Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
What does everyone think will be the future of audit in the next 5 years?
Personally, I think things won't improve and there'd be a complete focus on offshoring like they do in the US. Mediocre students will still be keen to join audit so companies will still get to sign off their FS without issues but the attractiveness of ex-auditors will probably nosedive. Partners still won't have the guts to rebut ACRA and will end up piling more useless work onto teams so hours will get worse, and there won't be an off-peak anymore except maybe 2-3 months and for first years (not sure about other firms but in ours, managers can only take leave in these 2 months and we have to take turns i.e. some of us only can take in May, some only can take in June). Deadlines kept getting pushed back so things that should have been signed long ago are being pushed to non-peak, plus non-FS teams are made to help out on FS jobs during their non-peak since you can't poach foreigners and there's no pipeline of FS auditors from mid tier.
For the short term, I just hope exit opps for auditors improve so that I can hop out.
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The older partners are just looking forward to retirement and I imagine would be very hesitant to push any big changes, especially if those investments will only generate returns in a future where they aren't around anymore.
The younger partners do see more long-term and have been garnering support among themselves to make changes.
PricewaterhouseCoopers was able to garner enough Partners' support to approve a USD $1billion investment in generative artificial intelligence technology in its U.S. operations over the next three years, working with Microsoft Corp. and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to automate aspects of its tax, audit and consulting services.
Meanwhile, KPMG plans to invest $2 billion in artificial intelligence and cloud services across its business lines globally over the next five years through an expanded partnership with Microsoft. Through the new investment, the roughly 265,000-person company will further automate aspects of its tax, audit and consulting services, aimed at enabling employees to provide faster analysis, spending more time on doling out strategic advice and helping more companies integrate AI into their operations.
So it's not like the Partners are unaware of issues and just shaking leg waiting for money to come in. But the toughest part of a working in a Partnership is getting enough Partners support to move forward.
Just look at EY - a long project to split consulting / tax / audit failed to go through after partners, particularly in the US, disagreed on the compensation and resources needed for the audit practice.
It's not as easy as having 1 CEO who makes all the decisions. The power is split between the Partners.