👉 Background: Deloitte is one of the big 4 global professional services firm, alongside PwC, EY and KPMG. It does everything from audit to risk, accounting, consulting and even digital.

👉 What happened: After PwC scandal, Deloitte took the top spot in Australia amongst the Big 4 for revenue. But that doesn’t mean it’s all daffodils, roses and billings for Deloitte because it warned of a 2.4% drop in its FY24 revenue… or around $70 million. On top of that, it announced that its workforce has dropped by about 700 people over the past 12 months.

👉 What else: There are a number of reasons for Deloitte's decline - all related to "scrutiny":

• There was political and public scrutiny off the back of the PwC controversy
• There has been economic scrutiny as companies become more conservative with their spending.
  

And it seems like the PwC saga has also hurt other professional services firms too.

What's the key learning?

💡One bad actor can tar all actors with the same brush.

💡The PwC scandal had severely affected the PwC business — they sold their government business for $1, their CEO stepped down and they were subject to a Senate inquiry.

💡But this scrutiny has significantly impacted the consulting industry as a whole:

• KPMG has cut more than 500 staff or more than 10% of the workforce over the past 18 months
• EY has cut more than 380 staff since November last year
• And PwC made more than 5% of their staff redundant in March this year