Page 19 - Legal and Accounting Markets 1985 -2022
P. 19
Global Law and Accounting Practices and Markets
Each year, a veritable tidal wave of statistics is provided by networks to the media, which focuses the
discussion on objective analysis. (This is not done in the legal profession whose only focus is on large law
firm) It makes relative comparison almost impossible between
law firms and legal networks. Without these statistics, who
would know that there are 20 networks and associations whose
members have cumulative revenues of more than $1 billion
annually.
Information in accounting networks is usually based upon gross
revenue of their members. When various types of revenue are
divided into practices, the picture of accounting services is
potentially quite different. When auditing is removed, the remainder is $80 billion, which is not significantly
greater than the combined revenues of accounting networks and associations. Technology can change this,
but it remains a long-term issue.
What is not obvious is that as a whole, members of accounting networks and associations provide a similar
level of accounting services annually to their
clients. This is because approximately 40
percent of the Big Four’s revenue is derived
from audits.73
As previously established, the Big Four enjoy
vast recognition by the world at large. This is
illustrated clearly in the media, where the
Big Four have (on average) five million
unique views per month.74 Compare this to BDO, which gets fewer than 250,000.75
73 Revenue of the Big Four Accounting and Audit Firms Worldwide in 2017, by Function (in Billion U. S. Dollars), STATISTA,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/250935/big-four-accounting-firms-breakdown-of-revenues/.
74 Id.
75 SIMILARWEB, available at http://www.similarweb.com (analysis conducted on May 31, 2018).
17
Each year, a veritable tidal wave of statistics is provided by networks to the media, which focuses the
discussion on objective analysis. (This is not done in the legal profession whose only focus is on large law
firm) It makes relative comparison almost impossible between
law firms and legal networks. Without these statistics, who
would know that there are 20 networks and associations whose
members have cumulative revenues of more than $1 billion
annually.
Information in accounting networks is usually based upon gross
revenue of their members. When various types of revenue are
divided into practices, the picture of accounting services is
potentially quite different. When auditing is removed, the remainder is $80 billion, which is not significantly
greater than the combined revenues of accounting networks and associations. Technology can change this,
but it remains a long-term issue.
What is not obvious is that as a whole, members of accounting networks and associations provide a similar
level of accounting services annually to their
clients. This is because approximately 40
percent of the Big Four’s revenue is derived
from audits.73
As previously established, the Big Four enjoy
vast recognition by the world at large. This is
illustrated clearly in the media, where the
Big Four have (on average) five million
unique views per month.74 Compare this to BDO, which gets fewer than 250,000.75
73 Revenue of the Big Four Accounting and Audit Firms Worldwide in 2017, by Function (in Billion U. S. Dollars), STATISTA,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/250935/big-four-accounting-firms-breakdown-of-revenues/.
74 Id.
75 SIMILARWEB, available at http://www.similarweb.com (analysis conducted on May 31, 2018).
17
