Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited , commonly referred to as Deloitte, is a UK-incorporated multinational professional services firm with operational headquarters in New York City in the United States.
Deloitte is one of the "Big Four" accounting firms and the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of professionals. Deloitte provides audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk and financial advisory services with more than 244,400 professionals globally. In FY 2016, the company earned a record $36.8 billion USD in revenues. As of 2016, Deloitte is the 6th-largest privately owned organization in the United States.
As per reports in 2012, Deloitte had the largest number of clients amongst FTSE 250 companies in the UK and in 2015, Deloitte currently has the highest market share in auditing among the top 500 companies in India.
Deloitte has been ranked number one by market share in consulting by Gartner, and for the fourth consecutive year, Kennedy Consulting Research and Advisory ranks Deloitte number one in both global consulting and management consulting based on aggregate revenue. In 2016, Fortune magazine ranked Deloitte as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For and Bloomberg Business has consistently named Deloitte as the best place to launch a career.
History
Early history
In 1845, William Welch Deloitte opened an office in London. Deloitte was the first person to be appointed an independent auditor of a public company, namely the Great Western Railway. He went on to open an office in New York in 1880.
In 1896, Charles Waldo Haskins and Elijah Watt Sells formed Haskins & Sells in New York. It was later described as "the first major auditing firm to be established in the country by American rather than British accountants."
In 1898, George Touche established an office in London and then, in 1900, joined John Ballantine Niven in establishing the firm of Touche Niven in the Johnston Building at 30 Broad Street in New York.
On 1 March 1933, Colonel Arthur Hazelton Carter, President of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and Managing Partner of Haskins & Sells, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. Carter helped convince Congress that independent audits should be mandatory for public companies.
In 1947, Detroit accountant George Bailey, then president of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, launched his own organization. The new entity enjoyed such a positive start that in less than a year, the partners merged with Touche Niven and A. R. Smart to form Touche, Niven, Bailey & Smart. Headed by Bailey, the organization grew rapidly, in part by creating a dedicated management consulting function. It also forged closer links with organizations established by the co-founder of Touche Niven, George Touche: the Canadian organization Ross and the British organization George A. Touche. In 1960, the firm was renamed Touche, Ross, Bailey & Smart, becoming Touche Ross in 1969. In 1968 Nobuzo Tohmatsu formed Tohmatsu Aoki & Co, a firm based in Japan that was to become part of the Touche Ross network in 1975. In 1972 Robert Trueblood, Chairman of Touche Ross, led the committee responsible for recommending the establishment of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
In 1952, Deloitte merged his firm (by then known as Deloitte, Plender, Griffiths & Co.) with Haskins & Sells to form Deloitte Haskins & Sells.
In 1989, Deloitte Haskins & Sells merged with Touche Ross in the USA to form Deloitte & Touche. The merged firm was led jointly by J. Michael Cook and Edward A. Kangas. Led by the UK partnership, a smaller number of Deloitte Haskins & Sells member firms rejected the merger with Touche Ross and shortly thereafter merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte (later to merge with Price Waterhouse to become PwC). Some member firms of Touche Ross also rejected the merger with Deloitte Haskins & Sells and merged with other firms. In UK, Touche Ross merged with Spicer & Oppenheim in 1990.
Recent history
At the time of the US-led mergers to form Deloitte & Touche, the name of the international firm was a problem, because there was no worldwide exclusive access to the names "Deloitte" or "Touche Ross" â€" key member firms such as Deloitte in the UK and Touche Ross in Australia had not joined the merger. The name DRT International was therefore chosen, referring to Deloitte, Ross and Tohmatsu. In 1993, the international firm was renamed Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to reflect the contribution from the Japanese firm.
In 1995, the partners of Deloitte & Touche decided to create Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group (now known as Deloitte Consulting).
In 2000, Deloitte acquired Eclipse to add Internet design-based solutions to its consulting capabilities. Eclipse was later separated into Deloitte Online and Deloitte Digital.
In 2002, Arthur Andersen's UK practice, the firm's largest practice outside the US, agreed to merge with Deloitte's UK practice. Andersen's practices in Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil and Canada also agreed to merge with Deloitte. The spinoff of Deloitte France's consulting division led to the creation of Ineum Consulting.
In 2005, Deloitte acquired Beijing Pan-China CPA Ltd to become the largest accountancy firm in China.
In 2007, Deloitte began hiring former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for their competitive intelligence unit known as Deloitte Intelligence.
In 2009, Deloitte purchased the North American Public Service practice of BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting) after it filed for bankruptcy protection. The firm also took over the UK property consultants Drivers Jonas in January 2010.
In 2011, Deloitte acquired DOMANI Sustainability Consulting and ClearCarbon Consulting in order to expand its sustainability service offerings.
In January 2012, Deloitte announced the acquisition of Ãœbermind, Inc., an innovative mobile agency. The acquisition marked Deloitte's first entrance into the mobile application field.
In November 2012, Deloitte acquired Recombinant Data Corporation, a company specializing in data warehousing and clinical intelligence solutions, and launched Recombinant by Deloitte. In February 2013 Recombinant by Deloitte merged with an internal informatics unit (Deloitte Health Informatics) and launched ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte.
On 11 January 2013, Deloitte acquired substantially all of the business of Monitor Group, the strategy consulting firm founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, after Monitor filed for bankruptcy protection.
In 2014 the company introduced Rubix, a blockchain offering providing advisory services for clients in different business sectors, including government. In 2016 the company created its first blockchain lab in Dublin. A second hub was launched in New York in January, 2017. Deloitte became a member of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and the Hyperledger Project sponsored by the Linux Foundation in May, 2017.
In 2015, the Pope of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Francis, appointed Libero Milone, former Chairman and CEO of Deloitte in Italy, as the first Auditor-General of Vatican City and Vatican Bank.
In 2015, Indian Railways mandated Deloitte to formulate its entire manpower policy for its gazetted officers and study the functioning and the role of the departments at the zonal and divisional levels. Deloitte is expected to submit the report by March 31, 2016.
In 2016, Deloitte acquired advertising agency Heat of San Francisco, best known for Madden NFL from EA Sports.
In September 2016, Apple Inc. announced a partnership with Deloitte aimed at boosting sales of its phones and other mobile devices to businesses. As part of the partnership, the two companies will launch a service called Enterprise Next, in which more than 5,000 Deloitte consultants will advise clients on how to make better use of Apple products and services.
In October 2016, Deloitte announced that they were creating Deloitte North West Europe. The Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish member firms will combine with the UK and Swiss member firms to create Deloitte North West Europe. Deloitte, over the next three years, will invest €200m to enhance its services to its global, national and private market clients and to create the best development opportunities. The firm will come into effect on 1 June 2017 and it is estimated to have 28,000 partners and people generating over €5bn in annual revenue. Deloitte North West Europe will account for approximately 20% of all revenue within their Global Network.
Name and branding
While in 1989, in most countries, Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged with Touche Ross forming Deloitte & Touche, in the United Kingdom the local firm of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged instead with Coopers & Lybrand (later renamed PwC). For some years after the merger, the merged UK firm was called Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte and the local firm of Touche Ross kept its original name. In the mid-1990s however, both UK firms changed their names to match those of their respective international organizations.
While the full name of the UK private company is Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, in 1989 it initially branded itself DTT International. In 2003, the rebranding campaign was commissioned by William G. Parrett, the then-CEO of DTT, and led by Jerry Leamon, the global Clients and Markets leader.
According to the company website, Deloitte now refers to the brand under which independent firms throughout the world collaborate to provide audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax services to selected clients.
In 2008, Deloitte adopted its new "Always One Step Ahead" (AOSA) brand positioning platform to support the existing Deloitte vision: "To be the Standard of Excellence". AOSA represents the global organization's value proposition and is never used as a tagline. The recent launch of the Green Dot ad campaign also aligns with Deloitte's brand strategy and positioning framework.
In June 2016, Deloitte changed its branding and adopted a new logo with Deloitte written in black color instead of earlier blue.
Global structure
For many years, the organization and its network of member firms were legally organized as a Swiss Verein (the equivalent to an unincorporated association). As of 31 July 2010, members of the Verein became part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTTL), a UK private company, limited by guarantee. Each member firm in its global network remains a separate and independent legal entity, subject to the laws and professional regulations of the particular country or countries in which it operates. Deloitte is registered under the NAIC code of 55112.
This structure is similar to other professional services networks which seek to limit vicarious liability for acts of other members. As separate and legal entities, member firms and DTTL cannot obligate each other. Professional services continue to be provided by member firms only and not DTTL. With this structure, the members should not be liable for the negligence of other independent members. This structure also allows them to be members of the IFAC Forum of Firms which is a network of accounting firm networks.
Services
Deloitte member firms offer services in the following functions, with country-specific variations on their legal implementation (i.e., all operating within a single company or through separate legal entities operating as subsidiaries of an umbrella legal entity for the country). The 2016 revenue shares are listed in parentheses.
- Audit (27%): Provides the organization's traditional accounting and audit services, as well as internal auditing and IT control assurance.
- Consulting (34%): Assists clients by providing services in the areas of enterprise applications, technology integration, strategy & operations, human capital, and short-term outsourcing.
- Financial Advisory (9%): Provides corporate finance services to clients, including dispute, personal and commercial bankruptcy, forensics, e-discovery, document review, advisory, mergers & acquisitions, capital projects consulting and valuation services.
- Risk Advisory (11%): Provides offerings in enterprise risk management, information security and privacy, data quality and integrity, project risk and business continuity management.
- Tax & Legal (19%): Helps clients increase their net asset value, undertake the transfer pricing and international tax activities of multinational companies, minimize their tax liabilities, implement tax computer systems, and provides advisory of tax implications of various business decisions.
Offices
Awards and recognition
Deloitte, along with KPMG, PwC and PA Consulting Group were recognized among the UK's best companies to work for in 2017.
Deloitte was named the #1 accounting firm for the ninth year in a row by Inside Public Accounting in August 2017.
Criticisms
Disputes involving Deloitte include:
- ActionAid â€" In November 2013, the international development charity ActionAid accused Deloitte of advising large businesses on how they could use Mauritius to avoid potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of tax in some of the poorest countries in Africa.
- Adelphia Communications Corporation â€" The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on 26 April 2005 that Deloitte had agreed to pay $50 million to settle charges relating to Adelphia's 2000 financial statements.
- Guangdong Kelon Electrical Holdings Company Limited â€" Investors have claimed that there was a failure to alert them to the company's poor financial position.
- Haringey Council Refresh Project â€" A local government IT project in the UK, in which costs rose from £9 million to £24.6 million. Deloitte were consultants on the project, despite being employed at the same time as the council's auditors.
- Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) â€" The firm implemented the SAP HR system for LAUSD for $95 million and because of faults in the system, some teachers were underpaid, overpaid, or not paid at all. As of 31 December 2007, LAUSD had incurred a total of $140 million in payments to Deloitte to get the system working properly. In 2008, there was some evidence that the payroll issues had started to stabilize with errors below 1% according to LAUSD's chief operating officer.
- State of California Courts System â€" The firm worked on a statewide case management system which originally had a budget of around $260 million. Almost $500 million had been spent and costs were at one time projected to potentially run as high as $2 billion. No single court became fully operational. California's Judicial Council terminated the project in 2012 citing actual deployment costs associated with the project and California's budget concerns.
- Australian Tobacco Industry â€" In 2011, Deloitte was commissioned by the tobacco industry to compile a report on illicit tobacco. The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service officials called the report "potentially misleading" and raised concerns about the "reliability and accuracy" of the data. When a second Deloitte report focusing on counterfeit cigarettes was released, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor described the second report as "baseless and deceptive" and "bogus". Public health officials criticised Deloitte's decision to conduct the research, as it added credibility to the tobacco industry's effort to undermine the Australian Government's plain cigarette packaging legislation.
- Canadian Bar Association â€" In September 2003, Deloitte provided a report to the CBA that motor vehicle accident insurance claims for bodily injury had been declining since 1999 when taking inflation into account, which refuted the government's and industry's argument that general damages for soft-tissue injury had to be capped at $4,000. Within hours of release, a member of Deloitte was communicating with Insurance Bureau of Canada without the knowledge of CBA (their client) and providing confidential information. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta found Deloitte guilty of unprofessional conduct and fined the firm $40,000.
- Standard Chartered Iranian Money Laundering â€" In August 2012, Deloitte was forced to publicly deny that as the official internal auditors for Standard Chartered, it helped the bank cover up suspected money laundering operations which were earning the bank significant profits by "intentionally omitting critical information".
- On 17 June 2014 Booz Allen Hamilton sued Deloitte, claiming the firm stole proprietary information in order to 'lift out' a specialized team of Booz employees. Both firms agreed to dismiss the claims and counterclaims in late 2015.
- In proceedings arising from the insolvency of the former entertainment company Livent, in April 2014 its special receiver obtained judgment against Deloitte for $84,750,000 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, in relation to Deloitte's failure to exercise its duty of care with respect to the audit of Livent's financial statements during 1993â€"1998. The ruling was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal in January 2016.
Sponsorship
Deloitte serves as the official professional services sponsor of the United States Olympic Committee since year 2009. The UK member firm of Deloitte was a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics and the Royal Opera House. The Canadian member firm was also the official professional services supplier for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games and 2010 Winter Paralympic Games. In Asia, the Singapore member firm of Deloitte was a sponsor of the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics.
Moreover, Deloitte sponsors many university sports teams and societies, such as Edinburgh University Hockey Club. It also entered into a 3-year partnership with the Cambridge Union Society in November 2013.
See also
- Accounting networks and associations
- Deloitte Fast 500
- Deloitte Football Money League
- Professional services networks
- Sarbanesâ€"Oxley Act
- Tax advisor
References
External links
- Official website