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EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

economist.com

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Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#231

Post by 23B1 »

unixhero wrote: post #216
23B1 wrote: post #179

I worked at Accenture as an MD for several years, primarily on innovation and transformation programs. I have plenty to say about them, but I think the key driving factor for all of the grift and awful performance has a lot to do with how they operate, which is to sell in a big program, then pull a switcheroo and try and pack a project with as many low-paid MBAs as possible – kids straight out of college tasked with…

Ex accenture here, left and started my own. M u c h better and my clients love that I am not from a big shop. Money is good and life is smiling.

Congrats man feel free to reach out if you ever want to collaborate. 05-trivet.turner@icloud.com

I'm pure strategy, most of my clients are 'intraprenurial' CIOs, CSOs, CFOs.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#232

Post by Zafira »

tim-- wrote: post #228
hef19898 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, EY started as part of Andressen (?) and was as such part of the Enron scandal. We shouldn't ignore the scandal of the century. EY so is a very reputable accounting firm. Unreputable would be the Metaverse headquartered shop FTX used.

You might be thinking of Accenture, which was founded from the ashes of Andersen Consulting. Andressen is one half of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) which (I think?) doesn't have any connection to Enron.

Accenture is Andersen Consulting. It left and changed its name to Accenture because of internal infighting and politics prior to the Enron scandal that took down Andersen entirely.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#233

Post by er4hn »

tim-- wrote: post #228
hef19898 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, EY started as part of Andressen (?) and was as such part of the Enron scandal. We shouldn't ignore the scandal of the century. EY so is a very reputable accounting firm. Unreputable would be the Metaverse headquartered shop FTX used.

You might be thinking of Accenture, which was founded from the ashes of Andersen Consulting. Andressen is one half of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) which (I think?) doesn't have any connection to Enron.

The OP is thinking of "Arthur Andersen", the accounting firm that serviced both Enron and Worldcom. The first paragraph of Wikipedia cites the scandals as factors in enacting SOX (src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen)

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#234

Post by 23B1 »

andrewmutz wrote: post #219
23B1 wrote: post #179

I worked at Accenture as an MD for several years, primarily on innovation and transformation programs. I have plenty to say about them, but I think the key driving factor for all of the grift and awful performance has a lot to do with how they operate, which is to sell in a big program, then pull a switcheroo and try and pack a project with as many low-paid MBAs as possible – kids straight out of college tasked with…

Does outsourcing major strategic initiatives even work? Seems like the definition of the sort of things you shouldn't outsource

Well for my clients they're often up against maxed-out resources or employees who are just mired in their day-to-day and need a sort of entrepreneur-in-residence. For me, I'm given one or several major strategic initiatives and then my job is to build a 'demonstrator' that hits all of those without needing to fully build them out.

My client (typically an executive) can then take the presentation to his or her leadership team or board to unlock the funding required to stand up the 'execution' phase of that initiative internally through hiring.

So I guess you could say I build MVPs or proofs-of-concept that, if they work and are desirable to the company, get spun out into new lines of business.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#235

Post by 23B1 »

benatkin wrote: post #217
23B1 wrote: post #179

I worked at Accenture as an MD for several years, primarily on innovation and transformation programs. I have plenty to say about them, but I think the key driving factor for all of the grift and awful performance has a lot to do with how they operate, which is to sell in a big program, then pull a switcheroo and try and pack a project with as many low-paid MBAs as possible – kids straight out of college tasked with…

Part of the grift is that roughly one of ten of these unproven low-paid MBAs will be exceptional. So when one does a good job they'll use it as an example of typical performance. I see this happen with dev talent agencies and unproven software engineers. Only the great projects go in their portfolio and the satisfied clients are happy to appear on their website because they don't realize they just got lucky. With sof…

Yeah I mean I don't blame people for celebrating their successes and sexiest projects – I certainly don't include all my fails in my portfolio, heh.

What's interesting about this article (and the general state of management consulting) is that the cracks are beginning to show in these big firms that used to have a "nobody got fired for hiring EY" reputation.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#236

Post by throwayyy479087 »

andrewmutz wrote: post #219
23B1 wrote: post #179

I worked at Accenture as an MD for several years, primarily on innovation and transformation programs. I have plenty to say about them, but I think the key driving factor for all of the grift and awful performance has a lot to do with how they operate, which is to sell in a big program, then pull a switcheroo and try and pack a project with as many low-paid MBAs as possible – kids straight out of college tasked with…

Does outsourcing major strategic initiatives even work? Seems like the definition of the sort of things you shouldn't outsource

No, not if you're doing it to save money. If you're doing it because someone else is better, then yes.

See: IBM's software engineering, vs Delta's offering of their maintenance ops to other airlines. One has really, really worked out, the other hasn't.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#237

Post by Jochim »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #69
Timon3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the wrong take-away to say all regulations only hurt small sellers. Do you want to give up regulations on child labor, or worker safety, or foods and drugs? If not, how come, considering it all hurts only small sellers? The problem isn't the concept of regulation, but the follow-through on loopholes. By doing away with regulations you'll decrease quality of life for most people. Instead we have to find ways to r…

I don't think small sellers have anything to do with child labour. And since you mentioned loopholes, it is always the big players who get away with loopholes that small business owners do not

Business owners get away with breaking violating the law. Small businesses are infamous for paying people under the table, stealing wages, not giving appropriate breaks, employing children etc.. The size of a business only affects the kind of laws they're likely to get away with breaking.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#238

Post by kazen44 »

auggierose wrote: post #160
avianlyric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? 5 years? That seems really harsh. Is it all business failures or does it have to be due to mismanagement? There’s a big difference between bankruptcy and business failure. Plenty of businesses fail without entering bankruptcy, they’re wound down responsibly and their creditors are repaid in full. If a company fails due to bankruptcy, then it means that people who lent money to that business are out of pocke…

Germany is not small to medium business friendly. No need to argue about that.

do you have any sources for that? Considering that in germany, the "Mittelstand" is the major economic engine powering the economy compared to major corporations.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#239

Post by TulliusCicero »

epups wrote: post #174
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should probably ban the "no skin in the game part" instead of just the sector. Even though there have been a few court cases, the effect was tiny and they are still considered reputable. In some cases probably more personal lawsuits should be done more often (also for politicians and civil servants)

I don't get it. Do you think auditors and consultants that screw up on their job should be prosecuted?

Depends on the nature of the screw up and on how high up the hierarchy they are.

At a sufficient level of negligence and authority -- yes.

Re: EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany

#240

Post by californical »

23B1 wrote: post #234
andrewmutz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does outsourcing major strategic initiatives even work? Seems like the definition of the sort of things you shouldn't outsource

Well for my clients they're often up against maxed-out resources or employees who are just mired in their day-to-day and need a sort of entrepreneur-in-residence. For me, I'm given one or several major strategic initiatives and then my job is to build a 'demonstrator' that hits all of those without needing to fully build them out. My client (typically an executive) can then take the presentation to his or her leaders…

This sounds like amazing work, the best part of software engineering is coming up with a prototype and experimenting. Most of my personal projects are basically “I wonder if X is easy or hard, and if I can make it work”

Do you stick to a particular business domain? Eg finance, transportation, e-commerce? I’d think it would help you to build MVPs if you stayed in a specific domain, but it could be fun to move around a bit too :)

Also: how do you find clients? I feel like again this would come from having connections in a specific business domain? It feels like it should be hard to sell yourself as the “prototype person”, but how do you convince someone to let you prototype for them for a while?

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