question 2b needs to be done (500words)

The ‘Big 4’ audit companies are the largest accounting firms in the world specialized in the audit, tax and professional services. The firms in combine perform the audit duties of more than 80% public companies and earn revenue around $100 billion annually. The service of the big 4 firms are not only confined to public companies but also work with large private organizations, nonprofit groups and large-scale industries. While the non-big 4 audit companies are the accounting firms other than big 4 accounting firms who performs the accounting duties for the medium and small-scale companies and organizations. The objective of the study is to develop a comparative study between the big 4 audit firms and non-big 4 audit firms.

Grant Thornton- www.Grantthornton.com

Range of services provided

Deloitte is one of the audit firms among the big 4 audit firms with high market growth and market share of fortune 500 audit clients. The firms is globally expanded due to its wide ranges of services in the fields of taxes, consultancy, audit and assurance, growth enterprises services, mergers and acquisitions and risk and financial advisory.

Grant Thornton is a renowned accounting and audit firm effectively offers its services across the world but not listed in the big 4 audit firms hence referred as non-big 4 audit firms. The range of services provided by the company is audit, tax, advisory and public-sector advisory.

The geographic coverage of Deloitte is widespread across the world. The head quarter of the company is situated in London, UK while the other major offices are in Oslo, Norway, Torre Mayor, Mexico City, Copenhagen, Denmark, Vienna, Austria, Los Angeles, USA etc.

Grant Thornton Australia is continuously growing its locations across Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney and recently also announced its expansion in Japan, Italy, Bangladesh, Ethiopia.

As per the recent information, Deloitte has employed around 244, 400 employees in 150 countries. The company offers comprehensive programs for their employees to help them in better managing their life and be a part of world class team of skilled professionals.

The number of employees associated with Grant Thornton Australia is around 47000. The company also launches different special career oriented programs for the students as well as experienced hires.

As these are audit firms, the companies are enrolled with number of large scale as well as small scale industries with the objective to provide them audit, tax, consultation services etc. The specialized industries that are served by Deloitte are consumer and industrial products, energy and resources, technology, media and telecommunications, life sciences and health care, public sector etc. while Grant Thornton deals with automotive leaders, financial services, food and beverages, manufacturing, professional services, financial institutions etc.

Deloitte offers its clients a wide range of services with the innovative approach from multiple disciplines to help their clients to excel their services globally. Deloitte tax@hand is a convenient and useful resource which is designed for the tax professionals provides tax news and information. Grant Thornton offers an attractive service in the form of Mobility Minutes Podcasts Series to aware the clients and general public about global mobility and remuneration taxes, practical advices to the business leaders on to use the opportunities and avoids the unnecessary risks.

The marketing professionals of Deloitte strongly involves in the process of designing and building marketing capabilities to maximize the experience of the customers with the help of social and digital marketing techniques. Grant Thornton marketing mission is using the skills and expert knowledge to develop marketing activities in order to drive innovation and enhance the satisfaction of the clients and community.

According to Kennedy, (2017), the strategic vision of Deloitte is to be the standard of excellence and remains to be the first choice of the clients from all over the world while the strategic vision of Grant Thornton is to be the growth advisors to the medium organizations or companies and to be the leading advisor of the retail sector (Lawrence, et. al., 2011).

Deloitte behaves with the highest level of integrity and believes that nothing is more precious and important than reputation (Carberry, 2012). The company also considers borderless collegiality as a competitive advantage. The business principle of Grant Thornton are guided by the values such as global collaboration, consistent culture of excellence, accountability for the actions, leadership qualities and deep respect for the clients as well as general public (ROMANOVITCH, 2016).

In the words of Le, et. al. (2017), Deloitte fulfils corporate social responsibilities by advancing solutions for the growth and progress of the society humanitarian action, commitment to local communities addressing global solutions and propose solutions through strategic relationships (Che, et. al., 2016). The company also promotes environmental sustainability to help its employees in adopting sustainability practices. The corporate social responsibility programs of Grant Thornton includes participation in the not for profit organizations, recycling policies, flexible working environment for the employees, fundraisings, donations, entertainment activities etc. (Susskind and Susskind, 2012).

This paragraph will elaborate why Arthur Andersen was dismissed by some clients in regards to the following three audit theories.

Agency theory predicts that application-maximizing dealers (the managers), if unchecked, will devour greater resources than top of the line. However, buyers with rational expectancies will take such behavior under consideration in pricing a company’s securities. As an end result, the agents have the incentive to contract for mechanisms to reveal their opportunistic behavior. The hiring of an external auditor is one such mechanism. This principle predicts that control will call for audits each time the value of monitoring their sports is less than the salary loss management suffers without the monitoring. Arthur Andersen did action which contradicts the agency theory i.e; they perform task for personal interest and did misconduct which made clients not to trust that organization.

The insurance hypothesis refers that auditors are demanded so that they'll be sued in case there is a business failure. Auditing therefore offers traders a form of coverage. If an investor purchases security on the idea of audited financial statements and in the end sustains losses, the law affords some degree of recourse towards the auditor. In the light of this theory Arthur Andersen firm was apparently seemed like had a failure in auditing service.

Under information hypothesis it is demanded from the auditor to reduce the information risk in the financial statements of client. In regard to information hypothesis theory it is cleared that Arthur Andersen firm might have shown wrong overstated profits and kept off losses in financial statements.

From the above comparative study it can said that the growth and reputation of Deloitte is high as compared with Grant Thorton hence it is recommended to go with Deloitte due to the fact the company is ranking at first in terms of audit and consultancy services. Also, there is much difference between the manpower capacity of the both the firms.

References

Carberry, J. (2012). Communications: Methods and Applications for Financial Managers. CGMA chartered global management accountant.

The ‘Big 4’ audit companies are the largest accounting firms in the world specialized in the audit, tax and professional services. The firms in combine perform the audit duties of more than 80% public companies and earn revenue around $100 billion annually. The service of the big 4 firms are not only confined to public companies but also work with large private organizations, nonprofit groups and large scale industries. While the non-big 4 audit companies are the accounting firms other than big 4 accounting firms who performs the accounting duties for the medium and small scale companies and organizations. The objective of the study is to develop a comparative study between the big 4 audit firms and non-big 4 audit firms.

Grant Thornton- www.Grantthornton.com

Range of services provided

Deloitte is one of the audit firms among the big 4 audit firms with high market growth and market share of fortune 500 audit clients. The firms is globally expanded due to its wide ranges of services in the fields of taxes, consultancy, audit and assurance, growth enterprises services, mergers and acquisitions and risk and financial advisory.

Grant Thornton is a renowned accounting and audit firm effectively offers its services across the world but not listed in the big 4 audit firms hence referred as non-big 4 audit firms. The range of services provided by the company is audit, tax, advisory and public sector advisory.

The geographic coverage of Deloitte is widespread across the world. The head quarter of the company is situated in London, UK while the other major offices are located in Oslo, Norway, Torre Mayor, Mexico City, Copenhagen, Denmark, Vienna, Austria, Los Angeles, USA etc. Grant Thornton Australia is continuously growing its locations across Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney and recently also announced its expansion in Japan, Italy, Bangladesh, Ethiopia.

As per the recent information, Deloitte has employed around 244, 400 employees in 150 countries. The company offers comprehensive programs for their employees to help them in better managing their life and be a part of world class team of skilled professionals. The number of employees associated with Grant Thornton Australia is around 47000. The company also launches different special career oriented programs for the students as well as experienced hires.

As these are audit firms, the companies are enrolled with number of large scale as well as small scale industries with the objective to provide them audit, tax, consultation services etc. The specialized industries that are served by Deloitte are consumer and industrial products, energy and resources, technology, media and telecommunications, life sciences and health care, public sector etc. while Grant Thornton deals with automotive leaders, financial services, food and beverages, manufacturing, professional services, financial institutions etc.

Deloitte offers its clients a wide range of services with the innovative approach from multiple disciplines to help their clients to excel their services globally. Deloitte tax@hand is a convenient and useful resource which is designed for the tax professionals provides tax news and information. Grant Thornton offers an attractive service in the form of Mobility Minutes Podcasts Series to aware the clients and general public about global mobility and remuneration taxes, practical advices to the business leaders on to use the opportunities and avoids the unnecessary risks.

The marketing professionals of Deloitte strongly involves in the process of designing and building marketing capabilities to maximize the experience of the customers with the help of social and digital marketing techniques. Grant Thornton marketing mission is using the skills and expert knowledge to develop marketing activities in order to drive innovation and enhance the satisfaction of the clients and community.

According to Kennedy, (2017), the strategic vision of Deloitte is to be the standard of excellence and remains to be the first choice of the clients from all over the world while the strategic vision of Grant Thornton is to be the growth advisors to the medium organizations or companies and to be the leading advisor of the retail sector (Lawrence, et. al., 2011).

Deloitte behaves with the highest level of integrity and believes that nothing is more precious and important than reputation (Carberry, 2012). The company also considers borderless collegiality as a competitive advantage. The business principle of Grant Thornton are guided by the values such as global collaboration, consistent culture of excellence, accountability for the actions, leadership qualities and deep respect for the clients as well as general public (ROMANOVITCH, 2016).

In the words of Le, et. al. (2017), Deloitte fulfils corporate social responsibilities by advancing solutions for the growth and progress of the society humanitarian action, commitment to local communities addressing global solutions and propose solutions through strategic relationships (Che, et. al., 2016). The company also promotes environmental sustainability to help its employees in adopting sustainability practices. The corporate social responsibility programs of Grant Thornton includes participation in the not for profit organizations, recycling policies, flexible working environment for the employees, fundraisings, donations, entertainment activities etc. (Susskind and Susskind, 2012).

On the basis of the aggregate revenue, Deloitte ranked one in global consulting and management consulting by ALM intelligence. The growth rate of Grant Thornton is not as much as Deloitte but it is estimated that the manpower of the firm will touch 10000 by 2020 (Ferullo, et. al., 2016).

From the above comparative study it can said that the growth and reputation of Deloitte is high as compared with Grant Thorton hence it is recommended to go with Deloitte due to the fact the company is ranking at first in terms of audit and consultancy services. Also, there is much difference between the manpower capacity of the both the firms.

References

Carberry, J. (2012). Communications: Methods and Applications for Financial Managers. CGMA chartered global management accountant.