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Comment by jameshart | Hacker News Reader

I mean, PwC aren't consultants, they're accountants. They do audits and stuff. They actually got out of consulting entirely when they sold their consulting arm to IBM, but they've rebuilt that somewhat - I believe their consulting org is now called Strategy&, but they're somewhat arms-length (because it doesn't do, post-Enron, to be providing consulting services on how to structure your business to a company whose accounts you're also auditing)

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Something like 1/3rd of PWC's revenue comes from consulting (officially their "Advisory" arm). They started rebuilding it almost as soon as they sold it. Strategy& is actually only a small portion of the Advisory org (S& is really just the rebranded acquisition of Booz&Company).

Another 1/3rd comes from the Assurance arm, which is kind of a cross between accountants and consultants. The "Tax" arm are the traditional "accountants", but that's only 1/3rd of the company.

It's worth nothing though that a lot of the Tax and Assurance folks traveled to client sites very frequently, too (not all of them, but a big chunk). Really the main groups that worked in-office were the internal firm services (HR, internal IT, internal finance, etc).

If they're your auditors, they're not just in their office; they're in your office. Auditors can feel like consultants; they show up on your site regularly, they have a conference room that's theirs for the duration of their stay. In the past I've even had them sit behind me and watch me click stuff, although I'm sure a lot of that changed in the last year.

> I believe their consulting org is now called Strategy&

I still can't believe they settled on that name..

When reading that there and not knowing the name, I thought it for truncated somehow by my mobile display.

The name sounds like a parody.

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