Di Piazza "Czechs" In

Thanks to Accountancy Age for highlighting this interview with Sam Di Piazza of PwC in Czech Business Weekly. It’s pretty long and detailed and he talks about some issues, namely the problems PwC had in Japan, that did not get much press in the US. It’s worth a read…

Some highlights:

It is very important that the four firms remain focused on their quality. They all have good coverage around the world, there is no reason for further consolidation. It is more important for the markets to remain alternatives. That is why four is the right number…

In PwC we’re not perfect, but I think we have sent the message. In Japan we shut that firm down. We gave up a major amount of businesses, but we did it because we felt that the most important [asset] was our quality in that market to be at the highest level. We feel that we have that today: even if it’s smaller, it’s a better quality…

Frankly, we have to admit that if we lose our reputation, we lose our firm. A few people in Andersen seemed to have lost their way and it cost them dearly. I would hope that would never happen again to any other firm. We spend an enormous amount of energy to ensure the consistency of our quality, the integrity of our people, [analyzing] the risk of dealing with companies that don’t share our values—we watch all that very carefully…