that will include debates, research and articles all leading up to a live and online broadcast originating in London on June 4^th.

Mazars’ Culture

“In order to understand why a firm like Mazars would want to get involved with this, it’s really important to understand Mazars culture,” Brecher explains noting that although WeiserMazars is an independent member firm, there is still a strong global partnership.

Stephen Brecher

“So there is a connectivity that is unique among the other major global accounting firms.”

There will be three key themes guiding The Good Bank initiative and these include dialogue around the innovative, the trustworthy and the effective bank. Along with the aforementioned broadcast, a summary report is scheduled to be released in early July.

Brecher went on to say that WeiserMazars’ desire for both transparency and openness was the second driver that drew the firm to The Good Bank. He went on to talk about the rapidly changing times for the financial industry.

“In the financial services industry, banks, investment banks, insurance companies are facing many reputational challenges,” he said noting there have been a number of “missteps” over the last several years leading to a deluge in regulatory transformations in the UK and United States.

Collective Intelligence

“We believe that we can provide collective intelligence from our experts in different jurisdictions. We have shared values and we believe that it’s important to have a dialogue on what’s in the pubic interest,” Brecher said adding that WeiserMazars was fully aware the focus also needed to be placed on shareholder value.

He also discussed several issues facing the banking sector including capping executive compensation.

“Here’s where there’s a balance for the industry,” Brecher says, “between how to compensate competent executives, how to service clients and provide liquidity to the marketplace in an efficient manner  and also provide shareholder value.”

He said that balancing those three items was one of the issues he planned to bring up for debate.

Regulatory Environment

One of the other topics Brecher stressed was the regulatory environment, primarily in the United States and Europe, and how the need to gauge the amount of available capital was driving regulatory change on a more regional rather than global stage.

“One of the criticisms during the financial crisis was that banks were not providing liquidity but if the need to have more capital drives that part of it, it will reduce the ability to provide liquidity,” he said adding there was another balancing element needed like the one for executive compensations.

Beyond being a WeiserMazars partner, Stephen Brecher is also an ambassador of The Good Bank Initiative.

The post WeiserMazars’ Stephen Brecher Talks With Big4.com About The Good Bank Initiative appeared first on Big4.com.

After nearly 20 years of outstanding service, Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has decided to retire from the firm later this year.

Jim is an influential economist and thought leader, and is regarded as an expert in the world’s foreign exchange and bond markets. Importantly, he has identified revolutionary economic trends, defining the concept of the BRICs which has become synonymous with the emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China as growth opportunities of the future.

He joined Goldman Sachs in 1995 as a partner in the roles of co-head of Global Economics Research and chief currency economist. He was named head of Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research in 2001. In 2006, Jim joined the firm’s European Management Committee. In 2010, he took up his current role as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and since then he has strengthened our research discipline and enhanced communication among investment professionals across asset classes

He is involved in a number of non-profit organizations. He is chairman and a founding trustee of the London-based charity SHINE and also serves on the board of Teach for All and a number of other charities specializing in education. Jim has been the recipient of many awards, including an honorary doctorate in 2009 from the Institute of Education, University of London, for his educational philanthropy.

Jim is a member of the UK-India Round Table and the UK India Business Council, and is also chairman of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership Advisory. He previously served as a non-executive director of Manchester United before it returned to private ownership in 2005.

The post Goldman Sachs: Jim O’Neill to Retire appeared first on Big4.com.

Interviews

Dear Members:

Here at Big4.com, we’ve got all the bases covered when it comes to what Alumni from the Big Four accounting and consulting firms need to network, stay informed or move into a new career path.

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Accenture Federal Services recently received a five-year, $24.4 million contract to help modernize The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) financial system. The current 25 year old structure will be transitioned to a cloud based operation that uses  commercial-off-the-shelf software in a shared service environment. The new project was something that Ed Meehan, Accenture’s Managing Director, US Federal Civilian Agency Portfolio, was only too happy to talk about when he spoke with Big4.com recently.
“What’s great about this project is when we’re done,” Meehan said, “ it’ s going to help the National Science Foundation deliver  their core mission with research grants for universities and colleges and award them effectively and efficiency in this time where agencies need to get a return on every dollar spent.”

Optimize Business Processes

To reach that end goal, Accenture will optimize business processes across all departments. Beyond being Accenture’s first project with the NSF, this contract also allows the company to advance its Oracle practice.

“This is a really hot space right now. This program has a  cloud element that is  really on the cutting edge of providing business services,” Meehan said.  One of the innovations that Accenture will implement for cost savings and efficiency is commercial-off-the-shelf-software. Meehan told Big4.com this feature was a fine example of technology working with the bottom line and how the need for specifically tailored software was lessened with this improvement.

Saving Client’s Money

“It lets us save the client money because it doesn’t require a lot of tailoring. That’s where costs can start to add up,” he said adding that the difference was in the fact that Accenture delivers the software through their Federal Financials as a Service offering that allows them to run the software as a cloud based solution.

“Both the cloud architecture and the shared services components are examples of how we are helping NSF with increased efficiency and improved effectiveness,,” Meehan said adding that one of the benefits these innovations will bring is a transformation taking the roles of financing and accounting from the back office and enabling them to be more of a “front line resource in terms of supporting the business mission and goals.”

Created by Congress in 1950, the NSF is a federal agency designed to promote interests in science, health and national defense. About 20 percent of all federally supported research conducted by American colleges and universities comes from this agency.

The post Big4.com Interview: National Science Foundation Chooses Accenture To Take Them To The Cloud appeared first on Big4.com.

Michael Schulstad

 Earlier this month former assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Newark Division Michael D. Schulstad joinedWEISERMAZARS’  New York City office as Director of Litigation Support and Forensic Accounting Services. Mr. Schulstad brings more than twenty-five years of forensic examination and analysis experience to his new role, especially in the area of white collar crime and he graciously took the time to answer some questions for Big4.com

1.       What was the motivation to join WeiserMazars?

The fraud and forensic investigation arena is very complex and challenging and the opportunity to combine my experience with the considerable expertise and global reach that WeiserMazars possesses was exactly what I was looking for.  I very much enjoyed my law enforcement career with the FBI and the Inspector General, including the variety of investigations I encountered over my 28 years.  Prior to the FBI, I worked in Public Accounting for over 5 years – a background which served me well in my law enforcement career.  I knew I would be able to utilize all of my forensic accounting and investigative experience to expand the services offered by the WeiserMazars Financial Advisory Services group and to bring a different perspective and expertise to engagements so as to better serve our clients.    

2. What are your top priorities and immediate goals?

Our top priority at WeiserMazars is the introduction of our professional teams of investigators and forensic accountants focused on fraud and forensic investigations, litigation support and anti-money laundering to financial institutions, businesses, law firms and government agencies.

During my 25 years with the FBI and in the course of my time in Afghanistan, I have seen the need to have skilled experts conduct intensive and complicated financial forensic investigations.  WeiserMazars already has resources which excel in these areas and are considered one of the leaders of our industry.  As one of the first law enforcement professionals to join WeiserMazars, it is my goal to combine my expert investigative, detection and forensic examination experience with their substantial existing resources in order to better support our clients.  

Additionally, I will be expanding our investigative, forensic accounting services in the areas of computer forensics, government contracting and anti-money laundering engagements.

3.       What challenges does the firm face in today’s environment?

Today’s environment is global, with an ongoing evolution of complex international fraud schemes.   WeiserMazars is a global organization and can meet those challenges head on for our clients.  The pressure for businesses to succeed in today’s economy is enormous. Consequently, fraud has become commonplace, while simultaneously being more complicated and difficult to detect.  Identity theft and computer hacking, specifically, are major threats to every entity.  The corporate world, banking industry, health care and the insurance industry are all sectors in which illegal activity thrives.  Changes in banking and insurance regulations also necessitate experienced advisors as does the increased scope of due diligence.   

4.       What roles do Litigation Support and Forensic Accounting Services play within the organization?

WeiserMazars’ Litigation and Forensic Accounting Services Group ensures that vital information is identified by highly experienced accountants and auditors utilizing an array of tools including sophisticated forensic computer software systems.

As Certified Public Accountants and Certified Fraud Examiners, we deliver timely advice and well documented information and reports to our clients. As sophisticated expert witnesses we understand the process necessary to testify as well as prepare Expert Reports or Rebuttals to Expert Reports. We are able to be practical while maintaining a balance between the art and science of the investigative process.

 By thoroughly reviewing the circumstances of each case, examining vital information, uncovering facts, developing case theories and evaluating alternative hypotheses, we are able to offer the guidance, expert opinions, and testimony that best support our clients’ particular interests.

Mr. Schulstad, 56, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Northern Arizona University, Class of 1978.  He is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Financial Forensics and resides with his family in Scotch Plains, NJ.

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By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

 WeiserMazars LLP, a leading accounting, tax and advisory services firm, today announced its participation in “The Good Bank” initiative, a global program led by The Economist Group, which will take advantage of experts’ collective intelligence to explore the specific factors that make a socially engaged bank a successful business.

Mazars Group, Credit Suisse and SAP have partnered to sponsor The Good Bank Initiative. Within Mazars Group, WeiserMazars, Mazars UK, Mazars Paris and Mazars Italy will act as primary contributors.  The Mazars Program Ambassadors are Partner Jonathan McMahon, Head of Bank Regulations & Restructuring – Mazars London, Partner Stephen Brecher – WeiserMazars New York, and Partner Fabrice Demarigny – Mazars Paris.

The five month program will bring together a panel of experts to stimulate debate around what makes a “Good Bank.” Three key themes will guide this global conversation: the effective bank, the trustworthy bank and the innovative bank.    Participants in this initiative will engage in debates and create original research and articles leading up to a live (and online broadcast) event in London on June 4^th, featuring a panel of worldwide speakers.  In early July, a summary report will be produced, drawing from the work developed throughout the course of the program.

“Now that the financial crisis is behind us, it is the opportune time to have a rigorous and open dialog on the issues facing the banking sector,” said Stephen Brecher, WeiserMazars Partner and ambassador of The Good Bank Initiative.

Since 1921, WeiserMazars LLP has provided a unique combination of foresight and experience when fulfilling client needs in accounting, tax and advisory services.  WeiserMazars’ team of over 100 partners and approximately 700 professionals is based out of six U.S. offices, Israel and the Cayman Islands. As the independent U.S. member firm of the Mazars Group – a prominent international accounting, audit, tax and advisory services organization with nearly 14,000 professionals in more than 70 countries on six continents – WeiserMazars represents clients of all types, including owner-managed businesses, complex, multi-national organizations and high net worth individuals in a multitude of industries.

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N. Chandrasekaran

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com        

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization announced today that it has added US$ 1,179 million in brand value over 2012, growing by 28.9% annually to reach the US$ 5 billion brand value mark.

“TCS continues to deliver market leading performances across both financial and brand related metrics. The rapid evolution and recognition of our brand at a global level is a testament to the passion and dedication of our more than 260,000 employees, who as “brand ambassadors” continue to ensure an industry leading client experience, which keeps strengthening our reputation and brand in the global market,” said
N. Chandrasekaran, CEO and Managing Director of TCS.

The company also retained its position among the “Big 4” most valuable IT services brand worldwide – in the ranking carried out by Brand Finance, the world leading brand valuation firm. Brand Finance assesses the dollar value of the reputation, image and intellectual property of the world’s leading companies. Brand Finance’s brand valuations are frequently peer-reviewed by top audit practices, accepted by various regulatory bodies and used by leading global brands as a performance benchmark.

TCS is also the single largest contributor to the overall Tata Brand, which is now ranked as the world’s 39^th most valuable brand with a combined brand valuation of US$ 18,169 million.

“TCS continues its rapid increase in brand value and cements is position as a “Big Four” IT services brand. The company’s strong performance across brand related activities such as client engagement, community development, sponsorships, and employee satisfaction has earned TCS a place in the elite club of only three AA+ rated IT Services Brands.” said David Haigh, CEO and founder of Brand Finance.

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Accenture Spotlight Interview

 The term cutting edge has often been associated with Accenture‘s attempts to modernize technological systems, so when they recently announced that NYU Langone Medical Center had selected them to steer their ICD-10 implementation program, it came as no surprise. The federal government has mandated that the transition to ICD-10 must take place by October 1, 2014, so when Big4.com talked with Gala Prabhu, Director and Manager of Accenture’s ICD-10 initiatives, there was a lot of interesting ground to cover.

The process started in the summer of 2011 when Accenture was asked to come on board to help develop NYU’s ICD-10 strategy.

“We were asked to come in and talk to them about doing an ICD-10 assessment,” Prabhu said adding that Accenture was asked to go in and look at the current state and then come up with a detailed project plan and the budget for what it would cost the institution.

Several Areas

Since then, Accenture has worked with NYU Langone on several different areas that will foster the transition to ICD-10 mandates as prescribed by the federal government’s health care initiatives and the World Health Organization. Prabhu says one of the reasons Accenture was asked to assist with the project that will, among other things, minimize patient disruptions on outpatient care and verify compliance of physician documentation, is their relevant connections.

“One of the reasons we were asked to come in was the fact that we have an alliance with 3M as they are one of the leading vendors for ICD-10 in terms of coding and HIM insights and we had partnered with them,” she said, noting that Accenture will be on hand three months after the October deadline to further help with the transition.

Along with assisting with online training that will include all members of the healthcare network including physicians, Accenture will help with the critical dual coding needed. Prabhu spoke to the importance of this part of the transition and clarified how it works in relation to necessary medical administration.

“With dual coding the coder actually looks at the medical chart and codes in ICD-9 which is the way that reimbursement works today,” she said. “You go in and look at the chart and say that XYZ services were done and these translate into XYZ codes which then get rolled up into a DRG and then you get paid based on those DRGs.”

Using both codes

Prabhu went on to say that NYU Langone, under Accenture’s advisement, will use both existing ICD-9 and impending ICD-10 codes as a way of transitioning in the mandated ones before October. This practice run enables everyone across the NYU enterprise to get up to speed.

“In the case of NYU they’ve decided to do 9 to 12 months of dual coding which is pretty much considered best practice,” she said. “The big thing that we really get out of dual  coding is seeing if the physicians are really documenting at the level we need.”

Documentation

The lead time will enable the physician’s documentation processes to be able to work well with ICD-10 code.

“This gives us a one-year period to actually work with the physicians and track how they can improve their documentation,” Prabhu said adding that any improvements implemented today will also help with current reimbursements. She also mentioned another benefit to dual coding now was seeing how well charts coded in ICD-10 make their way through the system.

“We also want to take the claims that are coded in ICD-10 and make sure they pass through the different systems. We wanted to do some level of ‘Payer Testing’ and work with them if we see a variance.”  

Prabhu finished by saying her work with this latest initiative has been eye opening for her as well as the clients that Accenture works with on ICD-10.

“In some ways it’s bigger than Y2K because that was a technological change that needed to occur, whereas with ICD-10, it’s people process and technology all intertwined.”

The post Accenture’s Gala Prabhu talks with Big4.com about NYU Langone’s ICD-10 Initiatives and dual coding. appeared first on Big4.com.

Thankfully, not everyone believes that malarkey. Andrea Bocelli didn’t start singing opera seriously until the age of 34. Phyllis Diller didn’t become a comedian until 37. One of my idols, Zig Ziglar, didn’t start his professional speaking career until his 40s. Julia Childs didn’t learn to cook until 40 and didn’t start the show that made her famous until 50. Actor Alan Rickman started his film career at 46. The great Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, was 43 when he began drawing his legendary superheroes. And let’s not forget Harland Sanders, who started Kentucky Fried Chicken at age 65.

You have a choice as life goes by. You can fear how little time you have left or you can increasingly use the time you have fearlessly. These famous achievers chose not to mourn the passing of time. Instead, they chose to continue seeking possibilities.

I think that if life is to be truly lived, we should all follow their example.

Dr. Dewett is an author, speaker, coach, management professor, consultant, and Harley Davidson nut. His job is to build better leaders and teams. He is the author of The Little Black Book of Leadership. Recent clients include: Booz Allen Hamilton, State Farm, JM Smucker, Medtronic, TGI Fridays, Standard Register, Cox Media, NCR, Sogeti, Emerson, University of Tennessee, RustOleum, and many more. His unique brand of energetic leadership knowledge has resulted in quotes in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, CNN, Investors Business Daily, Entrepreneur, MSNBC, and hundreds of other outlets. After beginning his career with Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young, he has since consulted with, trained, spoken to, or coached thousands of professionals around the world. Visit his home online at www.drdewett.com.

The post YOUTH IS A STATE OF MIND appeared first on Big4.com.

By Tim Reed, Big4.com Guest Blogger    

The waves of Technology keep coming, some more powerful than others. We have an opportunity to harness each wave and drive new levels of performance and ultimately new levels of success.  The advent of mobile applications, real time cloud solutions and other new advances have created the reality that organizations are faced with an immediate challenge to managing multiple competing interests amongst multiple business organizations, all striving to take advantage of the latest new  wave.  IT organizations are struggling to react to each new wave, often viewed as getting in the way of delivery, not reacting quickly enough and, in some cases, curtailing overall business delivery.

My view is that instead of standing in front of the wave and deciding whether to jump out of the way or into the wave, it is wiser to learn how to surf the wave and take advantage of the new-found capability. Once you are able to figure out how to surf, you will start to realize the energy it will bring to your enterprise.

Think about whether or not you are able to do the following:

• Are you using a short evolutionary cycle or developing and deploying the latest technologies?    One strategy you could take to drive performance and new capabilities is to require that new technologies adopt a short cycle of prototyping and testing, no longer than 60 days. This gives you the ability to understand if the latest technology fits your enterprise and what will be necessary for integration into your current environment.  This approach can limit the risk exposure and provide a path to examine whether the technology meets the demands of the line of business and the overall enterprise.   The teams who are able to make this shift, can change the overall model and perceptions of IT performance and delivery.  The pressure shifts from IT delivery to the business’ ability to choose technologies that meet the business need by speeding delivery, lowering risks and improving overall enterprise capability.  At this point you are not just riding the wave, but also encouraging others to join the ride.

• Can you predict where performance is needed?    A quick query into the methods you use to forecast your performance demands, delivery expectations, and the tools you use to meet performance requirements will identify the performance gaps that need to be addressed.  Consider a new approach that creates a process to provide rapid feedback with leads from several internal and external areas (eg: think of your current vendors, the cloud marketplace, industry forums) to provide a rapid response to your issues.   Expand your view of performance to address both new development and IT infrastructure and operational delivery. Once you have the feedback, take another look to determine how you can deploy the solution. If you are challenged with timing and precision around deployment, consider the notes above …can you shift to a shorter cycle to deploy the solution?  Applying this approach will move the conversation from a reactive response to pro-active engagement, driving a broader and more integrated focus.  If you can make this shift, you will be able to see the wave coming and predict where and how you need to move.

Creating an approach to accept, identify and react to new technologies is critical.  IT has the ability to drive exploration and then move forward with technology choices that work for your organization.  The challenge is how best to harness or capture the “Technology Wave” to drive new performance and improve capability.  The business user expects IT to be riding the Wave, reacting quickly and moving to the next Wave.

Tim Reed, CEO at ReedITC worked at E&Y , focusing on Global Fortune 50 Firms. ReedITC is a strategic IT & Operations consulting firm focused on Cost (Ability to operate efficiently at scale ), Growth (Ability to drive top line growth) and Compliance (Ability to provide services securely).  Working for multiple global firms, the ReedITC Team  has led several  IT and Operational initiatives, including Data and Enterprise Cloud Transformations. For more information, please visit www.reeditc.com or contact tim.reed@reeditc.com

The post Surfing the “Technology Wave” to achieve Performance and Success appeared first on Big4.com.

Once you decide that finance and accounting is the right field for you, it is time to decide on a career path. There are many paths you can choose from, but not all of them are right for everyone.

When you’re trying to decide what career is right for you, there are several factors you must take into consideration. Some of these include:

* The type of client contact you want
* The type of accounting or financial planning you enjoy
* The amount of supervision and training you want
* The pay structure you need

Some careers in this industry have more client contact than others. If you enjoy being around people, careers like financial planning, accounting, or tax preparation may be right for you. If you don’t really enjoy being around people, careers in auditing, underwriting, or analysis may be more appropriate.
The type of accounting or financial planning you enjoy may sway your decision about what career you want to pursue. If you enjoy scrutinizing account ledgers, auditing is an option. If you like analyzing company information and financial records, investing may be a good choice. If you enjoy finding ways to save companies or individuals money, analysis jobs may be ideal. If you like determining risks, jobs in origination may be the best bet. If you enjoy handling money, bank management may be a viable option. When you are reading through job descriptions, make sure you check to see if the duties are in line with what you enjoy.

Direct Supervision

The amount of direct supervision and training you want is another factor you must consider. If you don’t like a lot of supervision, auditing or personal investment banking may be the best options for you since you likely won’t have someone watching over your shoulder on a daily basis. If you don’t mind supervision, corporate accounting and bank-based jobs are good options. Almost every career in the finance industry will involve some level of training. Check out the continuing education requirements and training length for each job to determine if you can handle them.

Lastly, you have to consider the pay structure you want. The vast majority of investment careers are commission based. That means that you have to perform well to get paid. Some of these do have a base pay as well. You may decide that you need a regular and dependable paycheck. If that is the case, working for a bank or as an hoy or salaried financial professional is your best bet.

Each of these factors will have a direct impact on the number of career choices you have in this field, so it is important to think long and hard about each one. Depending on your state’s requirements, some of the available jobs in this industry may require advanced training, testing, or certification, so you will have to check your state’s laws and regulations prior to determining your career path.

Nancy Anderson is the communities and article Editor for Beyond.com. Nancy has 10 years experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/Beyond_com

The post What Career is Right for You? appeared first on Big4.com.

Not too long ago, when people thought of accountants, an image of a thin, balding, middle-aged man with a pocket protector and calculator sprung to mind. However, the role of the public accountant has morphed into a dynamic, exciting and profitable career choice for many from all walks of life. Whether you choose to work as an accountant for a public agency or opt to apply your accounting expertise in a more creative way, there are many advantages to becoming a public accountant.

Advantage #1: Career Advancement and Earning Potential

A public accountant has the opportunity to advance in almost any company. Employers view those with an accounting degree as smart and dedicated, and even more so if the degree is coupled with a CPA. Speaking of the CPA, if you are on the fence regarding whether you should pursue the certification, it is important to note that in order to advance in many companies, the CPA designation is required. There’s also an income incentive: studies have shown that CPAs can earn 10 to 41 percent more than regular public accountants.

Advantage #2: Attain Experience Faster

When you attain your accounting degree, you can choose to enter the accounting public sector or the private sector. Private sector accountants, especially at the entry level, typically work with only one or two aspects of accounting. For example, they might be responsible for the accounts receivable ledger and maybe do a company audit once or twice a year. A public accountant, however, might have a stable of clients for whom he must provide all accounting services, from tax preparation and audits to monthly statements. An entry-level public accountant will attain more hands-on experience in all aspects of accounting than an entry-level private accountant.

Advantage #3: Job and Financial Security

As long as there are businesses, there will be a need for accountants. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for accountants are expected to grow 16 percent between 2010 and 2020. Salaries for accountants are also stable; the median income for an accountant was $61,690 as of May 2010.

Advantage #4: Variety

A public accountant is no longer forced to work for an accounting firm working on balance sheets and tax returns. Accountants hold a variety of jobs for a variety of companies. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigations employs public accountants as agents. The government also hires public accountant as revenue agents, both inside and outside the IRS. Many private companies hire public accountants to serve as CFOs and CEOs, and corporate attorneys hire public accountants to search for signs of fraud and other illegal activities that might have been committed through an accounting process.

Becoming a public accountant no longer means being chained to a desk shuffling papers eight hours a day. As a public accountant, you will have a variety of options, from where you work to what you do. So, whether you want to help a family plan for college tuition and retirement or help the FBI crack a case, as a public accountant, you will always have work available to you.

Nancy Anderson is the communities and article Editor for Beyond.com.  Nancy has 10 years experience in the online job search business with Beyond.  Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites.  Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/BeyondJobs.

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To become a client’s trusted advisor, you must be viewed as a peer. In my last post I talked about the importance of demonstrating Professional Acumen. In this post I set out the “C-suite” Behaviors you need to exemplify if you want to be accepted as a peer by senior executives, and I describe the importance of Values Alignment for top executives.

A top CEO headhunter told me once about a candidate for a senior job that he had all but turned down  just by spying him in the reception area of his Manhattan offices. He said, “The candidate had only been there for a few minutes, and he was sitting quietly on the couch. That told me right away that he probably didn’t have the C-Suite mindset—the confidence needed to operate at the level the job required. CEO candidates don’t sit and wait—they stand. That way, when you walk in to pick them up and take them back to your office, they are not in an inferior or supplicant position. Most of them do this without even thinking about it. When I walk out and they are standing, the relationship starts on a peer level.” Trivial? Not at all. Clients look at these subtle behavioral clues and make judgments very rapidly. Here are some of the behaviors you need to manifest if you want to establish senior-level, peer client relationships:

A willingness to challenge your client. I call this “selfless independence” in my book Clients for Life. A division president at a major bank once told me, “I divide all the advisors I use into two groups: Those who simply do what I say, and those who will push back and sometimes say ‘No.’ A few of these latter individuals are my trusted advisors. The others are really suppliers.”  Remember, if you’re concerned about coming across as too challenging, try turning your statements into questions. Instead of “I don’t think your team is collaborating very well” try “How do you feel about the collaboration within your team?” You’ll create more buy-in that way.

An attitude that establishes equality. If you keep thanking your client, over and over again, for “taking so much of their valuable time to meet with you,” what does that convey? Better would be, “I’m delighted we were able to meet today. Thank you.”

Confident body language. In an interview for one of my books, a CEO told me, “If you walk into a client’s office with your head held high, there’s always the chance that you’ll get knocked down a notch. That’s a small risk. But if you go in on your knees, no client will ever, ever lift you up.” If you are anxious or nervous when you meet with a senior client, or if your body language betrays anything less than a belief that you belong in the room with that executive, it’s unlikely you’ll be viewed as a peer.

Showing courage. Do you fold your tent at the slightest provocation, or do you hold your ground? What if a prospect is acting bored and unengaged, and basically sending the message that they have no interest whatsoever in talking to you. You might ask, “I’m curious, why did you accept this the invitation to meet up? Did you have a particular issue in mind for our discussion?” Or, “We’ve got another 20 minutes scheduled for our meeting this morning. How can I be helpful to you during this time?” If a prospect tells you, “We have no need for what you do. There’s not a lot to talk about right now” you might respond with “You’d be surprised how many of my best clients today told me that when we first met. Do you mind if I ask you a question…?”

Values Alignment

If a client is hiring a vendor, it’s certainly important that they believe the vendor to be honest, fair, and that they subscribe to ethical and legal behaviors. They may even want that vendor to reflect important priorities for the client, such as supporting diversity or sustainability. But the client won’t be hugely concerned with having a deep understanding of the specific values of the individuals who work with that supplier. Fundamentally it’s a relatively arm’s-length relationship, and more institutional than personal. In contrast, if an executive is drawing someone into their inner circle, they are going to be looking for serious alignment of individual values and beliefs. These go well beyond the basics of integrity—they might include a client’s sense of your:

• Authenticity
• Ambition
• Outlook (Optimistic? Pessimistic?)
• Risk propensity
• Action bias
• Relationship orientation
• View of human nature
• Willingness to be a contrarian or to go against the grain
• Political or religious beliefs (possibly!)

And so on.

You cannot manufacture a set of values and beliefs to match those of your client. But you can be open about what you stand for and what’s important to you. You want your clients to sense these things and be attracted to them. The chemistry and fit won’t always be there, but if you’re overly buttoned down and keep your cards too close to your chest, your clients won’t even get the chance to know you. And, you’ll come across as anodyne and bland.

Finally, you have to believe you are a peer. You have to believe you belong in your top client’s corner office. You must possess a strong sense of your own value and your ability to help your clients improve and grow their business. That deep belief in yourself and what what you have to offer will by itself go very far towards creating the peer relationship you desire.

To summarize: You will be treated like a peer by senior executives when you:

First, demonstrate professional acumen. This includes experience, expertise, knowledge breadth, judgment, and insight

Second, exemplify C-Suite behaviors, such as a willingness to challenge your client, confident body language, courage under fire, and a general attitude of equality.

Third, are perceived as sharing important values and beliefs with your client.

****************************
Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

The post How to Build Peer Relationships with Your Clients (Part 2) appeared first on Big4.com.

The first annual U.S. Food & Beverage Industry Study, released today by WeiserMazars  finds  food companies looking to new customers for the majority of increased product sales in 2013. Survey participants – which were drawn from companies across the food and beverage industry – are confident sales will increase 13% compared to 2011 and project net profits to rise by almost 6%. These solid gains, though, are offset by rising commodity and production costs, resulting in a modest net profit.

Survey participants included manufacturers and wholesalers/distributors representing a range of annual sales volumes from $10 million or less to more than $100 million. The survey addresses how these companies are adapting to changing consumer trends, proposed government regulations, new companies entering the field, and new product and service offerings. The WeiserMazars 2012 U.S. Food & Beverage Industry Study illuminates the ways that companies remain competitive and approach challenges, providing a valuable resource for all members of the industry.

“The purpose of this study is to provide executives with comprehensive insight in comparing the state of their company to the overall Food & Beverage industry,” said Louis J. Biscotti, Partner & National Director of WeiserMazars’ Food & Beverage Sector.  “This benchmarking can provide organizations with insight into predicting realistic levels of growth in 2013.”

To see the entire study, click on WeiserMazars’ 2012 Food & Beverage Industry Study or visit www.WeiserMazars.com.

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It becomes clear right away talking with Joe Steger, Global Technology Industry Transaction Advisory Services Leader For Ernst & Young, that he values what might be one of the most important perspectives for post 2008 business—optimism.

Discussing the latest Global technology M&A update: October – December 2012 and year in review report with Big4.com, Steger concedes that macroeconomic tailwinds that cropped up in late 2011 had an effect on global technology M&A activity in 2012. Still, he sees a positive side to the temporary slowdown that saw the aggregate value of global technology M&A deals drop 35% from 2011 to 2012.

“The decline (in global M&A deal value between 2011 and 2012) year over year was only 4% in the fourth quarter which I feel is encouraging from the perspective that maybe we’ve seen a bottom or maybe we’ll start to see a turnaround in a couple of quarters,” he told Big4.com.

The Global technology M&A update: October – December 2012 and year in review report pinpoints several deal drivers with cloud computing / Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deals leading the way.

Global Technology Trends

“If you look at some of the trends,” Steger says, “and in particular the cloud and Software-as-a-service arena deals, you’ll see the number of those deals more than tripled in 2012 compared to 2011. In fact we counted between 450 and 500 deals that have a cloud/SaaS aspect to them.”

He also mentioned that big data analytics was another one of the more influential transformative megatrends and although there were fewer larger transformative deals, smart mobility as a general category was another big influence in 2012.

“Pervasive through all his was what we call smart mobility because it can be anything from on-line and mobile advertising to infrastructure that can enable people to connect mobile devices to access SaaS applications and other content via the cloud,” he said.

Positive Examples Involving Global Technology

Although the Ernst and Young report does state the largest deal of last year would have placed fifth in 2011, there were positive examples of the kind of accelerated adaption in both those industries looking to take advantage of what technology offers and technology companies adapting to specific needs. Steger points out one example to highlight the need.

“It’s interesting to use the car analogy when you consider how many semiconductors and how much software is actually used to run your car now.”

It’s also important to note The Global technology M&A update: October – December 2012 and year in review shows that in spite of the bigger drop in aggregate value of technology mergers and acquisitions,  volume held steady with these smaller deals taking the forefront. It’s all about the larger picture the Global Technology Industry Transaction Advisory Services Leader For Ernst & Young says. 

“What is hit by macroeconomic uncertainty is the lack of confidence by large technology companies to undertake very large transformation deals,” he says.

Looking forward, Steger says M&A growth will be focused more in the second half of 2013.

The post Ernst & Young’s Joe Steger Discusses The Latest Global Technology M&A Trends appeared first on Big4.com.

Academic researchers claim that lying is part of our daily experience, necessary to grease the social wheels appropriately.

But, how does that affect us as leaders?

If leading is about inspiring people to take action around a collective vision and goal, how does lying fit in?

We lie to:

• avoid feeling something unpleasant
• prevent from hurting someone’s feelings
• hide a mistake
• avoid someone’s negative reaction
• try to control a situation or environment (and how others see us)
• avoid undesired consequences

The above list shows that there are lots of reasons for lying, but they all undermine our leadership effectiveness and that’s the problem. Lying creates the fastest way to:

• erode our self-confidence
• abate our credibility
• reduce our influence over others
• strengthen adversaries by giving them darts to throw
• weaken our relationships
• give us more work to do (remembering & covering up lies is a full-time job)

With all that baggage, how can we initiate great things and create great outcomes as leaders? And if we are already creating great results, what could we do if we had the courage to tell the truth?

Imagine yourself as a leader who could always tell the truth. What would you have to think, feel and do to make that happen?

Eleni Pallas was a management consultant with Deloitte in Europe, now an Executive Coach working with global leaders and teams.

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Once you have acquired a new client, the next challenge is to create a personal connection and deepen the relationship. The right power questions will help you do this.  I like to ask what I call Passion questions and Depth questions.

Passion questions help you understand what the other person is really excited about in life. They enable you to learn what gets them up in the morning. For example, “Why do you do what you do?” is an excellent passion question. It’s simple but profound. Ask it and then be quiet—if you have the patience to allow the answer to emerge, it may surprise you. Here are some other Passion questions that you can use with clients:

• “What is the most fulfilling part of your work?”
• “Outside of your work, what has given you the greatest fulfillment?”
• “What do you like most about your job?”
• “What’s something you’ve always wanted to do…but never had the time for?”
• “If you hadn’t gone into…(business, law, etc) what do you think you would have done?”
• “What has been your greatest accomplishment?”
• “What would you say has been the happiest day of your life?”
• “You’ve achieved so much in your career—what else would you like to accomplish?”
• “If you didn’t have to work or earn money, what do you think you would do?”

Depth questions are questions that help you learn more about the person—his or her career, experiences, personal life, expertise, influences, and so on. The simplest depth question is, “How did you get started?” I was once at an awards dinner, and found myself talking with the CEO of WalMart USA. He had one million employees reporting to him! Did I try to show him that I was smart? Tell him all about my books? No! He was born in South America, and I simply asked, “How did you get your start? How did you get from the small town you were raised in to being CEO?” He smiled when I asked this, and talked passionately about his career and life story. The subsequent conversation lasted 45 minutes, and we connected in a very personal, intimate way.

Other Depth questions include:

• “If you could go back and give advice to your younger self about succeeding professionally and in life, what would you say to them?”
• “Who have been influential mentors or role models to you?”
• “What was the biggest turning point in your career?”
• “What would you say was your most important developmental experience?”

Here are some other power questions that I have found useful in building trusted relationships with clients:

1. If you sense the other person is disengaged or distracted: “What’s the most important thing we should be talking about this morning?”
2. If you have gotten a conversation off on the wrong foot entirely: “Do you mind if we start over?” (This also works beautifully if you’ve started arguing with your spouse or partner!)
3. To get someone to reflect on their role and their effectiveness in it: “What parts of your job do you wish you could spend more time on, and which parts do you wish you could deemphasize or stop doing?”

Be bold! Remember that many of the greatest figures in history were inveterate question-askers: Socrates, Jesus, Newton, Einstein, and Drucker, just to name a few.

What has helped you deepen your client relationships and get to know your clients as people? 

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

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After nearly 20 years of outstanding service, Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has decided to retire from the firm later this year. Jim joined Goldman Sachs in 1995 as a partner in the roles of co-head of Global Economics Research and chief currency economist. He was named head of Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research in 2001. In 2006, Jim joined the firm’s European Management Committee.

Jim is involved in a number of non-profit organizations. He is chairman and a founding trustee of the London-based charity SHINE and also serves on the board of Teach for All and a number of other charities specializing in education. Jim has been the recipient of many awards, including an honorary doctorate in 2009 from the Institute of Education, University of London, for his educational philanthropy.

In 2010, he took up his current role as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and since then he has strengthened our research discipline and enhanced communication among investment professionals across asset classes. In each of his roles at the firm, Jim has served our clients by formulating views on global economic and market themes and helping them to be positioned for the most significant investment opportunities.

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When the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recently awarded Accenture an eight-month contract to design a master blueprint for automating the department’s Earned Value Center, it marked another one of the firm’s successes in dealing with the defense industry.

Joe Chenelle, who leads Accenture’s defense and intelligence agency business, recently talked with Big4.com about how Accenture’s work will help the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) will ensure DoD contractors report costs and schedules efficiently.

“This is a plan analyze,” he started out saying. “This is not a full implementation at this time. This is just a blueprint for how the Earned Value Center would standardize their tools and processes.”

Focus on Analytics

Chenelle went on to say that Accenture’s focus was to design an analytics program to pull information together from various sources to enable on-site detailed analysis. As things stand, the DCMA sends local field representatives out to each project site.

“That creates the potential  for some inconsistencies in requirements and assessments,” Chenelle said. “I give the DCMA a lot of credit since they’re looking to automate a lot of these processes.”

He also noted the quality of the people the DCMA was looking for to work on this project was high.

“Specifically, they’re looking for Microsoft Certified Architects and analytics personnel with 20 y years of first-hand experience with assessing and analyzing project risk.”

The resulting analytics that will form the core of Accenture’s work will improve the work flow and streamline the reporting process. The need comes partially from a backlog of reviews that are presently handled manually.

Solution Web Portal

“The solution will involve a web portal where  the reviews will be tracked, monitored and then recorded,” Chenelle said  there will be a benefit to the contractors as well since they will have an increased insight into each program’s performance.

The final analytics program will be shared with regional field offices, program managers and DoD executives. On-site, detailed analysis will be one of the key advantages.

“It will really increase the access, visibility and consistency to shorten the turnaround time for everyone,” Chenelle said.

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Talent development and team building take on different guises depending on the company and, while there are many different approaches, recent events for 400 of Deloitte’s newest tax hires in support of the charities Stop Hunger Now and Wine to Water served to demonstrate the company’s unique philosophy when it comes to these important exercises.

The trainees who came to Westlake, Texas for a training event at the renowned Deloitte University discovered there was much more than an orientation in store. In approximately 90 minutes, they had packed over 100,000 meals for the needy and built 100 water filtration units to be distributed across the globe. It all speaks to the unique approach Deloitte has to making sure the people they hire have great skill sets and that all Deloitte new hires understand the importance of community involvement.

Deloitte’s Unique Approach

Neda Schlictman, Deloitte’s Tax Chief Learning Officer talked recently with Big4.com about Deloitte University, teambuilding and the company’s unique approach.

“Deloitte University is a $300 million dollar investment we chose to make to ensure that we were building the skill sets of our professionals across all of the important areas,” she said. The company’s commitment to its future is obvious. The university sits on 107 acres in Westlake Texas and has a learning and development facility of over 700,000 square feet. Schlictman was quick to point out that the major focus of the institution was making sure Deloitte has made an investment in their people that would ensure their clients were getting the best quality services possible.

The Stop Hunger Now and Wine to Water campaigns were part of the 12 day Tax New Hire Immersion Program called Client Service Readiness. Part of their immersion is at Deloitte University.

“They come to this 12 day immersion program at Deloitte University, where we focus on advanced technical topics, professional and leadership skills.  In addition, we participate in simulations, networking and team building activities,” Schlictman said adding that one of the key values they want to pass along right from the beginning is the notion of a responsibility to the community. It’s obvious the company takes this social aspect seriously. Beyond handling about one million of Deloitte’s four million learning hours, the University has also achieved LEED Gold Level certification for new construction.

Meaningful Teambuilding

Schlictman went on to say that although teambuilding isn’t a unique concept to Deloitte, the company, its university and the recent Stop Hunger Now and Wine to Water events spoke to a desire to take a different approach to these tried and true concepts.

“What we wanted to do was to encourage teambuilding through a meaningful exercise versus just a gaming concept. Here we were able to achieve multiple objectives through one venue,” she says adding that the 400 participants were broken up into teams that worked on the meals and filtration devices in an assembly line fashion.

“They got to know each other. They had fun and were laughing. They were enjoying and collaborating and at the end of the day they felt good because they were doing something meaningful,” Schlictman said. “We chose to do our teambuilding in an impactful way.”

She was also quick to point out that Deloitte University’s focus spans well beyond new hire programs.

“The typical programs that take place at Deloitte University are not only new hire programs but others like our business milestones, industry learning and leadership development programs.  These programs are for Deloitte professionals from all levels of the organization,” she said. Our talent development strategy makes Deloitte a place for leaders to thrive.

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By Tim Reed, Big4.com Guest Blogger   

Organizations today are  facing a number of new challenges and opportunities related to the deployment and use of Big Data concepts, processes and technology. A number of trends and key directions are starting to develop, creating the main focus areas that business and IT leadership should consider as they approach deploying and operating Big Data for their organization.

Leveraging Data

One of the keys to effectively leveraging and realizing the value of Big Data is to understand  some of  the approaches you need to take. Whether you are trying to get closer to your customers or to your business, points to consider include:

• Aggregate – What are the standards or principals you need to apply to efficiently and effectively drive aggregation? Look at whether you have setup the standards and controls so aggregation is not just efficient, but also cost effective.

• Organize – Have you organized your approach to Data in a way that benefits your customer and your organization?  Most organizations have not considered using external validations, such as webex based customer seminars or Google analytics that look at sales data.

• Apply - What are you doing to apply the data and tools required to succeed in this space? One consideration is looking at the tools you are using today and considering how you can drive consolidation and savings, in order to fund a new focus on Big Data and analytics.

Delivering Products that matter

The approach you take will not make a difference if you do not have a grounded view or strategic vision to where you want to go. The key trends and focus areas we are seeing today include:

• Support Collaboration – Using Big Data to support collaboration, both internal and customer focused.

• Drive Analysis – Improving analysis and the current approaches are myriad. Spotting patterns in data and framing relevant analysis is more evident. Using new tools such as semantic data toolsets, Hadoop and Cloud Services provide new analysis capabilities and opportunities.

• Increase Efficiency – Look at the new products you are going to deliver. Are they able to increase the efficiency of your customer services or will the products improve the internal services you provide?

Big Data Tools

The opportunities related to using the tools of Big Data may not be evident. The world of mainframe computing and using ETL to address massive amounts of data has changed.  Take a look to see if you can use tools like Hadoop to drive savings. Are you able to reduce of eliminate ETL (extract, transfer, load) altogether? Can the new tools reduce mainframe costs?  How about embracing open source tools and see how you could replace Unix with Linux? Using the new tools of Big Data could provide the platform for innovation, consolidating databases and driving significant efficiencies.

Tim Reed, CEO at ReedITC worked at E&Y , focusing on Global Fortune 50 Firms. ReedITC is a strategic IT & Operations consulting firm focused on Cost (Ability to operate efficiently at scale ), Growth (Ability to drive top line growth) and Compliance (Ability to provide services securely).  Working for multiple global firms, the ReedITC Team  has led several  IT and Operational initiatives, including Data and Enterprise Cloud Transformations. For more information, please visit www.reeditc.com or contact tim.reed@reeditc.com

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by David Tovey

In conversation with a professional services recruitment consultant recently he mentioned that many technically qualified individuals ask him to find them roles with no selling involved. ‘The thing is David’ he said, ‘all the roles I need to fill have the ability to win business as one of the main requirements’

Of course the reality is that today there is no shortage of technically qualified professionals to provide their services; being a great technician is rarely a differentiator these days. Business development (selling) is now part of the job and clients expect us to be good at it.  The 2012 FT Effective Client – Advisor Relationships report highlighted clients demand that firms move from partner centric technical advisers to client centric commercial advisers. There is nothing more commercial and client centric than getting business development right.

We are all in sales

So the worst kept secret in professional service firms is out – we are all in sales. Whether you call it marketing, business development, client development or selling; from the moment you start a phone call, the moment you connect at a networking event or begin a meeting with a client; they know you want to win business. They know you want to sell.

Why is there reluctance by some to accept that selling is part of the professional’s role? Because many professionals still misunderstand what ‘selling’ is really about.

A definition

When I ask professionals I work with for a definition of selling their response usually involves words like persuade and convince. When I ask them to describe typical sales people the words they use are usually less than complimentary!

As Charles H Green, author of The Trusted Advisor, said in the foreword for my book ‘The world of sales and the world of marketing have been plagued by the same problem for at least a century. The problem historically facing sales is the tendency to view selling as a method of controlling, manipulating, or otherwise inducing the buyer to do what the seller wants’.

No wonder many professionals assume that professional ethics and integrity somehow need to be suspended if that is what selling is about – and no wonder many professionals try to find roles that keep them as far away from business development as possible!

The actual definition of selling is really simple – ‘the exchange of goods and services for money’. No mention here of ‘persuading’ or ‘convincing’ – or of anything that involves manipulation.  In fact it is impossible to build long term client relationships using any form of control or manipulation.  Any client who feels an advisor is trying to convince, persuade or manipulate them at best becomes a single transaction – not a client for life who buys and re-buys.

Winning clients for life
Selling isn’t an innate quality that some people who are born with the ‘right’ personality have; it is a process and a set of skills and behaviours that can be learned and developed.

Principled Selling – selling ethically and with integrity is based on five principles.

1. 1.    Selling is about motivation not manipulation

A core Principled Selling behaviour is to be a master of motivation not manipulation. Principled Selling motivates buyers to want to meet you, to want to do business with you by building trusted relationships long before trying to win business.  When motivation is at the heart of how you sell, the whole process of winning business becomes client centric, more natural, more comfortable and more enjoyable for buyers and sellers.

1. 2.    Profitable relationships require investment

Any relationship personal or business that is going to flourish needs investment – putting effort into the relationship before expecting anything in return.

Knowing the profile of your future dream clients allows you to invest in building relationships with the right audience – sharing free valuable and useful content using the internet and social media, building trusted relationships and attracting the type of client you would love to win.

Get this right and the motivation to want to know more is already coming from the potential client.

1. 3.    There must be congruency throughout the business development process

Business development and service delivery has to be joined up. Selling messages and selling behaviours have to be congruent with the expectation set by your marketing messages. Delivery of your products or services must be congruent with the promises made through marketing and sales activities.

You also need to act in congruence with your organizations stated values and in congruence with your own values. If there is a mismatch between any of these – when people or organizations are seen as saying one thing but doing another – it becomes impossible to build long term trusted relationships

1. 4.    Long term relationships depend on being authentic

Being authentic is more than being honest – it implies never attempting to manipulate another person’s perception. For instance – when you listen to a client it is because you are genuinely interested not because you use listening as a technique to seduce them into believing you care.

We all recognize if someone is being insincere – and it damages trust.

1. 5.    Being human gets results

Being human is about having equal status between buyer and seller – not put you selling hat on and changing your personality when you are out to win business.   People still want to do business with people – with other human beings who are genuinely interested in them and who invest time in understanding them and their organisation.

We are all in sales – be proud of it and be good at it.

David Tovey is author of Principled Selling- How to Win More Business Without Selling Your Soul, published by Kogan Page and heads up The Principled Group Ltd. Check out David’s blog www.principledselling.org.

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To become a client’s trusted advisor, you must be viewed as a peer. This doesn’t mean you have to become a literal peer. If you work with a CEO, for example, you will never be their strict peer in an organizational or hierarchical sense. But if you want a seat at the table with them, they need to consider you as a peer in three areas: Professional acumen, behavior, and values. Let’s look at what these are and how you demonstrate them. In this blog I will cover point one, Professional Acumen. 

Acumen is, literally, “the ability to make good judgments and take quick decisions.” Clients want a peer who can partner with them to solve their toughest problems, capture opportunities, and achieve their goals. More broadly, I would define professional acumen as a valuable combination of five qualities:

Experience: Your client needs reassurance that you’ve addressed this same issue many times before, most likely in their specific industry and/or function. Or, that you have other, related experience that will provide a new and different perspective.

Can you frame your experience in a compelling and relevant way?

Expertise: Most of your clients are going to have expertise in your same specialty. In some cases they may know less than you, in others they may be equally or more expert.

Do you focus on your expertise and methodologies too early in your client conversations? Can you show, at the right moment, how it applies to your client’s most critical issues?

Knowledge Breadth: Senior executives in particular will look for a peer advisor who has in-depth expertise AND knowledge breadth. They want someone who understands the interrelationships between different parts of their business–someone who has an enterprise-wide perspective.

In addition to talking about the specific, presenting problem that your client has, are you able to have broad-based conversations with them about their business issues?

Judgment: Clients face more strategic and operational choices than ever before. You establish yourself as a peer when you demonstrate your ability to discern between different courses of action and to help your client make tough decisions. Commodity experts and advisors make judgments differently. Experts combine facts and experience to make a decision. Advisors combine facts, experience, and a deep understanding of their client’s values, beliefs, and organizational capabilities as they recommend decisions.

Insight. Insight means having a strong sense of perception. That is, seeing issues clearly and being able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Insight leads to idea generation and innovation, which are treasured by clients.

Are you learning enough about your client’s actual business to be able to make incisive observations about potential improvements? Are you working hard to see knowledge connections and possible analogies from related fields?

All five of these qualities add up to the intellectual strength—the professional acumen—that senior clients look for in a peer relationship with an outside advisor or service provider.

What are your own challenges in developing your professional acumen? How has it helped you with clients?

(In my next blog post I will address the second ingredient of peer relationships: C-Suite Behavior).

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

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The New Year is starting out well for Accenture. Earlier this month, Accenture Federal Services announced it had been awarded two contracts from The U.S. Department of the Navy to help the Navy in its  push for financial auditability. Vince Vlasho, who is the Managing Director for Accenture’s Navy business unit, recently spoke with Big4.com about his firm’s involvement with this critical initiative.

He started his talk with us by supplying an overview of how his company came to be involved.

“Fairly recently, Secretary (of Defense) Panetta issued a mandate that he wanted to get the Department of Defense to an audit ready state,” Vlasho said, going on to mention there were two key milestone updates required. The first was to have the Statement of Budgetary Resources audit ready by the end of 2014 and the second was to have the rest of the financial statements audit ready in 2017.”

Vlasho went on to say that the Navy was one step ahead of Panetta’s announcement.

FIP Program

“The Navy’s program is called the Financial Improvement Program (FIP). It’s really a program where the Navy is taking a look at business processes, data, information systems and internal controls so they can understand what an auditor might look for,” Vlasho said.

To that end, Accenture was recently awarded two contracts totaling more than $30 million to help with these processes. The first is a three-year, $25.5 million contract to work with six commands and the Marine Corps to prepare this audit readiness. The second is a three-year, $5.37 million Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual (FISCAM) contract. Its job is to evaluate the design and operating effectiveness of IT general computer controls and business process automated controls for the Navy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

Vlasho, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was an active duty naval intelligence officer prior to joining Accenture, provided a general example of how the Navy’s audit readiness goals could be reached with help from these contracts.

Testing Processes

“We’re going through and helping them test  processes, to help them understand what controls an auditor might be looking for when evaluating an  invoice, for example, to make sure it is valid and paid properly in a timely fashion,” he said.

The FISCAM review of the Navy ERP will help the Navy assess General Accounting Office compliance and both contracts support the overall FIP program.

Vlasho also used the invoice example to highlight how other important criteria would be used as benchmarks.

“They (auditors) might come in and look at the contract the invoice is posted against to see  if the paperwork lines up with how the contract is set up and its structure. Did the person who signed off on the invoice have the appropriate authorities? Does the invoice tie into the accounting lines set out in the contract?”

Navy’s ERP system

Some of Accenture’s other work entails looking at the Navy’s ERP system against 266 information system controls from FISCAM.

Vlasho summed up the whole operation by saying there was a high degree of teamwork needed.

“We have teams dedicated to each of the commands,” he said. “They’re working with these commands to identify internal controls an auditor might look at and making sure those commands have the right documentation and controls in place,” he said, adding Accenture had a great team .

“I’m very proud of the results that we’ve seen to date,” he said.

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In the second edition of Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government, Ernst & Young’s government and public sector practice looks at management challenges of the political executive, insights on selecting the right appointees and techniques for selecting the right people.

Paul Lawrence, leader of the Federal Government Consulting Practice, Ernst & Young LLP, and author of Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government, recently spoke with Big4.com about this new effort as anticipation grows around the changes expected at the agency level in Obama’s second term.

“What we tend to do as part of the Government and Public Sector practice is work with government to supply some expertise,” he told us. “What I always observed was the role of the political executive. We set out to understand not only the jobs but the people in the jobs. Not only for us but to share with others.” Lawrence went on to say that he noticed there wasn’t a lot of information available at first to help people understand the nature of these jobs and how they were best managed.

Current Edition  

The current edition of Paths is based on a three year study of 32 of the top political appointees in the first Obama administration. Featuring both case studies and interviews, the book addresses specific managerial challenges while tracking the learning curve of executives.

“We set out to interview people while they were in their job over time,” Lawrence said. “In the first edition we got 24 political executives to work with us and for two years we interviewed them about every six months.”

The response was so positive the publisher asked for a second edition. When work was underway on the current version, Lawrence noticed some reoccurring themes developing from the results.

“There were two things that continued to come back,” he said. “Even though this class of jobs seems very similar (high level people who lead the US Federal Government), the jobs are really very different and the range of skills needed in those jobs is really very, very different.”

Scientific Issues.

One of the groups that emerged from the research were called scientists.

“There are agencies in the United States government that work with scientific issues like the National Institute of Science and Technology,” Lawrence said adding that the best people in this category built their skill set specifically to lead others in these fields.

Another finding from Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government centered around another group called producers.

“These are the people that run things the federal government has to do, like provide financial aid or process our tax forms,” Lawrence said noting the skill sets needed here are very different from those needed in the scientists classification.

Building on these benchmarks, the book was able to debunk one previously held belief about professionals and their career goals.

School of Thought  

“There used to be a school of thought that smart, clever people who had successful careers could do anything, but when you dig under the covers you see the jobs are so different that’s just not true anymore,” he said.

Lawrence said the second theme dealt with the fact governments need to examine closely the experience people have and then tie it to the position’s requirements.

Finally, he noted that, like in many other positions, experience was a great asset.

“With situations that might otherwise seem chaotic or hectic, we observed that people who have dealt with the issues before are less overwhelmed,” he said, citing the example of the person who had come from being a union official with mining organizations and ran Mine Health and Safety Administration when Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government was being put together.

The post Paul Lawrence talks with Big4.com about Ernst & Young’s latest edition of Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government appeared first on Big4.com.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) today announced that it has declared dividends on a series of its non-cumulative preferred stock (represented by depositary shares, each representing a 1/1,000th interest in a share of preferred stock):

In addition, Goldman Sachs has declared a dividend of $977.78 per share of Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preferred Stock, Series E, and a dividend of $977.78 per share of Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preferred Stock, Series F.

The dividends on the Series A Preferred Stock, Series B Preferred Stock, Series C Preferred Stock, Series D Preferred Stock and Series I Preferred Stock will be paid on February 11, 2013 to preferred shareholders of record on January 27, 2013. The dividends on the Series E Preferred Stock and Series F Preferred Stock will be paid on March 1, 2013 to preferred shareholders of record on February 14, 2013.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.

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How often do you jump into a car or taxi and show up at a prospect’s office ready to ask questions and pitch your solutions—but without really having prepared? Many senior executives I’ve interviewed have told me this happens all the time. And, they usually add, they aren’t impressed with someone who walks in knowing very little about their business and their issues.

You have to ask yourself a series of simple questions to help ensure you’ve prepared adequately for each and every client meeting.  Here they are:

1. Have you discussed the meeting agenda with your prospect, and discovered what in particular they would like to cover?
2. Do you know who will attend from the client’s side?
3. If more than one of you is attending from your own firm, have you agreed what your roles are going to be?
4. Have you thoroughly researched the company and the individual you’re meeting with?
5. Have you developed some understanding about what this client’s priorities and goals are right now?
6. What are the 3-4 thought provoking questions you’d like to ask your prospect?
7. What client examples have you prepared that will be relevant to this executive?
8. Do you have a “point of view” to share about the prospect’s industry or the trends that are affecting their organization?
9. Are you potentially trying to accomplish too much in this first meeting, perhaps in response to pressures from colleagues or your firm’s leadership? Or have you set just a few critical objectives—e.g., build trust and rapport, understand their issues, establish your credibility, and get a next step?

What specifically do you do to successfuly prepare for a meeting with a prospective client?

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

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The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) plans to host a Fixed Income Investor conference call on Wednesday, January 23rd at 12:00 pm (ET) with Harvey Schwartz, incoming Chief Financial Officer and Liz Beshel Robinson, Treasurer. A presentation will be available on the firm’s web site, http://www.gs.com.

Members of the public who would like to listen to the conference call should dial 1-888-557-6611 (U.S. domestic) and 1-706-902-2083 (international). All numbers should be dialed at least 10 minutes prior to the start of the conference call. The conference call will also be accessible as an audio webcast through the Investor Relations section of our web site, www.gs.com/shareholders. There is no charge to access the call. For those unable to listen to the live broadcast, a replay will be available by dialing 1-855-859-2056 (U.S. domestic) or 1-404-537-3406 (international) passcode number 80984538 beginning approximately two hours after the event.

Please direct any questions regarding obtaining access to the conference call to Goldman Sachs Investor Relations, via e-mail, at gs-investor-relations@gs.com.

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The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS)  announced yesterday  Harvey Schwartz, incoming Chief Financial Officer, will present at the 2013 Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum in Miami, Florida on Wednesday, February 12, 2013 at 8:45 a.m. (EST). The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm providing a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.

A live audio webcast of the presentation will be available on the Investor Relations section of our Web site at www.gs.com/shareholders.  For those unable to listen to the live version, a replay will be available on our Web site shortly after the event.

Please direct any questions regarding obtaining access to the webcast to Goldman Sachs Investor Relations via email at gs-investor-relations@gs.com.

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Chiefs of Staff deliver substantial value to organizational effectiveness, particularly in an era of flat structures.    They enhance organizational operations and internal and external communications, and keep functions orderly and focused, allowing the CEO, Board and key executives to better focus on issues of strategic importance,  external and internal.

If established correctly and you hire the right person, this position can be a communications and operational focal point, organizer, coordinator, special project manager and organizational glue for an organization in continual flux with multiple and every changing work groups, changing priorities, and continuing marketplace challenges.  It’s also the type of position that becomes most valued after it has been vacated or eliminated, and the organization realizes that its work is no longer flowing smoothly and there is substantially more problems arising between organizational entities and work groups; also customers and with key external stakeholders.

For more on Chief of Staff duties, responsibilities and reporting relationships go to http://www.advancingyourorganization.com/?p=2271.

Michael VanBruaene was a KPMG Director and blogs at  Michael VanBruaene Performance Improvement Services – Advancing Your Organization (www.AdvancingYourOrganization.com). He can also be contacted at mvanbruaene@pacbell.net.

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A new survey recently released from KPMG LLP and taken during Oracle OpenWorld shows that among other things, management is facing challenges in analyzing the explosion of unstructured data from mobile devices, websites and even social media. In fact, more than one quarter of respondents said their biggest challenge was dealing with the data that was “raining” in from other sources.

Jeanne E. Johnson, who leads KPMG’s Data & Analytics (D&A) innovation initiative, talked with Big4.com recently about the survey’s findings and what they meant for a data driven economy. Johnson started by mentioning the survey focused in on a broader trend which was the combination of the latest catchphrases, Big Data and Big Analytics.

“Traditionally workflow and transactional information is very defined. The customer has a number and the order probably has a number. It’s structured using tools like excel spreadsheets,” she said. The unstructured data that’s one of the focuses of the new study is more about its namesake.

Text, email and natural language

“It’s text and email,” Johnson said. “It’s natural language. It’s not defined in terms of how long it is and the concept of ‘Big Data’ comes from the fact there’s so much of it that comes in all these different forms. It’s the hardest to access and the hardest to corral.”

Herein lies the need, according to the survey, for modernizing old methods of measuring, monitoring and assuring the quality of data.

“It remains a huge challenge to harness this kind of data as it is not only generated from disparate reporting systems, but is generated by a wide variety of external stakeholders,” Johnson said.

New Technologies

She went on to say it was only recently that some of the new technologies have made it possible to bring all the disparate elements together. Johnson also made it clear that the buying patterns and preferences that show up on places like social media channels were critical for modern firms looking to have a finger on the pulse of different generation’s preferences.

“We’re actually seeing a number of technologies coming together. There are things that scour the web and blogs as well as social media sites and things to look for analytics and correlations,” she said calling these a “first generation” of mining efforts.

She was also quick to point there was a bridge needed between accessing these massive stockpiles of data and getting the information that any company needs. Still the awareness needs to be more pointed toward streamlining these procedures. That fact is echoed clearly in the survey findings since 29 percent of respondents said advances in data and analytics would fundamentally change their business or industry in the next five years.

“We see a massive intersection with Big Data and Big Analytics since they are changing the ways business is conducted,” Johnson said. She finished by mentioning how the relationship between even the different departments in a business have changed with the focus toward this unstructured digital data and how once clear roles are now redefined.

“It needs to be a much more ongoing partnership with social collaboration and Big Data Analytics.”

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By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

Innovation is one of the keys for successful enterprises and solving real-world governance, risk and compliance (GRC) challenges are just one of the issues modern business faces daily. Helping today’s enterprise cope with the ever-changing GRC landscape was the topic of conversation when Big4.com spoke with Scott Wisniewski, Managing Director of Risk Technology Solutions for Protiviti about his company’s latest solution, the Protiviti Governance Portal 4.0.

Wisniewski started the discussion by talking about one of the major focuses this latest version of the portal is moving in.

“One of the key values that the GRC packages have to promote is enterprise accountability,” he said referring to simplified functionality, which is one of the goals the Protiviti Governance Portal 4.0. strives for. “The thing is if it’s not useable, the thing never really achieves its promise because no one can interact with it and get into it.”

Central GRC Efforts

He added that one of the key focuses has been making the portal more graphically usable with, among other benefits, the ability to centralize GRC efforts across multiple domains. Wisniewski also mentioned there were several different ways to implement the necessary features.

“There’s usability for the project team that has to do a lot of stuff in the system and then there’s usability for real end users (business users) who might be coming in periodically to provide some inputs into it.”

He went on to say that what Protiviti had done from a “power user” perspective was install some of the latest navigational tools that will help business users to get to any point without multiple clicks. Wisniewski also mentioned that much of the drill down was eliminated and that information was readily available from single, simple to use areas. Icons that made the entire system more user friendly were also added that complemented Protiviti’s overall goal.

Wizard Driven Interfaces

“If you can give the business user a series of wizard driven interfaces that lead them through a series of things they have to provide, without having to understand all of the underlying complexity, then you start getting really good feedback while empowering your business people to provide that feedback in intuitive an format,” he said.

He also stresses the new Protiviti Governance Portal 4.0 takes into account that GRC needs to look at several different functions.

“There are multiple different types of projects that teams need to execute within a GRC context.  The most common project is execution of audits against risks and controls documented in the GRC register.  You might also need to execute different types of projects such as an investigation related to a fraud, or a regulatory project related to regulatory change, or an IT project related to an IT directive” he said noting there were a variety of other projects and assessments as well as work flow capabilities. He added one of the benefits to be derived comes from the fact that GRC is broken down into capabilities that span whatever business needs to do.

“What we do is mash those capabilities together into solutions,” he said. He finished up by talking a bit about the overall philosophy behind the Protiviti Governance Portal 4.0. and what Protiviti was trying to accomplish in the market.

“I think the key to what we’re trying to do is really two-fold. Number one, we feel that different ways of communicating with business are critical to GRC, and we follow the motto of  ‘What gets tracked gets done,’ he said, adding that the second important point was about taking divergent input to form a central hub and consolidation to promote convergent GRC.

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Michael Flagiello, Partner in the Financial Services Consulting Group for , has an undeniable enthusiasm for his work that was readily apparent when we sat down to talk to him last week about the findings from the WeiserMazars 2012 Insurance Finance Leadership Study. The study found that 66% of high-performing insurance companies (those with Return on Capital higher than 10%) close their books in less than 15 days while only 33% of low performers (those with ROC lower than 10%) met that timeline and that a synergy between the IT and finance departments was a critical factor.

“Being a consulting partner means having many clients, being in the space and seeing live what’s going on out there with real live data and getting CFO’s to respond to a survey,” he said. He was referring to WeiserMazars LLP annual 2012 Insurance Finance Leadership Study of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) that was recently released.

Spreadsheet scenario

He started the discussion noting scenarios he’d run across where it wasn’t unusual for larger companies to have as many as 500,000 spreadsheets supporting documentation and wondered why.

“CEOs are doing a great job buying business units and increasing the global footprint,” he said. “They’re able to leap tall buildings in a single bound these days with technology as our friend.”

Flagiello noted these CEOs face questions after these acquisitions, not the least of which is how to integrate these purchases into an existing finance platform. Spreadsheets were the favored way that IT departments had for solving these issues, but there were some flaws with the processes that were highlighted by the WeiserMazars study.

“We did a whole analysis on if the spreadsheet is being used for 12 to 18 months, the costs skyrocket and it becomes apparent these should have been put into your infrastructure or platform in a more permanent way.”

Legacy systems and quality

Another factor that became apparent through the study was legacy systems and how they affected the quality and portability of data. Flagiello highlighted during these times of increased regulations, using spreadsheets adds cost dollars and time as well as increases in mistakes.

“The quality of the data from manual efforts is obviously much worse and less timely,” he said adding that it would be much more efficient to have these functions built into an infrastructure in a more permanent way. The study also found that these legacy systems were far from an easy cost to approach the Board of Directors about. The study found that 50% of CFOs believe legacy systems significantly impact the quality of data and substantially limit the introduction of new technologies.

“These are big numbers (to migrate),” Flagiello said. “It’s not an easy task.”

The conversation then moved to solutions to bridge this gap like the cloud and how the WeiserMazars survey showed a much more relaxed attitude than in previous years. The survey also found that work flow tools were solving some of the issues that had hindered the migration of legacy systems.

“Some of these work flow tools solve some of the problems these legacy systems have,” Flagiello said. He concluded by noting that companies that fixed older processes were in much better shape when the time finally came to migrate.

“It really gets down to if you have a good process and you really have control over your data, you’ll have a much better shot at a migration when you’re ready to go.”

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WeiserMazars LLP, a leading accounting, tax and advisory services firm, today announced the release of its annual 2012 Insurance Finance Leadership Study of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs).  This year’s study discovered a significant correlation between high-performing companies and ongoing investment in finance infrastructure.

More than twice the number of CFOs at high performing companies had a positive relationship with their technology departments, 82% vs. 40% at lower performing organizations.  CFOs at high performing companies believed that technology projects were well run and that their technology teams were knowledgeable on how to accommodate the finance department’s needs.  At lower performing companies, finance departments had a less positive relationship with IT and found that without significant supervision, their needs were not properly met.

The WeiserMazars 2012 Insurance Finance Leadership Study targeted a cross-section of insurance industry CFOs.  Admitted P&C (both commercial and personal lines), Excess & Surplus, Reinsurance, and Life and Health companies are all featured in the results.  This year’s study focuses on the Finance team’s level of technological preparedness, its relationship with the business, and its relationship to the Board of Directors in terms of risk management and overall effectiveness.  WeiserMazars assembled an Advisory Board of current and former Insurance CFOs to formulate relevant topics and to interpret the results.  We also engaged C F Effron Company, a boutique independent management consulting company providing primary and secondary research, to provide an analysis of the data for this study.

Click on www.weisermazars.com/cfostudy to see the study in its entirety, including other important industry trends.

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Capgemini’s latest worldwide survey examining the global surge in business Cloud adoption along with its drivers and barriers was the subject of the conversation when Ron Tolido, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Applications, Continental Europe, Capgemini spoke with us at Big4.com recently.

‘Business Cloud: The State of Play Shifts Rapidly: Fresh Insights into Cloud Adoption Trends’ looks at the maturing Cloud market and how although 81 per cent of organizations reporting are already having a Cloud strategy in place, there are still a few issues that need to be resolved.

 Tolido started out by speaking to the fact that although there have been numerous Cloud surveys done recently, Capgemini sought to take an original and fresh approach and once they got the data in, there were three big surprises they hadn’t expected from the results.

Business Involvement

“The first one is quite striking in terms of business in Cloud based decisions,” he told Big4.com going on to say that business involvement is reflected in a higher percentage of budget and other decisions being allocated to the Cloud than previously expected.

“Business is already seeing the benefits of the Cloud and don’t need to be further evangelized,” he said. “The split between the IT departments and business departments is close to 50/50 right now when it comes to Cloud based decisions and budgets, which is much more than we expected.” Presently, forty-five per cent of reporting organizations from the research cite that individual business units are ultimately responsible for Cloud adoption strategies. Tolido said he expected there would be more of a shift toward the business side as time went on.

In contrast, the survey also found there were still persistent doubts about Cloud implementation even though there was a momentum gaining from the business end. Over 40 per cent of those responding to the survey still has misgivings. Tolido acknowledged these uncertainties, calling them “all the usual suspects.”

Security and Integration

“They all have to do with stuff like security legislation, privacy and integration issues,” he told Big4.com adding that the concerns were often the ones mentioned from the IT department. “There still seems to be a remarkable preference for private Cloud scenarios,” he added saying that the economic advantages of the public version of the Cloud will appeal to organizations “sooner or later.”

The report backs up these preferences: 40 per cent of organizations preferred off-premise and partner-hosted private Cloud solutions and 26 per cent opted for on-premise private Cloud solutions.

Default Part of Enterprise

The third specific area of interest was the fact ‘Business Cloud: The State of Play Shifts Rapidly: Fresh Insights into Cloud Adoption Trends’ pointed out new companies looked to the Cloud as a default and integral part of their enterprise, just as much as existing companies turn to the cloud to support new, ‘edge’ business activities.

“This is a pointer for companies that want to explore the benefits of the Cloud but don’t know where to start,” Tolido said. On the other hand, while the Cloud seems to be driving new business activities, migrating existing systems seem to have a much lower priority for those organizations that already have an infrastructure in place.

Tolido also noted the research was very clear about the benefits of using the Cloud for businesses’ data storage needs.

“According to our research the most striking benefit is cost effectiveness,” he said. “I think both the business and IT sides would agree on this. It all has to do with economies of scale and making better use of the resources you have.”

Flexibility, scalability, speed to market and simplicity were some of the other benefits he mentioned.

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Ernst and Young has long been known as one of the leaders in sustainability and able to balance their “triple bottom line” of obligations and opportunities, financial as well as social and environmental risk efficiently under the guidance of people like Leisha John, Americas Director of environmental sustainability for the firm.

Shortly after her firm released their latest corporate sustainability report for the Americas Area, Patterns of progress: How our people are shaping our sustainability journey, Leisha was able to talk with Big4.com about the firm’s progress on key initiatives. She started by speaking to the term sustainability and the diverse areas it covered.

“I know a lot of people hear the term sustainability and automatically they think about environmental sustainability and one of the purposes to putting out this report was to show that sustainability was really a much broader umbrella,” she said.

She went on to say the term encompasses initiatives aimed at people in the Ernst & Young organization as well as investing in entrepreneurship and communities.

“Basically,” John said, “it’s about providing a better working world through our mission of promoting transparency and good governance.”

Well Rounded Sustainability

John went on to say that while the more traditional community engagement aspect is the one that most people associate with sustainability, the environmental stewardship, entrepreneurship and diversity aspects all work together for the well rounded sustainability package Ernst & Young strives for. Ernst & Young has numerous offices across the Americas and while there is a diversity to their sustainability efforts, much of what the company does in this area would be familiar to environmentally minded people.

Reducing Carbon Footprint

For example, Ernst & Young’s carbon footprint has been reduced by 11% since 2008 by focusing on travel alternatives like videoconferencing.  Purchasing 100% green power for Ernst & Young’s data center facility and the headquarters in New York has helped to spur investment in renewable energy.

“Our data center, obviously, is a huge consumer of energy,” John said also referencing the fact that Ernst & Young has replaced 12,000 older fixtures with LED lighting in the Times Square US headquarters office. “One thing that we did at the data center was get the EnergyStar certification so that we know that it’s operating in a very energy efficient way.”

She went on to say that because Ernst & Young procures the energy for that data center building, they spent additional money on renewable energy certificates. The company’s efforts are many and international as well as national in scope. Recently, the Chicago Ernst & Young EcoCare team looked at all the public transportation modes in the area and came up with a directory pointing to the green choices.

“We have EcoCare teams that are basically our grass roots and volunteer efforts,” John said adding there were leaders in regions around the country that had small budgets and met quarterly. The team leaders are then asked to help support the national campaigns.

Flagship Program

John was also glad to speak about the Earthwatch Global Ambassadors program which is considered the flagship environmental sustainability program.

“We have collaborated with Earthwatch and this particular program is geared toward our best and brightest people below the manager level,” she said adding the program focused on staff and young seniors so they could get out and really experience climate change first hand. John furthered the program was highly selective and that only about 10% of those who apply are selected. The successful applicants go to either Costa Rica to a large co-op or Brazil where half of each day is spent on scientific research to benefit the coffee fields or honey farms there.

John concluded by talking briefly about the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program and how it relates to Ernst and Young’s overall sustainability philosophy.

“Whenever we sign a lease for a new office building, we definitely look for a space that’s LEED certified,” she said. “For example, our need building that’s coming up will be in Cleveland and that will be a LEED certified building in a LEED certified neighborhood.”

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Hot on the heels of Ernst & Young releasing their latest Global Technology M&A update, Joe Steger, Global Technology Industry Transaction Advisory Services (TAS)Leader sat down to talk with Big4.com about the issues surrounding deal values and volumes for this all important segment of the economy.

The update centered on a number of noteworthy trends including deal volumes inching up, but perhaps more noticeably, the five long-term megatrends that aregenerating disruptive innovation both inside and outside the technology industry. Steger mentioned one area that stood out was the software to service (SaaS) arena.

Further Technology

“As we get toward a recovery,” he says, “you will see the use of technology to further innovate and increase productivity and one area where we can see that is in SaaSbecause there are some real productivity and cost benefits to going that route.”

Although any real big global technology M&A deals were sidelined by the economic uncertainty in 3Q, smart mobility and the mobile payment technologies wereanother area that held some promise to play a part in the global recovery process.

“The mobile payment technology side has been an interesting area for a number of players for a while now,” Steger said. “As smartphones become more ubiquitous, you’re going to want to see the abilities to pay for things with that device.”

Mobility for business and leisure

These smartphone technologies are tied to the larger smart mobility concept that Steger said continued to make deals in 3Q regardless of the macroeconomic slowdown. He stressed smart mobility also included tablet devices.

“Smart mobility really means any way that you can use mobility in your business or personal life,” he said.

Big data analytics, another one of the trends from the report, has so much unstructured information that one of the future challenges will be how to corral it all in. Steger mentioned some strides had already been made and noted one example was the ability to take engine data from Boeing jet engines with the hope of increased efficiency.

Long Term Outlook

Steger stressed the long term outlook for global technology M&A remains strong and there is a spreading strength to the ‘social mobile cloud’ and big data analytics. However, he was careful to point out that the current macroeconomic uncertainty will dampen the number of large technology deals in the near term, and any technological transformation does take time.

“If you think back to what the internet was like in 1998 or 1999 to what it’s like today, it’s unbelievably different,” he said. “So this whole cloud and SaaS and mobility phenomenon tied in with big data and social networking still has a long cycle to go.”

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Although the details as far as data collection, governance and even methodology are still being worked out, forward thinking companies like Accenture know the Internet in general and social media specifically hold the key to new realms of biosurveillance. John Matchette, who leads Accenture’s Public Safety agency work, recently spoke to Big4.com about the company’s new contact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“The mission here of course is to protect America’s welfare,” he said, adding that there were a broad range of health threats that could affect the country including terrorist threats and any emerging pandemics. Last Thursday, Accenture announced a $3 million, one-year contract which will aid the Office of Health Affairs (OHA) with its biosurveillance capabilities using social media analytics.

Public Health Trends

Biosurveillance is the monitoring of public health trends and unusual occurrences, relying on pre-existing, real-time health data and Accenture has been charged with creating a pilot program that will take data from social networking and social media sites to help the OHA respond to a variety of crises and emerging threats.

“What we’re looking at here is a new way to diagnose emerging health concerns in a way that’s not being done,” Matchette said adding that the developing pilot project would be an additive to existing programs. He mentioned any new biosurveillance capabilities are not being developed to replace some exiting programs like BioWatch which checks the air for anthrax and other pathogens.

Real Time Information

The new project will look at getting more real time information through the very social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and blogs that have become part of people’s everyday lives.

“We’re going to take an Accenture collaboration platform that allows you to go out and collect a lot of data and then run analytics on top of it,” Matchette said adding there were many sources of data that could be incorporated to look for emerging health threats. He also stressed the scope of the project was large and would derive trends and a baseline from millions of inputs.

“The first thing to do is establish a baseline for what normal looks like,” he told Big4.com. “Once you’ve done that, you continue to refine that by looking at what is posted on blogs and Facebook and Twitter (as well as other social media platforms.)” There are standard interfaces that can be used here.

By having people input their own information, Matchette says, deviations from this baseline and emerging trends are noticed quicker than if the same data was collected by people checking into emergency rooms with symptoms or using other more traditional methods. There are several different applications here including identifying biological attacks and even more common situations like flu outbreaks.

“It all happens in real time with standard interfaces that already exist,” he said. “This is a very special case where we’re trying to use these interfaces to enhance public safety and improve health.”

Monitor available signals

The immediate plans for the new biosurveillance pilot don’t include data collection of any kind.

“Our plans right now are not to collect data and store it,” Matchette said. “What we’re trying to do right now is monitor available signals. The exciting thing about this is the ability to have something up and running very quickly that is of value and use to the nation.”

Accenture has worked with the Department of Homeland Security since its establishment in 2001.

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While we’ve all been following the rapidly changing healthcare landscape to see what the coming new system will hold for users and providers alike, some of the innovators in the field of connected health like Accenture have been taking a much more active role than just observers. With the recent opening of an Analytics Innovation Center in Singapore and several healthcare focused initiatives including an electronic health record system in Norway, this is one of the firms that is clearly taking a lead in the union of accessible healthcare information and IT.

Accenture’s Rick Ratliff, Global Lead for Connected Health, recently spoke with Big4.com about where the company is and where they plan on going in this field. He started by saying that healthcare and public service were unified as one of the five vertical industry focuses in the Accenture organization since in the United States, healthcare was looked at from a commercial and government perspective, while the focus was more governmental in other countries where Accenture is active such as Norway.

High Performance Health Care Systems

“We’re bringing our interest and expertise on the public service side of the business with our health care expertise and looking at how we can help government and commercial clients become what we call high performing health care systems,” he said.

Ratliff mentioned that Accenture had over 15,000 personnel working around the world to help clients improve their business processes as well as leverage technology. He stressed Accenture’s efforts were in fact three pronged since they were a technology, consulting and outsourcing firm and that restructuring often worked hand in hand with technology to achieve client’s targets.

 Technologies Across The Board

“From a technology standpoint,” he said, “we have a significant investment in looking at technologies across the board from cloud based solutions to big data analytical solutions to innovative approaches to using mobility.”

Accenture uses these capabilities to focus in on specific industry problems like healthcare. Specifically, the Norwegian Directorate of Health recently awarded the company a five year contract to build and implement a system to provide a consolidated record system for Norway’s medical professionals and five million citizens.

Ratliff also spoke to the importance of information governance as it pertains to ehealth and how Accenture approaches the issue with its clients around the world. The whole question centers around the issue of protecting the confidentiality and privacy of patient information that might reside in a number of different systems.

“You have to look at your policies about access to the information,” he said furthering that this would be determined in part by patient consent and regulations by country.

Data Storage

The information governance structure that Accenture works on with each client would cover a variety of issues including data storage which is a critical concern to making sure any solution is satisfactory.

“There would be considerations around how do you manage data that’s both in the cloud or managed by a central service versus the data that resides potentially in a medial record system in a physician’s office or a retail pharmacy,” Ratliff said, adding that the question was how to bring all the data together into one central location so that it was stored and secured while certain individuals had access to it and others did not.

He also said healthcare data storage relies primarily on physical data centers under the umbrella ‘cloud’ term rather than the more commercial versions offered by the likes of Amazon for these governance reasons.

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I could easily be a dinosaur.

That’s because I earned my MBA in 1981 from Dartmouth’s Tuck School. I looked at the course catalog recently, and realized that I’m like the doctor who went to medical school before the invention of penicillin and the discovery of DNA. Most of what MBA students study today was not on the curriculum 32 years ago.

The point is this: the half life of knowledge is incredibly short, and what we learn in school is dwarfed by what we should and must learn outside of school. As so-called “educated” professionals, the ability to rapidly learn and flex our minds is the key to occupational longevity. We must be, as Einstein said to a friend, “passionately curious.” (OK, “learnest” isn’t a word, but it rhymes with “fittest”, and it gets the message across!)

Look no further than Leonardo for one of history’s most prolific and motivated learners.

In 1481, at the age of thirty, the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci left Florence in search of a patron or client. He drafted a letter offering his services to the Milanese ruler Ludovico Sforza: “I offer to execute, at your convenience, all of the items briefly noted below.” The extraordinary list consists almost entirely of descriptions of innovative military inventions that could be put at Sforza’s service. “I have a model of very strong but light bridges, extremely easy to carry. . . .  During a siege, I know how to dry up the water of the moats . . . I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable, which will penetrate enemy ranks . . .” and so on.  Interestingly, only at the very end of this letter does Leonardo mention putting his prodigious artistic talents to work for the Milanese leader.

Great client advisors have both depth and breadth, and Leonardo da Vinci was an example of a consummate deep generalist who was constantly learning new things. An illegitimate child who grew up in a small town in Tuscany, Leonardo had virtually no formal education. When he was brought to Florence and apprenticed at age 15, he knew nothing of Latin and probably could barely read. Although he lacked education, Leonardo rarely failed to master whatever discipline or task he set himself to.

While Leonardo was highly trained as a master artist, he branched out into many other disciplines. He constantly went to the source for his learning, studying the ripples in a pond with the same intensity he had for subjects of his paintings. He took nothing for granted, and constantly questioned why things were done a certain way, whether it was the traditional technique of applying paint to a canvas or the accepted way of swaddling newborn infants. When he painted the famous Last Supper, he completely broke with convention, and instead of placing Judas off to the side without a halo (the custom among Renaissance painters), he placed him close to Christ and on the right, differentiating him with nuances of expression and shadow.

At his death, he had become one of the most accomplished artists in history. He had designed hundreds of inventions, including a water-powered alarm clock, a parachute and a helicopter – all of them well before their time. Moreover, he created anatomical studies that were unequaled for nearly three hundred years. Leonardo was simply fascinated by everything around him, writing, “The desire to know is natural to good men.”

Leonardo da Vinci passed away nearly 500 years ago, but he’s still an inspirational role model for twenty-first century learners.

What are you doing this year to learn and grow? In which areas would you like to deepen your knowledge and skill? 

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

The post Are You a Dinosaur? Survival of the Learnest appeared first on Big4.com.

To continue the discussion of directive leaders from the last leadership blog posting, I reference an article by Ben Austen in this month’s Wired magazine. The author outlines the leadership style of Steve Jobs, as well as the perspectives of those who supported and rejected him. We all know about Jobs – he claimed to be a Buddhist, but behaved with little respect for anyone. He was considered a technology design genius with a clear vision, yet unskilled in human relations. He created beautiful products, financial success, passionate customers, and at the same time, an organization ruled by fear and a family who never saw him.

When scanning the business world, it is hard to find many visible leaders who have created what Jobs’ finally did in his second round with Apple, especially the exuberant customers, but this could lead to the wrong conclusion. It would be a pity to think that such success can only come with an aggressive, directive leadership style. That style is the most commonly used because it requires the least skill, not because it produces the best results.

Many of Jobs’ supporters say that his clarity of vision and directive leadership style were the main reasons he could command respect and achieve excellence in all its detail. In fact, there is a distinction between vision, leadership style and outcomes. Most of the research coming out of top business schools says that all leaders need vision and those who can inspire people and create healthy, human work environments bring about the best results. The long-time leaders of companies such as Southwest Airlines, IKEA, Mary Kay and Best Buy use leadership styles that integrate sophisticated levels of emotional intelligence, while also building large financial empires and loyal customers. Their products are not as sexy as Apple’s and so, we forget to take their example…

Eleni Pallas was a management consultant with Deloitte, now an Executive Coach working with global leaders and teams.

The post Leading like Steve Jobs? appeared first on Big4.com.

If you want to have a seat at the table, you must be seen as contributing directly to your clients’ growth and profits. If this is the case, they will never get enough of you. But if you’re viewed as a cost—a necessary evil, like buying gas for your car—they will cut you anytime.

Over the last decade, I’ve studied several hundred long-term client relationships built by leading service firms in a variety of sectors. While there are many common denominators across these trusted partnerships, probably one stands out: In almost every case, the service provider is viewed as directly supporting the client’s most important goals for growth, profitability, and innovation.

A good example of this principle is the financial audit of public companies that is required by law. The best audit partners at the large accounting firms are able to position their audit services as far more than just fulfilling a statutory requirement. In these relationships, the audit firm is also helping the client to identify and reduce risk, improve their financial management practices, built a great internal team of finance professionals, improve operational performance, and so on. In other cases, I have seen the audit reduced to a fungible commodity that is purchased purely on the basis of having the lowest price. And when another audit firm offers to do it even more cheaply, the client is happy to switch with no compunction whatsoever!

Do your clients view you as supporting their most important goals? Are you part of their growth and profits? Can you tie your work directly to these things, and show the value of what you’re doing? Or are you a kind of necessary evil, an expense that they have to begrudgingly incur—sort of like when you buy gasoline for your car?

This principle lies at the heart of the difference between a trusted advisor and a mere vendor.

How to put this principle into practice

Here are 5 strategies that will help you position yourself as supporting a client’s growth and profitability:

1. Move up in the organization. Senior line executives are responsible for both revenue and profits; and top functional executives (e.g., the head of HR) usually feel a direct link to these same goals. Mid-level staff executives have cost budgets, however, and are more likely to focus on expense control and be highly price sensitive.

2. Be an agenda setter. Invest time to understand your client’s agenda—their highest-level goals and key priorities. Help to shape and improve the agenda. Show how your work supports the agenda. Demonstrate thought leadership around the agenda.

3. Always ask “Why?” When a client says, “We want to do a two-day training program. How much will that cost?” you risk sub-optimizing the engagement if you immediately agree to explore that option. Instead, you should ask “Why do you want to do that?”—even four or five times—to try and uncover the high-level goal that is driving the perceived need for a training program.

4. Broaden your conversations. If all of your conversations with your client are about the immediate project, you’ll never establish your credibility to discuss their broader business issues. When the breadth of your conversations increases, so to will the breadth of the relationship.

5. Quantify value early on. For any and every engagement, you must explicitly discuss with the client the value which will be created. When you get the client to articulate about how a particular initiative will affect costs, efficiency, retention, risk, revenues, and so on, you begin to connect it to growth and profit goals.

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

The post Are you part of your clients’ growth or simply a cost? appeared first on Big4.com.

Mayor Emanuel announced today that McGladrey LLP will move its headquarters to Chicago. McGladrey is the fifth largest U.S. provider of assurance, tax and consulting services, and it is now the largest certified public accounting firm headquartered in Chicago. The firm opened its first downtown office in 1985 and now has more than 1,000 employees serving over 3,500 business and individual clients in the Chicago metro area.

They are the sixth company to relocate its corporate headquarters to the City of Chicago. Attracting corporate headquarters is a key focus of the Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs, produced by World Business Chicago earlier this year at Mayor Emanuel’s request. McGladrey joins Federal Savings Bank, GE Transportation, ThyssenKrupp, Sara Lee, and Sagence Partners as companies that have opted to move either their corporate or North American Headquarters to the city.

Known for its focus on middle-market businesses, McGladrey provides global expertise to clients through dedicated local teams in 75 U.S. offices and through its international network in 90 countries. McGladrey’s professionals bring a deep level of understanding and fresh insights to help clients solve their most complex business and compliance challenges.

McGladrey anticipates hiring 300 to 500 new professionals in the Chicago area over the next five years to meet the increasing needs of the firm’s Chicago-based clients and to support the firm’s corporate operations.

“I welcome McGladrey to Chicago and commend them on their choice of Chicago for their corporate headquarters,” said Mayor Emanuel. “McGladrey will create significant economic opportunity and job growth throughout Chicago as it supports its local clients and grows its business. Chicago has the talent that will help McGladrey thrive for years to come.”

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Enthusiasm is contagious! Think about the most enjoyable and memorable professors you had in college. More likely than not, they possessed unbridled enthusiasm for their subject. Whether it was Art 101 or Political Science, they drew you in. They captivated your attention and interest.

The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek enthousiasmós. It means, literally, “possession by a god” or “having a god within.” Doesn’t that say it all? When you are truly enthusiastic about what you do, you have such excitement, zeal, ardor, and passion that it’s as if you are possessed!

Whether you’re dealing with a client or your boss, or you’re in a job interview, it’s essential to have enthusiasm. It lights up the room. It draws people to you. It wins them over to your cause.

On the flip side, how would you feel if you were about to have brain surgery, and just before putting you under the neurosurgeon says “You know, I’m getting tired of surgery…I’m thinking about going into real estate.” I don’t know about you, but I would shout “Stop!” and find another doctor!

Strengthening your enthusiasm

1. Make sure you’re in the right profession. Would you say you (1) Love your work; (2) Neither particularly like nor dislike your work; or (3) Don’t really enjoy what you do? Sure, we all have to earn a living somehow, but there are hundreds of ways to do that. If you’re not waking up in the morning excited about your work, you need to think hard about why that’s the case.

2. Make sure you’re in the right job. Again, rate your enthusiasm for your job using the 1-3 scale, above: Do you (1) Love your job—i.e., your current role; (2) Neither particularly like nor dislike this specific job; or (3) Don’t really enjoy this job?

3. Give yourself new challenges. Sometimes, we work in an avocation for many years and it can become routine. Develop a new sub-specialty, get a new role in your organization, or do something else to reinvigorate your enthusiasm for your work.

4. Be enthusiastic about other people’s ideas and plans. My own tendency, when someone shares an idea with me, is start assessing how original the idea is and what the risks are. Not good! Get excited about someone’s proposal before you start criticizing it.

5. Work on your gratitude. When we’re feeling grateful, it’s much easier to become excited and fervent about what we do.

What are you most enthusiastic about in your work right now? In your life?

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

The post The Power of Contagious Enthusiasm appeared first on Big4.com.

According to the research conducted on leaders, the following styles come up again and again. This is a list coined by the Hay Group:

Visionary – let’s move toward this vision
The visionary leader inspires everyone and shows how everyone’s contributions help materialize the shared vision. People who use this style tend to see people as people, instead of objects.

Participative – what are your ideas?
Participative leaders create collaborative team cultures that value listening and everyone’s input. They tend to see people as people, instead of objects.

Affiliative - let’s work together to achieve these goals
This leader focuses on harmony and morale, especially useful when resolving conflict or getting through difficult times. Usually, they see people as people, instead of objects.

Coaching – what do you need to perform at your best?
Leaders as coaches listen well and ask questions to help others’ think things through in new ways. They encourage their staff and delegate with the goal of helping their teams develop new skills. They tend to see people as people.

Directive – do what I say
Directive leaders tend to think they know what needs to happen and want everyone else to implement, usually without question. It’s an excellent style for a crisis situation, yet least effective for creating motivated teams or tapping into peoples’ intelligence and creativity. Most directive leaders see people as objects, instead of people. This style is the most commonly-used throughout the world! No wonder organizational life can often be unpleasant or unfulfilling.

Pacesetting – we need to achieve these goals
There is a focus on achieving goals and works well to get results. Too much of this, though, crowds out individual/team expression and creativity and makes everyone feel like a machine. Most pacesetting leaders see people as objects, instead of people. It’s the second most-commonly used leadership style, globally.

Which leadership style(s) do you tend to use? 

Are you happy with the results you get? If not, which style(s) could help you get better results?

Eleni Pallas was a management consultant with Deloitte, now an Executive Coach working with global leaders and teams.

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By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

Scott Wisniewski, is animated when we talk to him on the phone about the approaching anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) and what that will mean for IT and business.

“IT will have to find a way to regulate the cascading effect of change,” the Managing

Director of Risk Technology Solutions for Protiviti told Big4.com by phone on Friday. He sounds confident when he describes what he calls the “daisy chain of impacts” that are still evolving from the implementation of the legislation. According to Wisniewski’s perspective from the IT standpoint, the transition is far from over as even in June there were still 70% of changes in the evolving DFA yet to be finalized.

IT shops will be wise to consider the impact of regulatory change on current priorities; soundness of their data design to support capital modeling as well as more stringent / timely reporting requirements; adequacy of their record retention capabilities; information security requirements; and maturity of their project management processes.  The keys are staying out in front of these changes and establishing infrastructure that can manage current requirements and those yet to be finalized.

Cloud Provider

“We are a cloud provider,” he told Big4.com. “We provide a platform for documenting and managing this effort.  But getting compliant with DFA is much more than a documentation exercise.  Entire business lines may be reorganized.  Product offerings may require restructuring or even be eliminated.  New policies need to be created and existing ones revised.  Processes are being reengineered.  And all of it is supported by IT in some shape or form, so there is a lot of work to do.”

His company is providing the solutions to back up his confident talk with the Dodd-Frank diagnostic tool that helps their clients stay on top of any of the new regulations that can pose challenges and notions on what IT can do to work with the new winds of evolution and change.

“For example, there are new data retention requirements,” he said. “It’s always been important to record data. Now there are new types of data to archive with requirements spanning multiple regulations.  It’s important to view these through a consolidated lens so that a uniform data retention standard can be employed that meets various obligations.”

Regulatory management tool

Currently the regulatory management tool provides information for institutions impacted by the DFA including banking, broker dealers, investment advisory as well as mortgage institutions and Wisniewski is quick to stay focused on the point that he feels central to any new changes. He speaks of the infrastructure Protiviti provides to make sure clients are able to manage sustained compliance as the DFA approaches its second anniversary and beyond.

“In a recent poll we did,” he told Big4.com, “50% of those polled indicated they do not have the appropriate tools in place to effectively and efficiently manage Dodd-Frank compliance.  As we approach DFA’s two-year anniversary, and a host of compliance dates become effective the latter half of this year, companies need to not only quickly come to terms with these changes, but also implement sustainable programs to avoid a do-over in subsequent years.”

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http://www.amazon.com/Ex-Why-Bob-Sinnott/dp/146360677X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329317643&sr=1-1

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Drive Process Optimization

 A common approach is to seek the optimization of processes such that quality improves and cycle time is reduced. The simple steps of mapping the current state Operational and IT processes, breaking each process down into three levels of delivery will identify opportunities for improvement. Key items to look for include: repeatable actions or processes, actions that results in defects, and actions that result in mis-information.

For example, take a look at your current processes for Level 0 to Level 3 IT support. What are the handoff’s and processes that occur once the call is taken initially or the issue becomes known? Mapping each process, each handoff, who is involved, the amount of time, the amount of effort, the number of manual and automated tracking systems will identify the opportunities. The team should be looking for waste (e.g.: steps that can be removed from the process, areas to apply standardization for repeatability of process, removal of bottlenecks to achieve more productivity in the same time period). The objective is to make the changes without compromising the quality of the product or service delivered.

Conduct a Lean Operations and IT Walkthrough

 There are four common areas of focus when conducting a Lean Operations and IT walkthrough, namely; operating practices, management systems, organization and capabilities, and mindset and behavior. Conducting a Lean Operations and IT walkthrough of these four areas will provide some unique opportunities and items to consider.

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Do you ever find that you are slogging through meeting after meeting with a prospect, month after month, without reaching a sale? You have lots of conversations, but there is no forward progress. In today’s economy, there are in fact lots of sales conversations that go on and on without ever arriving anywhere. You can avoid this by asking a series of incisive questions that help you verify if the preconditions for a sale are present.

The first precondition for a sale is that there must be a significant perceived problem or opportunity. If there isn’t, why would anyone hire you?

To ascertain whether a truly significant problem or opportunity exists, you should ask questions like: “What is this costing you right now?”; “If you don’t fix this problem, what will the consequences be?”; “What do you think this opportunity is worth to your organization?”; “What other issues is this causing for you?”; “Would you say this is one of your top two or three priorities?” And so on.

A second precondition is that you must be speaking to someone who owns the problem and is empowered by their organization to fix it. In big companies, there are always lots of problems—and plenty of people willing to talk about them. But unless you are talking to the owner of the issue, that’s all you’ll do—talk. Questions you can use here might include: “Who owns this problem?”; “Are you responsible for fixing this?”; “Who would authorize an expenditure to address this?”;  “Who needs to be involved in the solution?”; and “Who would lead the implementation of a solution?”

A third precondition is that the buyer must have a healthy dissatisfaction with the current rate of change or improvement. The client may have a problem, and it may be significant—but they will not bring on a new service provider or supplier unless they are unhappy with progress or current solutions. Questions that can help to ascertain this would include: “Would you say this is a minor irritant, at one end of the scale, or something you’re truly fed up with, at the other end?”; “Why do you feel that now is the time to put extra resources against this?”; “What solutions have been tried already?”; and  “How effective have your own efforts been to address this? Why or why not?” (Remember–if there have been no internal efforts launched to address the issue, how important can it really be?).

A fourth precondition is that the client must trust you are the best resource for the job—better than your competitors and better than internal efforts. How do you determine this? This is harder than the other preconditions, because it’s difficult to ask someone point-blank if they trust you! More likely, you’ll sense a hesitation or reluctance. Nonetheless, you can questions such as “What other solutions are you looking at?”; “How do you view our capabilities in this area?”; “How do you see your alternatives right now?”; and, “What concerns do you have about us or our approach?”

Lastly: A sale will get stalled if all the right stakeholders have not been aligned. The first four conditions may have been met, but if there are key influencers or important constituencies who are not on board with hiring you, your client won’t become a buyer. To ascertain this, you need to ask questions about the decision-making process. For example: “Who needs to be involved in making this decision?” “What key stakeholders in your organization need to sign off on this?” and “With other clients, I’ve found that an important initiative like this rarely gets off the ground without the support of multiple constituencies. In your organization who would these be?”

The prospect you are talking to may have had ten other meetings on the same day. If you want to be memorable, be bold about asking incisive, thought-provoking questions that demonstrate you’re a peer and help you ascertain if the client is truly ready to buy.

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Andrew Sobel helps companies and individuals build their clients for life. Andrew was a Senior Vice President and Country Chief Executive for Gemini Consulting (15 years). He is the co-author of the newly-released Power Questions as well as the author of the business bestsellers Clients for Life, Making Rain, and All for One. He can be reached at www.andrewsobel.com, where you can download a free set of Power Tools to help you get better at asking Power Questions.

The post Is Your Sale Stuck? Five Preconditions for a Client to Buy appeared first on Big4.com.

ROLE PURPOSE:

A leadership role on the NBC Sports Group accounting team, reporting to the Vice President, Accounting & Controller, with oversight of accounting for NBC Sports Group’s Headquarters, NBC Sports, and NBC Sports Network. This role plays an integral part in supporting the executive leadership team.

Please see full job description

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Deloitte may be banned from practicing with publically listed American companies, if it loses a legal  battle in the United States.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered a legal action against the Big4 firm in connection with its refusal to hand over information and documents connected to the American investigation against Longtop Financial Technologies, a Chinese firm registered in the Cayman Islands accused of fraud. Trading in shares of Longtop was suspended at the New York Stock Exchange last year.

According to the SEC, Deloitte has willfully failed “to provide audit work papers despite its legal obligations” after the Commission requested the documents.

Deloitte has maintained its defence by stating that it is “caught in the middle of conflicting laws of two different governments,” according to a statement by the firm. “Accounting firms in China are not permitted to produce documents directly to any foreign regulator without Chinese government approval,” the firm said.

Previously, Deloitte’s lawyers had told the SEC that the Commissions demands could force Deloitte to violate Chinese laws regarding state secrets that would result in the firm facing criminal charges in China, “which can include lengthy prison sentences,” according to the firm.

In May 2011, Deloitte quit as the company’s auditor after stating that Longtop managers had falsified accounting statements.

Deloitte has publically requested a “diplomatic” solution to the issue.

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_____ MY INDUSTRY: Is this a growth industry or is it a shrinking industry? Do some homework on the company, competitors and industry. Know where your company ranks in the marketplace. Also, is this an industry you want to be in?
_____ MY COMPANY: Is this a company doing well and is it a stable long-term player? Is this a company going through some challenging times and you are learning something new every day at work? It is important to feel good about the company you work for – you should feel proud to say you work for them – whether it is a stable environment or a challenging one is OK as long as you are learning and feeling good about working there. Is the company liable to be acquired or split up in the short-term? Do you hear and read good things about the company?
_____ MY CURRENT POSITION: Is it challenging and forcing you to develop new skills? Do you get to step out of my comfort zone? Is your boss someone you can learn from? Could s/he be a mentor? Will this position help you r career marketability?
_____ JOB ENJOYMENT: Is it fun to come to work every day? Do you really enjoy the work you are doing? Do you dread the beginning of each day and/or week?
_____ GROWTH POTENTIAL: Specifically what position do you think you can be promoted to, in how many months, etc? Where are you going and do you want to go there? What is the record of accomplishment of the previous people in your position? Does that meet your own growth expectations?
_____ CHEMISTRY: Do you really enjoy this environment? Do you ‘fit’ in well with the group of, people you work with? Do you have a mentor who is assisting you with your career (can be inside or outside your company)? What is the Method of Operation (MO) of Senior Management? Do you agree with their MO?
_____ GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT: As you predict your growth with your company, what will be the relocation requirements for you and your family in the future? Does this fit with your career plans and your family plans? (It is helpful to be flexible to relocate; especially early in your career) In today’s global environment, career growth may depend on relocation for a period of time.
_____ SPOUSE’S CAREER: Does your career and your spouse’s complement each other, or will one of you have to make a sacrifice for the other? If considering relocation, can my spouse find a comparable position?
_____ COMPENSATION: Will your compensation growth enable you to enjoy the lifestyle you are looking for? Will you be losing ground in the future? (This should be a lower priority, especially earlier in your career)

Your career is your “business”. Manage your business well, provide proper growth management and make improvements when necessary. Review your progress at least annually and plan for the future – your future.

Cora Mae Lengeman
Recruiter, Speaker, Author
Managing Partner at Norwood Network Associates LLC
‘An executive search firm committed to performance, quality and results’

My passion is finding the best people who can help my clients accomplish their business goals. For over two decades I have been recognized for closely collaborating with my clients to identify qualified leaders who can complement the corporate structure and culture. My expertise is senior management and executives in accounting and finance, and financial advisory services search.

The post ANNUAL REPORT – FOR YOUR CAREER appeared first on Big4.com.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well, let me give you two real examples of what doesn’t make your company look good to potential candidates:

1. An approved recruiting vendor for your company (a large manufacturing firm) has a contract person in place while trying to fill an international tax position. The approved vendor doesn’t want to work on it (making more money with the contract person in place) so they share it with another recruiting firm to work on it with the stipulation that the 2nd recruiting firm (2nd firm) will present all resumes to the approved vendor (1st firm) for presentation to the client. The second firm which is known for their medical recruiting, knows nothing about your company or the position, but has the job description, so they share the description with a third recruiting firm known for accounting, financial and tax recruiting. The third firm cannot get any information regarding the company, the department or the people in the department as the 2nd firm doesn’t want the 1st firm to know that they also “farmed” the search out to another recruiting firm. Who is representing your company to the marketplace and what are they communicating in this example? Better yet, will your position ever get filled?

2. Your company is in need of a ______ (fill in the blank) so you ask five (5) recruiters to find someone to fill the position. The position is important and very specialized and the demand for this type of person is high in the market. Plus you need them quickly – thus the 5 recruiters. Your parameters are so specific that there are only about a hundred people in the country that can fill your position and these 100 people get contacted by all of the recruiters you asked to help you. The prospects get email blasts, telephone calls, ads in their LinkedIn Groups everyday regarding your position from 5 different recruiters. The job description is posted everywhere by 5 different recruiters. You have looked at several resumes that are not even close to being qualified for the position, interviewed some close potentials and even made an offer, but that fell through because the recruiter failed to tell you (or didn’t know) that the candidate could not relocate. Six months go by and you still have not hired anyone. How does your company look in the eyes of the potential candidates for this position? Will your position be filled with the best candidate or one that is just good enough? How does this look for future open positions?

This sounds pretty harsh doesn’t it? These things really go on – I know from personal experience. As a company you are responsible for who represents you and how you are represented. Don’t screw up your reputation by using the wrong recruiters. Don’t let your in-house recruiters hurt your reputation by posting the job description all over the internet. Have some class – look like a winner – be particular – be special.

Pay attention to which recruiters you use – meet them first and be sure they are going to do what they promise they will do and that they can accomplish what they promise. Ask for a weekly up-date on how many people they contacted and an overview of what the responses were. These may help you re-define your parameters when and if necessary. You will also know the recruiter is actually doing their job.

Recruiter fees should never be a consideration – in the first example above the 1st firm quoted 20% on a position with a salary of $120,000, but the recruiting firm didn’t care because they had no intention of working on the search as they made more money on the contract person in place. What does it matter what fee they quoted – they never planned to do anything.

What does matter is who is going to get the job done. Use one recruiter that will get the job done. Paying a recruiter 1/3 of the annual salary is far cheaper than having the position go unfilled for over six months or if the approved vendor makes sure that no qualified resumes get to the company and the position is never filled.

Cora Mae Lengeman
Recruiter, Speaker, Author
Managing Partner at Norwood Network Associates LLC
‘An executive search firm committed to performance, quality and results’

My passion is finding the best people who can help my clients accomplish their business goals. For over two decades I have been recognized for closely collaborating with my clients to identify qualified leaders who can complement the corporate structure and culture. My expertise is senior management and executives in accounting and finance, and financial advisory services search.

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, Big4 Guest Blogger       

“Appreciative Inquiry is more than a focus on the positive.

It is the creation of conditions that tap the generative potential of people and organizations.”

~Gervase Bushe

CPAs across the country have put the finishing touches on their “busy season” and there is a collective sigh of relief. But you’re not really done yet. Now, is a great time, while the memories are still fresh, to reflect and “re-view” your performance over the last six months.

What went well? What should I do more of? Less of? How can I use the best parts of my performance to learn and take my performance to the next level?

Taking this “appreciative approach” helps you manage your change and development through the identification of what works and analysis of how to do MORE of that.

This is an alternative to the typical view of “what did I do wrong?” or “what are my weaknesses?” We identify a problem, analyze the cause and generate solutions all through the lens of fixing or avoiding problems. That approach works in some cases but it encourages us to focus on the negative rather than the energy and sense of possibility that comes from envisioning what’s possible.

To illustrate an appreciative approach to “re-viewing” your performance, think about your responses to the following questions suggested in the Appreciative Inquiry mindset:

1.  Considering all of your objectives for your role, what are you proud of?  What have you accomplished and what are you doing that works?

Give yourself credit for every little thing you do that brings you a feeling or demonstration of success, to even the smallest degree, in any work situation.  Be specific.

2.  What contributed to those successes? What caused those things to work? What or who has allowed you to do your best work? (Consider your team leader, team, firm overall, clients, circumstances, physical situation, and opportunities.)

3. How have you changed?  Think about yourself at the beginning of the year and the person you are today. How have you changed? Again, give yourself credit for every little improvement in your professional competencies or personal effectiveness. What did you do that helped you improve? The activities may have occurred at work, home or in the community.

4. Going beyond your given objectives...  In your work at your firm and as a member of a greater community, what achievements, accomplishments, or activities are you proud of?

5. Becoming even more effective….   To make yourself even more effective in the future, what do you want to continue to do, do more of, do better, or do differently? Of all the items listed and described above, which are the ones you are inspired to act on. (This is where your team leader can help prioritize your objectives.)

6.  What support within the firm do you have to do the things you identified in #5? (Money, time, training, access to subject matter experts and support staff, equipment, materials, etc.)  What resources do you have outside the company?  This is where your team leader can help in making sure you have what you need to succeed.)

Appreciative Inquiry as a model for change has been around awhile and its applications to individuals, teams and organizations are far and wide. It is a different approach to viewing your situation today that helps shape your vision for tomorrow.

What do you think? Have you used this approach in your firm’s change initiatives? I welcome your comments and input. I’d love to hear from you.

To your success,

Mary

Mary C. Werner, CPA, MOD, formerly with Ernst & Whinney (now E&Y) and Partner at a regional CPA firm, is the founder of Werner Coaching and Consulting, Inc., an executive coaching and organizational change consulting firm.  Mary, a certified executive coach through The Hudson Institute, is especially skilled at coaching and consulting with CPAs and other business professionals who are interested in accelerating their personal and professional growth for breakthrough results. She blogs regularly about leadership and change in firms and organizations. 

The post Your Performance “Re-View” appeared first on Big4.com.

I recently placed a candidate in a considerably lower level role than I normally do. Most of my recruiting assignments are for senior level positions with experienced executives. It’s always personally rewarding to enhance someone’s career, both professionally, financially and personally, but this recent placement gave me a different buzz. One I remember liking from earlier in my own career. It’s the great feeling of making a difference in someone’s life, probably one they’ll always remember and knowing I helped create a turning point in their careers.

This also put me in mind of experiences placing  candidates coming directly out of Big 4 for the first time. I did my fair share of these transitions in the good old pre-IPO, pre-SOX days, circa mid-late 1990’s. Hard to believe the many changes that have occurred since, from Enron to the great recession. The one thing that hasn’t changed though is how young talent feels, making the leap of faith from a public accounting firm to private industry. I’m quite sure attorneys and accountants struggle with some of the same questions when leaving the world of prominent law firms and the Big 4. After all, they’ve been groomed for success and high expectations, pitted against their peers for recognition, fostered in an environment of similar professionals; all hard working, bright and ambitious up and comers. Some see a clear path towards partnership while others dread yet another busy season.

And then someone like me comes along – whispering in their ear of opportunity, title, compensation increases, the chance to have a more structured lifestyle. Maybe they’ll work just as hard, after all I believe cranking out the hours is just ingrained in the Big 4 psyche. Regardless of the inducement, there comes a time when the right opportunity hits a nerve and the considerations of change come into play.

What makes transitioning out of Big 4 so different? In addition to their accounting firm experience usually being their first role out of a college they were recruited from, there’s the comfort level of professional commonality and equality. Everyone starts off in a comparable position, with similar skills and education. Everyone is working towards the same goal. Expectations are set and met; there are mentors and an established pattern for growth.

It’s no wonder the thought of leaving the prestigious society created in their firms is such a difficult decision. Here the CPA can rely on mentorship, interesting work and variety. Their peers share the same workload, similar challenges and are bound together in a culture of hard work and long hours. And even though they have worked with and alongside their clients, going to work for them is a completely different ball game. Contemplating submitting their work for the Auditors to review, getting involved in everything from journal entries to financials and often a big challenge in learning how to motivate and lead non professional staff.  Leaving the cocoon of a big 4 environment is a daunting proposition and let’s face it – Managers and Partners will always encourage their star performers to stay.

Despite all the inducements to stay (excluding the long hours!), Big 4 talent often does make it’s way into the private sector. Most do it successfully, embracing private industry, thriving in new challenges and learning how to lead and motivate. Transitioning into the corporate world is almost a right of passage. Their talent is welcomed and embraced whichever side of the fence they ultimately choose.

Cindy Cremona, CPC has over twenty years experience as an Executive Recruiter. Her main focus is in Accounting and Finance, primarily placing senior level roles for clients mainly in the technology sectors.

The post Musings From Cindy Cremona, CPC – Recruiter Of Big4 Candidates appeared first on Big4.com.

Today I was rereading one of my all time favorites, Steven Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People,’ and I came across something that I believe is at the core of what we try to do at Big4Guru.com. Habit # 2 in the book is entitled “Begin with the End in Mine.” In a nutshell, Covey stresses that we must take an active role in creating the “scripts” that we live each day. In other words, if we want to achieve our goals and arrive at our destinations in life, it is up to each of us to set our own course. This chapter alone is 50+ pages, so I won’t attempt to break it down completely, but I want to touch on how it relates to your goal of working for the Big 4 public accounting firms.

At the core is the belief that “all things are created twice.” First, we create things in our mind, using our right-brain thinking to imagine how a situation or event will go. Second, we create the situation or event in reality. The crucial element in this is that the “First Creation” pre-determines our success in the “Second Creation.” In other words, if you imagine that something could go poorly, or are so nervous about an event that you worry yourself to death, there is a good chance that the real situation will match the situation in your mind. In order to be successful, you must have a positive “first creation” in your mind that sets the stage for success in reality. Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say that you have an interview with the Big 4 in two weeks. During that time you talk with friends and relatives, or maybe classmates that have interviewed with the Big 4. Your family is so impressed with you for landing an interview and they tell you just how great and prestigious the Big 4 are. You begin asking yourself, “Am I really qualified for this?” Your classmates tell you horror stories about how difficult the interviews are and how small the odds of you actually getting hired are. You being to worry about what you’re getting yourself into. By the time the interview rolls around you’ve spent two weeks worrying about everything that could go wrong. You walk into the interview and things seem strangely familiar. You had worried that it may be awkward when you’re sitting around with the other interview candidates waiting for your turn and there you are, sitting awkwardly not knowing what to say. One thing leads to another, and the interview does not go well: your “first creation” became your second creation.”

So what does this have to do with Big4Guru.com? Well, a lot! We want to not only give you the tools to master the interview and all the steps along the path to getting hired with the Big 4. We want to also give you the knowledge and confidence to know that YOU will do well and YOU will get hired. Our guide will show you what you can expect from the full hiring process – from the meet and greets, to the career fair, to the interview. This knowledge will enable you to create a successful “first creation,” by visualizing yourself succeeding, every step of the way. With our help, you will write the script that you live on interview day and beyond!

More info:
Big 4 Guru’s Book of Secrets: Big 4 Hiring Guide
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Cover

Big4Guru is a CPA, career coach, Big 4 alumni and the creator of Big4Guru.com – a website dedicated to teaching accounting students, graduates and alumni the secret to getting hired with the Big 4.:

The post Success or Failure – The Choice is Yours appeared first on Big4.com.

I often get the question “What is it like to work for the Big 4?” In many ways, working for the Big 4 is like working in a hurricane. Sometimes you’re in the “eye of the storm” and things are calm and relatively laid back. However, it is only a matter of time before the storm shifts and your world is turned upside down. Professionals at the Big 4, as is the case with other professional services firms, are at the constant mercy of their clients and their bosses. You will be pulled in a thousand directions every day and have a series of conflicting demands on your time. What follows is an example of a typical two hours in the life of a Big 4 First Year. This is an excerpt from my book ‘Working for the Big 4 – The First Year All-Star’

You arrive at the client site at 7:45 AM. You are the first one there so you have the luxury of getting your laptop booted up and connected to the client’s wireless network in peace. You open up your email and see that you received an e-mail from the Senior at 11:45 the night before. This is somewhat surprising since you went home at 11:30 PM and assumed that things would be quiet overnight. You open the e-mail and it is a message to the whole team stating that the Sr. Manager will be “in the database” that day and to make sure all your documentation is up to date. You breathe a sigh of relief because, unlike many of the other First Years, your documentation is top notch and up to date. [You will learn about the ‘Database’ and ‘Documentation’ in the next chapter]. While you’re reading this message you get another e-mail from the Senior, this time it is from his Blackberry. It states:

“Hey. The Sr. Manager is actually going to be coming out to the client today, can you get coffee for him and I. I don’t know how he take his coffee.”

You reply “Yes” and grab your keys. As you’re about to walk out the door another e-mail pops up. You decide to quickly open it, against your better judgment. It is the Controller of the client, Sean. He has some information for you regarding the request that you sent to Barbara the accounting manager yesterday for copies of 100 invoices:

“I spoke with Barbara yesterday and we are both concerned that you are asking for too much information. Last year the auditors only looked at 50 invoices and they made their own copies. Barbara will choose 50 of the 100 that you requested and copy them for you by tomorrow afternoon.”

There are five things wrong with this e-mail. 1) The firm’s audit guide specifically requires that you test 100 invoices to gain comfort on the account; 2) Even if you could get away with testing 50 invoices, Barbara wouldn’t be the one to choose which 50, you would; 3) When you spoke with Barbara yesterday she seemed happy to make the copies, why did she run to her boss and complain?; 4) Barbara had promised that the copies would be done first thing that morning, now it is going to take an extra day, which is a problem because… 5) You suspect that there is an issue with the account and it would have been the perfect opportunity to discuss with the Sr. Manager today.

While you mentally process the implications of the e-mail (e.g. have to smooth over whatever is bugging Barbara, have to respond to the Controller, copying the Senior, to explain why the 100 invoices are needed, have to offer to make the copies yourself) you briskly walk out to your car to head to Starbucks. You realize that you don’t know how the Senior takes his coffee either. You determine that the best approach will be to get two large black coffees and then bring back an assortment of sugar, Splenda and half-half. You pray that neither of them takes skim milk or soy milk in their coffee. You spend your time in line thinking about the other items that need to get done that day.

You arrive at the client site just as the Senior is pulling into the parking lot. He says that he wanted to talk to you about some items and begins to rattle off a list of suggestions and issues that there is no way you can keep up with. You cling to the most important phrases and feel like you have enough information to make an attempt at what he is requesting. Your first lucky break of the day comes when the Senior reveals his preference for black coffee and is happy with your choice.

Back at your desk you check your email and you don’t have any. At this point that is probably a good sign. Then you realize that your computer somehow got logged off the wireless network. You log back in and have a handful of new emails. There is one e-mail from the firm’s HR department, reminding you that you need to take an online ethics training class. You file this as a low priority and move onto the next e-mail, this one is from the Partner:

Team,

Thanks for all your hard work on the engagement. I just wanted to remind everyone to be mindful of the requests that we are putting out to the client. We must make sure to test smartly and efficiently so we don’t put any undue burden on the accounting department.

Uh-oh, did Sean talk to the Partner? If so it is an almost certainty that the Controller did not accurately describe the situation and most likely implied that you were putting out ridiculous requests. Ugh.

You finally begin to work on the assignments that you had planned for the day. You begin performing some audit procedure using the information that you collected the prior day. Just as you begin getting into a good flow the Sr. Manager walks in. You hand him his coffee and he adds one sugar. He seems to be looking around for some milk. Great. He doesn’t sit down right away but stands in the corner of the room with his blue blazer on, furiously flipping through his Blackberry. Without even looking up he speaks in your general direction and says, “Hey, Sean forwarded me an email. I hear you’re killing Barbara with invoice requests.” Before you can respond he says, “Don’t worry, Sean likes to push back on everything, just explain what you’re doing and he should be OK. Copy me on the response in case he has any follow-up.”

Phew. That takes care of one headache. You quickly crank out an e-mail, briefly and succinctly explaining to Sean why you need the 100 invoices and copy the Senior and Sr. Manager. You’re feeling more confident in your choice so you don’t bother to offer to make the copies yourself.

Finally, you return to your work. It is now 9:45 and you’re back to the position you started at two hours ago. Fortunately, you have another 10 hours before you can go home!

To read more of ‘The First Year All-Star’ or to learn the secret to getting hired with the Big 4, please visit www.Big4Guru.com

Big4Guru is a CPA, career coach, Big 4 alumni and the creator of Big4Guru.com – a website dedicated to teaching accounting students, graduates and alumni the secret to getting hired with the Big 4.

The post Behind Enemy Lines – 2 Hours in the Big 4 appeared first on Big4.com.

An internship with the Big 4 is without a doubt the best way to learn about the Big 4 firms. Not only do you gain a glimpse of life as a Big 4 associate, but you all but guarantee yourself an offer for a full-time position.  The Big 4 typically present offers for full-time positions to 85% to 93% of interns. Unless you do something unbelievably stupid or are just plain unprofessional, there is a very good chance that the internship will be just the first step in a long career with the Big 4.

Here are my top 3 tips to making the most our of your internship experience.

3. Ask questions, ask questions and ask more questions!

One of the most amazing parts about being an intern is that the expectations placed on you far lower than those placed on full-time staff. It is assumed that you are still in school, or just completing your degree, and that you have little to no previous audit/tax experience. Take advantage of this! The more you ask, the more you learn. In most cases your team will be more than happy to oblige. Learning as much as you can while “just an intern” will benefit you greatly when you begin your official “full-time” career.

2. Start Studying for the CPA Exam

While you may be tempted to put it off, now is the best time to start studying for the CPA exam. Getting a head start on your studying is an excellent way to give yourself a competitive advantage over your peers and impress your leaders. While you may feel that you are busy now, you will only get busier. Don’t put this off. You don’t need to go crazy. A good goal would be to master the content for one of the more difficult parts of the exam during your internship. Set up a study plan and do a little each week. You may even be allowed to study in the office if you have some down time.

1. Be Social, but don’t be “That Guy (or Girl)”

Internships typically take place during the summer months. This is a great time to work for the Big 4. Busy season is over, the breakneck pace has relaxed and the Big 4 staff turn their attention to balancing their life outside of work. For many Big 4 employees, there is a fine line between their at work life and their personal life. The nature of the work, and the bonds forged during busy season, means that a great deal of socializing is done during the summer months. Golf outings, happy hours, soft ball leagues, etc. These activities can be a great way to bond with your future co-workers.

The one major pitfall of these fun times is that alcohol is almost always available – in large quantities. While there is nothing wrong with this, per se, as an intern you must be extremely careful not to go too far. While your new friends and teammates will be excited to have a good time and get to know you, you could easily make the leap from someone they take seriously to someone they view as mere entertainment.

In each of my years with PwC there was at least one intern that tried WAY too hard to stand out from the crowd and be everyone’s best friend. He was the life of every happy hour, Mr. Softball and the first to take off on a Friday to go golfing. While these individuals perceived themselves as building a vast network of friends and allies, they were actually eroding their own stock as a smart employee. At the end of the summer these poor guys (and girls) were in store for a rude awakening when they did not receive an offer.

For more tips on landing an internship or full-time position with the Big 4, please visit: Big4Guru.com

The Big 4 Guru is an alumni of the PwC ABAS practice, CPA, career coach, author  and founder of the website Big4Guru.com.  He know blogs about landing a job with the Big 4.

The post Top 3 Tips to Making the Most out of your Big 4 Internship appeared first on Big4.com.

Greetings from Washington D.C.!

Special thanks to Big4.com for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with you!  This will truly be an exciting journey, and I’m happy to join the guest blogging community.

A little about me…I consult at one of the Big 4, focused on providing consulting services to public sector and financial services clients in the areas of social media, strategy, and business transformation.  I’ve spent the bulk of my career working in industry for companies such as the General Services Administration (GSA), M&T Bank, and Citibank.  Since then, I have brought my talents over to the consulting realm, and have enjoyed every minute of it.  I’m currently wrapping up my Executive MBA at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in May, and I look forward to being able to take a breather-whew!  I’m also passionate about diversity and inclusion initiatives, and I’m involved in recruitment activities at my firm to bring in a diverse group of top talent.

The focus of my blog will be on my personal observations of the growing public sector practice at many of the Big 4 firms, and the innovative services that are being offered across the industry.  Over the past several years, the market for consulting services in the federal, state, and local governments has grown substantially.  As the public sector continues to remain focused on achieving mission-critical programs, many agencies look to top firms as a trusted advisor to bring innovative ideas and help solve some of their most challenging issues.  My blog posts will highlight
firms that are game changers in public sector consulting by providing news, updates, and insights for readers that are interested in learning more about this industry.

I look forward to engaging with you.  Also, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter (@jhaymee), as I love to tweet.  Happy reading!

J.W. Heinlein is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting, and has experience providing strategy and business transformation services to commercial and public sector clients.  Blog posts and tweets do not reflect the opinions, thoughts or sentiments of Deloitte or its subsidiaries.

The post Public Sector Consulting at the Big 4 – A Trusted Partnership with Government appeared first on Big4.com.

Baker Tilly Virchow Krause is offering current college undergrads an opportunity to spend
just one day (July 19, 2012) at BTVK’s offices to achieve three key goals:

1. Learn more about Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, which is ranked as one
of the top 20 largest public accounting and advisory firms in the United States

2. Be considered early for the firm’s 2013 Internship Program

3. Be considered early for full-time opportunties!

Successful candidates will be:

• be a declared accounting major graduating with 150 hours in 2013 or 2014

• have a preferred GPA of at least a 3.2

• be actively involved in extracurricular activities to include athletics,
employment, professional organizations or community service

What is Spend A Day with Baker Tilly”?

It is a one-day, interactive program designed to provide current and future accounting majors
insight into the culture and atmosphere of a successful accounting and advisory
firm.

By participating, you’ll have an opportunity to:

• explore careers in public accounting,
• learn about our clients and how we help them,
• engage in a team building activity,
• network with associates of all levels,
• discover opportunities offered to jump start your  career through our internship program and more!
• Spend A Day with Baker Tilly is a rewarding, educational, and fun program. Come join us!

The annual Spend a Day with Baker Tilly will be held in our Madison office on July 19, 2012 (for other offices see below).

“BTVK’s principles of integrity, passion, and stewardship guide our behavior and help us strive for excellence in our work. We believe investing in our employees, our clients, and the communities we serve benefits all of us. Join us this summer to learn and understand about an organization that truly believes we realize our potential by helping you realize yours! ”

How to Apply:

Please submit your resume to be considered. We will be accepting resumes until June 1, 2012.

The program is being held (as far as we can see) in these different locations

Madison WI,  https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4848/job

Appleton, WI, https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4846/job

Southfield, MI https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4851/job

Milwaukee WI https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4847/job

Chicago IL https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4849/job

Minneapolis MN https://jobs-bakertilly.icims.com/jobs/4850/job

This looks like a great opportunity for accounting grads to gain some deep insights into how a top
accounting firm works and also get into the game early for internships and potential jobs upon graduation.

But hurry, resumes have to get to Baker Tilly by June 1^st, 2012

The post Accounting Grads – Spend One Day with Baker Tilly – But Apply Before June 1st appeared first on Big4.com.

Here are a few recent posts:

• Deloitte CEO Plans to Hire 18,000 Amidst Strengthening Economy
• Accenture Launches Campaign in Italy
• Price Waterhouse (PwC) Bangalore India Contends PCAOB Inspection Report Figures. And Is Ignored
• Grant Thornton Absorbs LECG Audit, Tax and Advisory. More Acquisitions Quite Likely
• Capgemini Helps Companies Meet The Needs Of The New Mobile Customer
• PricewaterhouseCoopers PwC UK / Lehman EUR Keeps 500 Busy 30 Months After Collapse

Our blog gets read and quoted often in industry publications:

• http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/2011-big-four-firms-performance-analysis
• http://cpatrendlines.com/2012/01/18/big-four-global-revenues-hit-historic-highs/
• http://profalbrecht.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/pwc-fees-from-lehman-bankruptcy

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At a time when most of the world is struggling to keep people employed, a small but growing number of leaders in the private and public sector are providing employees with new rules and tools for getting ahead. The reason: Savvy leaders are beginning to see that these new rules and tools — the “postdigital” technologies and best practices that are equipping employees to outperform their peers — allow businesses to see employees not as costs to be managed, but as assets that help grow the top and bottom line.

But while these leaders leap ahead with groundbreaking experiments in human resources, marketing/sales and product innovation, a great number of market incumbents are lagging, leaving them vulnerable to massive disruption.

As we discuss in the Forbes article, “There’s a gap in preparation for the disruption wrought by the empowerment of people. We call this the postdigital divide to emphasize the point that in the new world, technology may be required but it is not enough. Like the first big breach — the digital divide — there will be winners and there will losers. But this time around the divide will not simply separate the tech haves from the tech have-nots. It will likely favor those who know what’s required in the new age of performance and it will sideline those who do not.”

In “The empowered employee is coming; Is the world ready?” we take the reader on the journey that leaders have made to prepare themselves for the disruption wrought by social analytics, mobility, social technology and the cloud. At the center of the story is the 21st century employee, who employers are beginning to understand must be engaged, nurtured and supported like their best customers.

Which side of the postdigital divide will you land on? The choice — and the challenge — is yours.

The post The Postdigital Guide Deloitte Guest Blog: Why Businesses Should Support the Empowered Employee in the Network Economy appeared first on Big4.com.

by Josh Haims

The pressure on organizations to address enterprise risk is unlike any we’ve seen before, perhaps because the scale and scope of risk is unprecedented. Certainly, in the wake of the financial crisis and ensuing reforms, regulatory and compliance risk looms large in the financial sector, as well as in health care, with its similarly sweeping reforms. We also anticipate supply chain risk for manufactures, competitive risk for retailers and brand and reputational risk virtually across the board, given the rise in social media and the potential power of global social networks to rapidly shift large groups of people for or against a product or company.

In response, many organizations are reengineering processes, implementing policies, putting controls in place, introducing new technologies — and fine-tuning and adapting all of these as the rules evolve — to manage, avoid and mitigate risk. But with these new ways of working comes the need to consider building new employee capabilities. And that means many companies are challenging their status quo training approaches and designing, developing and delivering truly developmental and experiential learning — not check-the-box training programs.

Simply providing training about how to follow a new process or procedure or explaining how to use a new technology may not be enough. The key is to create and foster a risk-intelligent mind-set throughout the organization and to build that into how work gets done. So, along with building risk intelligence into structured compliance and regulatory adoption training programs, organizations should step back and reassess learning opportunities holistically and the various channels and mechanisms for employee understanding and growth.

Many organizations are devoting considerable expense and time to manage and mitigate, risk in their business, so to consider taking steps to increase the effectiveness of that investment is prudent.

In a recent publication, Bridge the gap between “knowing” and “doing,” we take a closer look at the link between effective learning programs and risk intelligence. Learning can be a critical bridge between an organization’s heightened awareness of the importance of risk mitigation and the behaviors employees need to exhibit to effectively mitigate risk.

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Company:Levi Strauss & Co.

Country:United States

State:California (CA)

City:San Francisco

Address:Post Date:

07/26/2011

URL:

http://evistrauss.com/careers/find-job?region=us

Make a difference. Make History. Our products have captured the attention, imagination and loyalty of generations of diverse individuals since our founding over 150 years ago. We created the world’s first blue jean in 1873, but we didn’t stop there. We’ve had an impact on every decade since, from activewear for women in the early 20^th century, to leading the casual businesswear revolution of the 1990s with our Dockers® brand, to providing everyday values with our Signature by Levi Strauss ™ brand. Throughout our long history we’ve driven change in the marketplace and in the world, offering products that are right for every generation. Today, we are offering an opportunity that may be right for you.

Levi Strauss & Company is now hiring a variety of full time finance and accounting professionals. Positions are located at our Shared Services Center in Eugene, OR as well as at our headquarters in San Francisco, CA.

From auditing to corporate finance to accounting, we offer our employees rich global experiences and broad career paths.

Positions Include:

• Finance Manager
• Sr. General Accountant
• Sr. Financial Analyst
• Financial Analyst
• Senior Business Auditor

Every day, our employees make a difference because they are part of a legendary company where they are encouraged to contribute their unique talents and perspectives to help shape the future of our powerful apparel brands. We offer a dynamic, inspiring work environment and a corporate culture characterized by ethical conduct and a commitment to social responsibility. Our compensation package is innovative and includes competitive salaries, incentive plans and a wide range of progressive benefits.  We invite you to learn more about who we are and what we have to offer by visiting our website at www.levistrauss.com

To apply and learn more about these opportunities, visit us at:

http://levistrauss.com/careers/find-job?region=us

The post Featured Job: Finance and Accounting Professionals – Analyst, Sr. Analyst and Manager levels Levi Strauss & Co. appeared first on Big4.com.

European lawmakers hope to enact new regulations that would make audits stricter while unifying auditing services throughout the European Union.

New proposals were adopted today by the European Commission to rein in audits conducted in the EU by “clarifying the role of the auditors and introducing more stringent rules for the audit sector,” according to a press release by the European Commission. European lawmakers pointed to the subprime mortgage crisis as evidence of the “considerable shortcomings in the European audit system.”

While ratings agencies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have received the bulk of attention for their hand in the financial crisis, European lawmakers are increasingly turning their attention to auditors’ role in the crisis. Michel Barnier, internal Market and Services Commissioner, said that “investor confidence in audit [sic] has been shaken by the crisis and I believe changes in this sector are necessary,” adding that investors lack “confidence in the financial statements of companies.” Barnier believes that the new regulations will eliminate “the current weaknesses in the EU audit market, by eliminating conflicts of interest, ensuring independence and robust supervision and by facilitating more diversity in what is an overly concentrated market, especially at the top-end.”

While European lawmakers have repeatedly voiced their concerns over the lack of diversity in the auditing sector over the last few months, Big4 firms have expressed their own concerns. In September we reported that auditing firms worried that the European legislation would force Big4 firms to break up into separate auditing and consulting firms. This is due to a provision in the proposal that would require large audit firms “to separate audit activities from non-audit activities in order to avoid all risks of conflict of interest,” according to the European Commission.

One anonymous auditing official based in the UK said that this forced breakup would allow emerging Chinese firms to dominate the auditing sector.

In addition to removing perceived conflicts of interest, the European legislation would, among other things, require auditing firms to work with a client for a maximum of six years, after which time they would only be able to work for the same client after a four-year “cooling off” period. Most crucially, auditing firms would be unable to provide non-audit services to clients whom they were auditing.

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Madrid, November 2011, according to PwC’s survey on private banking and wealth management, Singapore will be the leading center for Swiss private banking and asset management in 2013.

Increased regulatory pressure in places like Switzerland, London and New York, are emerging as market leaders in the banking industry. This is one of the main findings of the Global Private Banking Survey 2011, prepared by PwC, based on interviews with 275 organizations in 67 countries.

The survey suggest companies should review their business models and adapt to a new generation of more demanding customers and the challenges of the new regulations promoted by the institutions. Emerging economies threaten the dominance of the regions that historically have led the banking market. In two years, Switzerland has lost the lead as the region more attractive for companies.

Switzerland’s place will be occupied by Singapore in 2011. Meanwhile, London falls from second to fourth place and will be overtaken by Hong Kong to be seated on the third step of the podium. The average growth estimates confirm this industry transformation.

Asia will be around 20% by 2011, while in Europe, Middle East and Africa ( EMEA), the percentage does not reach 10%. America, will be around 5%.

The transfer, from developed to emerging economies, the central axis of the private banking business, is also due to regulatory pressure in the West. The new regulatory requirements in Europe and to a lesser extent, the US, has a profound impact on all business models in the industry, who see their profitability drops. This situation requires strong infrastructure in risk management, with the aim to address the various regulatory initiatives that seek to protect customer and company investments.

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Berlin, November 3, 2011, more and more companies allow their employees access to business data outside the office via internet. This increases the risks for data security, against which the majority of companies have not adequately protected. Fifty-six percent of companies say they need to review their security strategies to modify their privacy, and to protect themselves better.

At the same time, nearly three-quarters of companies believe that their security risk has increased because of the increasing number of external threats, according to the  ”2011 Global Information Security Survey”, published by the auditing and tax consultancy firm Ernst & Young last week.

The survey reports the majority of companies are inadequately prepared for data attacks making fear a greater threat to data security from external threats; cloud computing; increased investment in risk management processes; and social media pose serious safety risks.

Despite this development, companies will put those responsible working on more IT services based on cloud computing. Sixty-one percent of companies surveyed, currently use cloud computing, and plan to evaluate its use within the next year. “The survey shows above all that the gap between the demands made by the company on information security, and its ability to minimize the complex risks, is increasing,” says Olaf Riedel, a partner at Ernst & Young, Germany.

Over one thousand information security professionals, from 52 countries worldwide, across all industries participated in this year’s survey and submitted their assessments on the current developments around the issue of data security.

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France, November 7, 2011, KPMG survey reports after a significant decrease of activity in early 2010, and two years after its entry into the crisis, the construction industry experienced the first signs of recovery from the fourth quarter of 2010. This morning, KPMG published its 18th edition, “Trends and Prospects Building ” which focuses on key points of the construction industry, reports that growth rates 2010 were close to zero for companies subject to corporate tax (IS), and 1% for those subject to income tax (IR), and construction leaders remained cautious.

“The financial results are more management than real growth”, said Annie Chauzu, Partner and head of KPMG, France, network of Building Contractors, “despite the current economic climate. Leaders remained cautious even though they have maintained, or even strengthened, their financial structure.” said Chauzu. “Despite the current economic climate, 74% of managers surveyed are optimistic about the building industry for 2012, a figure roughly comparable to that of 2011 (76%). The recovery is fragile but seems primed.”

However, the rising price of materials, combined with continued price Sales tense, still weighs heavily on the performance of construction companies, often pursued by the policy of restrictions on investment, and cost reduction structure, started back in 2009. While having a positive impact on their accounts in the short term, these actions can not be conducted over long periods of time.

According to the first edition of KPMG Barometer “The Timeliness of Construction Companies”, 54% of leaders say they are already building new markets in the sector; 24% say it has not yet developed, but are considering; against only 22% who do not plan to exercise activity. “Both markets have a broader appeal”, said Chauzu, “the low energy consumption, and sustainable development or sustainable. These two new markets meet the Grenelle of the environment but mainly with growth in consumer demand and technical progress induced, and are also at the heart of their business.”

“Trends and Prospects of Building Industry in 2011″ was performed on the evolution of the construction industry from 2006 to 2010. It covers a sample of 2,387 corporate clients. The opinion survey was administered by telephone during the period from August 22 to September 12, 2011 with 720 leaders of the building. The analysis of social trends on a sample of about 1,468 companies with social management staff was conducted by KPMG, France.

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Big4.com spoke with Tom Cucuzza, Americas Finance Competency Leader for Ernst & Young, Cleveland office, after the announcement that the firm had been cited as a market leader in Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory’s Finance Management Consulting Marketplace 2011-2014 report due to its financial management capabilities.

Kennedy evaluated 10 providers, including the Big Four, across various segments of the finance management consulting market. Each provider was evaluated on its finance strategy, finance and accounting processes, regulatory expertise, and reporting and analytics. Ernst & Young was the only provider to be given “outstanding” ratings for Finance Strategy & Vision, Finance Function Organization, and Finance & Accounting Processes capabilities.

The Kennedy report recognized Ernst & Young as a “Vanguard” Finance Management Consulting practice, which is a reflection of the depth and breadth of the organization’s capabilities, its current state of service offerings, and its momentum in the marketplace.

Tom Cucuzza has been with Ernst & Young’s finance performance improvement practice since 2008:

“When I joined the firm in 2008 we were really just beginning to rebuild the consulting practice at that time. I’ve been involved in this since the early days. It is an exciting time for us, and particularly to get the recognition from analysts like Kennedy that we’ve clearly gotten back into the consulting space and emerged as a leader in an incredibly short period of time is very gratifying for us.”

The Kennedy report highlights a number of Ernst & Young key strengths and particularly recognizes its Finance Performance Improvement consulting and the global organization’s Centers of Excellence, which, as the report notes, “will be devoted to industry-specific topics in order to share knowledge and expertise around industry business problems.”

“We’ve been sailing into economic head winds here for last two years, and the growth rate we’ve been achieving have been remarkable given the market that we’ve been competing in” said Cucuzza.

“When I look at our strategy in this space of financial management consulting, we decided early on when we were rebuilding this business that the market was shifting away from a ten year run of focusing primarily on improving the efficiency of the finance organization through things like ERP , system implementations and outsourcing.

We saw that wave of work diminishing in companies, and CFO’s in particular, starting to focus more on the effectiveness of the organization rather than just solely on the efficiency. As we started to build the practice, I would say that foresight helped us because the type of people we hired into our practice and the way that we architected our service offerings on a global basis was a very balanced approach that focused on the efficiency of the finance organization – because companies are still clearly focused on that – but we very much differentiate ourselves by also building effectiveness into their organization. By effectiveness, what I mean is, we focused on how does the finance organization create value for the company” in ways other than trying to reduce the cost of transaction processes in the finance organization.

Finance organization partners with the business to help the business create value. The way that they do that is through improved annalytics, improved forecasting and planning, improved management and partnering with the business units to drive top line growth and and achievement of the strategy of the business as opposed to relentlessly focusing on how do I do accounts payable more efficiently.”

“Ernst & Young ranked no. 2 globally in terms of revenues in finance strategy and in finance organization,” noted Dan Daly, vice president and managing director at Kennedy. “This is primarily due to the breadth and depth of its capabilities in finance strategy and vision, finance function organization and finance and accounting processes.”

“Being a good business partner” continued Cucuzza, “that phrase has been used for many many years, when you look at the strategy of a finance organization. We try to embrace that and say, “What does that really mean to be a business partner?” It is really about helping the decision makers in the business. It might be business unit presidents or CEO’s or Chief Financial Officers, or VP’s of different functions. It’s about helping them make better decisions to drive value. Making better decisions, a lot of times, has to do with future looking and forward looking activities of the business, not the historical reporting that the finance organization has traditionally focused on as its core competency.

And, while the finance organization still obviously needs to do financial reporting effectively as one of its key responsibilities the ability for the finance organization to respond to what their internal customers are asking for is often more of this forward-looking analytics and planning.

Ten years from now, the strategy that we’ve embraced – this balanced approach that we focus on – both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the finance organization – I think that will continue to resonate. As you move through different economic cycles that balance may shift, the pendulum may swing from one direction to the other, so in challenging economic times you might swing a bit more towards the efficiency aspect and cost reduction and bottom line focus. During times of economic expansion you focus more on the top line growth and helping the company rapidly get into new markets and launch new products and supporting the business in its growth initiatives as well.

Having an advisory services group that can advise clients in both of those economic times in both of those specialty areas is unique, and that’s what came out in the survey – it wasn’t just about technology or cost reduction.

We received outstanding ratings from Kennedy on “finance strategy and vision” which was really looking at helping CFO’s architect how do they deliver services to their business and taking a customer based view of who are the internal customers of finance, and how do you align the finance organization to best serve the customers. At the same time, how do you set up your global delivery footprint in the finance organization to achieve lowest cost of delivery? Having a balanced approach to both the customer side and the bottom line focus has helped.

Focusing on deep knowledge of finance and accounting processes was also something that we were noted for in the Kennedy ratings – this was a strategic decision that we made when we re-built the consulting practice within Ernst & Young. We wanted to leverage our brand in the market place and be able to deliver incredibly deep expertise and subject matter resources who really know, in-depth, the finance and accounting processes. What I saw over 20 years in the consulting business is that when companies focus more on implementing ERP systems, and outsourcing, some of their finance and accounting processes, companies lost some of the institutional knowledge they had on how finance and accounting processes work. And so, we viewed that as a key skill that many companies used to have internally, but once they automated these processes or outsourced them they have lost the deep knowledge.

When we were going into companies in the early 90′s, for example, you would find incredibly deep expertise within the company around every accounting and finance process. Many people who ran those processes had grown up in those positions and spent 25 years with the company. Those types of positions don’t really exist anymore, because a lot of those transaction processes have been replaced by technology and a lot of the transactional, and some of the reporting processes, are now outsourced where you have a third party provider who really has the deep process knowledge.”

Mr. Cucuzza summed up Ernst & Young’s success, “We bring to our clients, at the times that they need it, an outside perspective that provides a very deep knowledge of core finance and accounting processes.”

The relationship between risk and performance improvement is an increasingly complex and central business challenge, with business performance directly connected to the recognition and effective management of risk. Whether your focus is on business transformation or sustaining achievement, having the right advisers on your side can make all the difference. Ernst & Young’s 20,000 advisory professionals form one of the broadest global advisory networks of any professional organization, delivering seasoned multidisciplinary teams that work with their clients to deliver a powerful and superior client experience. The firm uses proven, integrated methodologies to help you achieve your strategic priorities and make improvements that are sustainable for the longer term.

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On October 6, Capgemini was selected by Levi Strauss & Co., to manage its applications management work around enterprise business intelligence (BI) and data warehouse solutions. The agreement builds on Capgemini’s previous applications work with Levi Strauss & Co., which began in 2008.

“It became clear a few years ago that we needed a solution that would give us a holistic view of our data across regions, while allowing us to accurately analyze it. We are confident that our relationship with Capgemini will allow us to develop a world-class retail BI solution that will help us drive revenue and decrease costs across our business,” said Tammy Amirault, vice president Application Services, Levi Strauss & Co.

As a global apparel company, Levi Strauss & Co. leverages multiple BI and analytics systems to support its retail and wholesale business units. Under the terms of the agreement, Capgemini will work with Levi Strauss & Co. to develop and implement an integrated platform — including the SAP(R) BusinessObjects (TM) Business Intelligence (BI) platform 4.0 — designed to provide a single, global and broad based analysis of the data flowing within the enterprise.

“Very few systems integrators have the ability to support the development of such an intricate retail solution,” said Lanny S. Cohen, chief executive officer, Capgemini US LLC.

“Our global delivery model, experience with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 and Teradata, and in-depth knowledge of the retail industry allow us to not only build, but deliver and support the type of complex BI environments that underpin large, global organizations, such as Levi Strauss & Co,” said Cohen.

Capgemini will work with alliance partners SAP and Teradata, and integrate their solutions to create and support a network that will allow Levi Strauss & Co. to maintain a high level of data efficiency throughout its organization.

Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the world’s largest brand-name apparel companies and a global leader in jeans-wear. As of February 27, 2011, the company operated 482 stores within 31 countries. Levi Strauss & Co.’s reported fiscal 2010 net revenues were $4.4 billion.

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A recent Deloitte survey shows executives, at three out of four mid-market companies, are maintaining or boosting their long-term investments despite the US economy.

Tom McGee, National Managing Partner, Deloitte Growth Enterprise Service, Deloitte, LLP, said, “Major economic events, such as the downgrading of the U.S. debt rating, the European sovereign debt crisis and the volatility in global equity markets, have reduced optimism about the future of the economy among mid-market enterprises.”

In a press release issued this week by Deloitte, the firm said:

“The business headlines of the recent months have focused on the big banks, giant technology firms, and a handful of IPO candidates. However, thousands of mid-market companies with annual revenues below $1 billion, are seldom mentioned. These are the firms that form the vital center of US employment and output.

According to the US Economic Census, companies with 50 to 5,000 employees account for more employment than those with over 5,000. And in terms of output, the sheer number of mid-market firms accounts for the fact that, in aggregate, their revenues surpass those of the top 100 U.S. companies by capitalization, and are equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the US GDP.

If the US economy is to grow robustly, the actions of mid-market companies will be a big part of the story.”

Deloitte’s survey reports technology investments are playing an increasingly larger role in mid-market companies’ bottom line. Business process automation and technology improvements are the two top contributing factors to the jump in mid-market productivity; new hiring ranked fifth overall.

Mid-market executives believe the technology driving increased productivity include business process automation (52 percent); data analytics and business intelligence (49 percent); and customer relationship management software (30 percent).

“However, the survey results provide compelling insights into what these executives are thinking and doing to maintain a competitive edge for their companies,” said McGee.

Deloitte commissioned, OnResearch, a market research firm, to conduct the Mid-Market Perspectives: America‘s Economic Engine – Competing in Uncertain Times survey from July 19 through August 15, 2011. The study polled 696 US mid-sized company executives about their expectations, experiences and plans around becoming more competitive in today’s difficult economy. The report includes analysis of responses received before and after the debt-ceiling debate and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US.

Although 38 percent of companies agree that strategic hiring of new staff with specific skills offers a path to higher productivity, 47 percent of mid-market business leaders say it is difficult finding employees with the skills and education to become productive immediately. Despite the skilled labor conundrum, 44 percent of the respondents indicate that their companies are prepared to increase the size of their US workforce and hire over the next 12 months.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu provides audit, tax, consulting and advisory services. In 2009, Deloitte’s revenues were US$26.1B, 168,000 staff in 140 countries. Deloitte revenues in 2009: Audit $11.9 billion, Tax $5.7 billion, Advisory $8.5 billion. In 1845, William Deloitte founded Deloitte in London. In 1952, Deloitte, Haskins & Sells was formed. In 1989, Deloitte & Touche was formed. In 1995, Deloitte Consulting was formed. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is a Swiss Verein. Jim Quigley is Deloittes’s Global CEO. 

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Earlier this month, Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies signed a five year business intelligence (BI) sourcing framework agreement.

The contract signed between Deutsche Telekom AG and Capgemini Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Capgemini Group, will involve experts from Capgemini’s Global BI and Telecom practices. This agreement hopes to further consolidate IT services of the operating entity in Germany – Telekom Deutschland GmbH, by building a dedicated BI factory, as well as harmonizing
the BI systems of the group.

Capgemini is one of two vendors selected to support Telekom Deutschland GmbH.

Paul Nannetti, Global Head of Business Information Management at Capgemini said in a press release, “We are very pleased to be
selected as one of the two strategic partners for Business Intelligence at Telekom Deutschland GmbH. Our investments and focus on developing a differentiated approach to the delivery of BI programmes, combining consulting, technology and a scalable India centric delivery platform, have positioned Capgemini as a global leader in the provision of BI transformation services.”

Following last year’s merger of the two business units T-Home and T-Mobile within Deutsche Telekom, the new company Telekom
Deutschland GmbH aims to consolidate its business processes and IT systems and consolidate its services portfolio to create synergies.

Harmonization of the BI applications landscape is one of the largest and most complex projects. The interdisciplinary team has to eliminate heterogeneity’s and parallel systems, which have become redundant and embed the entire Data Warehousing in a new BI architecture. Capgemini will support in the planning stage and also undertake the long-term development of key components
of the BI landscape.

Telekom Deutschland GmbH gives special importance to achieving an appropriate balance between onshore as and offshore services.

The Capgemini global delivery model, Rightshore® has been designed to provide the right resources in the right place, enabling access to approximately 40,000 offshore IT experts.

Frank Kuehl, Senior Vice President and Head of BI & Data Management at Telekom Deutschland GmbH said, “We are facing a huge challenge in the area Business Intelligence because of the restructuring that happened last year. Capgemini convinced us particularly with their overall package of outstanding, regional and simultaneously globally reusable IT competency and
large offshore capacities at a good price-service ratio”.

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Last Saturday night, 11 members of Ernst & Young’s Advisory performance Improvement professionals brought down the house and earned the title “Best Corporate Band” in America in the FORTUNE Battle of the Corporate Bands, after taking first place.

Ernst & Young’s “American PI”, a rock and roll band was among eight finalists contending for the title at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on October 1. Three members of the group were named “best of” in their respective categories” Hank Woo for best guitar; kevin Grassi for best drums; and Cyntressa Dickey won the Steve Eck Memorial best vocalist award. American PI’s sound is best described as a unique blend of American rock music influences ranging from Southern rock to Motown. The award-winning set list included covers of I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Southbound, People Get Ready and Superstition.

The talented 12-member band is comprised of 11 Ernst & Young employees and one spouse.

The event is held each year to salute the best amateur, company-sponsored bands, and is presented by the National Association of Music merchants (NAMM), FORTUNE magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Prooceeds fromt he performance benefit the Rock and Roll hall of fame’s music education programs.

“Ernst & Young is thrilled and extremely proud of American PI for this achievement,” said Bob Patton, Vice Chair of Ernst & Young LLP’s Advisory Services. “Our clients already know that this team rocks, now the world does, too! The camaraderie and teamwork — not to mention talent — that the band exemplifies is a true reflection of the spirit of collaboration and inclusiveness our consulting practice brings to our clients.”

More than 25 corporate bands entered this year’s competition. Eighteen bands were chosen to participate in three semifinal regional competitions, with eight finalists advancing to compete in the event’s culmination and performing live at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

American PI was initially formed to provide entertainment at an internal meeting.

“The opportunity to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a dream come true for us, and winning the competition seemed unattainable for a band that just formed nine months ago,” said Thomas Cucuzza, band leader, vocalist and keyboard player. “What makes this experience so important to all of us is that the firm allows us to pursue our passion for music and provided the flexibility and support to make this a reality.”

Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our 141,000 people are united by our shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality.

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This September, DIARIO JURIDICO, added a new section focused on arbitration and mediation, as a result of an agreement reached with Deloitte, led by Juan Jesus Valderas, a partner at the firm.

The project, the first in Spain, aims to educate and inform the legal profession on the benefits of extra-judicial methods for Spanish justice system.

Each week, DIARIOJURIDICO readers, will find a professional interview with a renowned arbitration, and various opinion pieces. Firms will also be highlighted and the main news related to the implementation of legal methods.

Mr. Valderas said this pioneering initiative is “another step in the relationship and closeness to the customer, also offering an alternative way to share knowledge of integrated and multidisciplinary professionals working in the firm”.

Lluis Faus, CEO of VLEX, DIARIOJURIDICO publishing company said, “four years ago we launched this publication. We have always wanted to be at the forefront of innovation. It is clear that the time has come to speak of arbitration and mediation. From here we want the opportunity to offer experts and professionals a place for discussion and debate on arbitration and mediation in our country. “

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By Theodora Filis, Big4.com – Editor

Paris, September 28, 2011, Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, announces its strategic relationship with Sybase and SAP.

Fernando Alvarez, vice president, and Mobile Solutions practice leader at Capgemini, said “We believe now is the time to expand into this market in cooperation with SAP and Sybase, leveraging our expertise and knowledge in mobile solutions.”

Capgemini will host mobile solutions powered by industry-leading Sybase® Managed Mobility technologies and offer them on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) basis. In addition, Capgemini and SAP AG intend to enter into an agreement to build differentiated mobility solutions, through which Capgemini plans to make mobility solutions from SAP available to customers.

According to IDC, the number of mobile workers worldwide will reach 1 billion by 2011, including nearly 75% of the US workforce. While many enterprise IT departments are quickly stepping up their support for new mobile devices, applications and operating systems including the recently announced iPhone4S. Most organizations, even large multi-national companies, do not have the resources to support complex mobile deployments given the intense rate of innovation within the mobile industry.

It is expected that by 2013, 80% of businesses will support a workforce using tablets, and by 2014 90% of organizations will support corporate application on personal devices.

“We are able to offer one of the most complete suites of SAP solutions available on premise or as a service, providing multiple options to meet customers’ needs from licensing to implementation, hosting and operations” said Mr. Alvarez.

Through the agreement with Sybase, Capgemini mobile solutions can be provided via an on-premise environment as well as a hosted environment, through the public or private cloud, including, mobile device management powered by Afaria®, and mobile enterprise application platform services and associated mobile applications built upon Sybase Unwired Platform.

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 172,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Sybase) to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.

Mr. Alvarez explained that Capgemini will provide mobile end-to-end solutions through simple monthly fees covering mobility software from SAP, hosting and application support that will benefit customers by reducing levels of complexity associated with mobility; allowing customers to leverage existing technology investments in SAP solutions; accelerate customer ROI through real-time; reduce risks from custom program development; and avoid drawbacks of proprietary IT applications.

Capgemini and SAP plan to develop a structured go-to-market model aimed at promoting greater cooperation between their sales teams. Capgemini and SAP intend to leverage service offerings from Capgemini in support of high-value mobile applications from SAP. These may include the SAP® Mobile Sales application, Sybase® Mobile Workflow application for SAP Business Suite, SAP® Mobile Service application, inventory management, materials management and warehouse management applications, as well as point-of-sales solutions for key vertical markets such as consumer products, oil and gas, manufacturing and retail.

Sybase, an SAP company, is an industry leader in delivering enterprise and mobile software to manage, analyze and mobilize information. Mr. Alvarez and Chris McClain, senior vice president, Global Mobility and Sybase Solutions, SAP,both agree that Mobility is a real game changer for this enterprise. “Working with strategic partners like Capgemini is critical to helping SAP unlock this value for our customers. We look forward to leveraging Capgemini’s mobility expertise to accelerate adoption of mobility solutions from SAP,” said Mr. McClean in a press release.

Capgemini has more than 20 years’ experience in providing mobile technology and solutions and has partnered with SAP on a variety of mobile initiatives for more than 14 years. It offers standards-based enterprise mobile software products and best practices that fully leverage the functionalities of SAP® Business Suite software for a number of industries from consumer products and retail, automotive, aerospace and defense, telecommunications through to utilities, pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

Capgemini was an SAP Pinnacle Award winner in 2010 and 2011 and has over 11,500 resources in support of SAP solutions and 22 delivery centers worldwide to bring solutions to over 2,500 customers globally. Capgemini was one of the first companies to achieve SAP certification as a global provider of cloud services.

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