Management

from where I sit Bring On Competition in the be Profession A fter decades of consolidation, corporate scandals, the dissolution of Arthur Andersen and the enactment of the SarbanesOxley Act of 2002, the once foreseeable world of accounting has been turned upside down. What was once the grand Eight has been reduced to only four firms (the Big quartette) that, according to a 2003 study by the Government business Office (GAO), audit 99 percent of all pubiic fellowship sales. So great is the level of concentration that some in the financial markets and media â€" including The New York Times, The Economist, The Fiuandal Times and The Wai! Street journal â€" be beginning to ponder if the audit profession could absorb another(prenominal) targe firm failure. Still, no one has fully articulated the risks or agreed on the optimal solution for financial markets stability. Meanwhile, the make of audit firm concentration, combined with the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are decorous increasingly apparent. Audit Analytics, a company that tracks accounting pains information, recently reported Big intravenous feeding firms resigned 210 accounts in 2004, up 169 percent from 2002.

While some resignations by the Big quartet followed unclean opinions of companies financial statements, others resulted from decisions by the Big foursome to guide their market focus. The realities of todays marketplace stretch these firms to capacity, forcing them to concentrate on their largest and most profitable clients. In the future, other Big Four clients will inevitably be turned away. At the same(p) time, companies faced with the mounting costs of SarbanesOxley compliance are alike discovering they can better match their needs and realize better service by moving away from the Big Four to other global, national and regional accounting firms. As component part 404 requirements take effect for smaller, non-accelerated filers in 2005, still more clients whitethorn make the decision to switch to non-Big Four auditors... If you want to corroborate a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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