We have seen an increase in the role and size of the traditional Big 4 accounting firms undertaking IT Services. The 21st century model is a lot different to the previous incarnation that produced in effect Accenture and IBM's GBS practice. Only Deloitte maintained their consulting practice in the integrated model. To be fair in Asia they have really not had much success or visibility now for several years.
However we have noted the second coming, particularly of KPMG and PWC. What makes KPMG unique is that the push has come not from New York, but from where the IT consulting group sits. The difference in the second generation model is that they have no interest in implementation of a solution, be it a security solution or ERP, but to help guide and drive the executive level strategy. This of course has both positive and negative perceptions in the market, it provides vendor neutrality, but by contrast some enterprises want their firm of choice to engage the solution from consult, through design, build, deploy and run.
They will have an impact on HP, IBM, Accenture and others in the way in which they take a bit of the first engagement and identity assessment out of the hands of the traditional services providers. This door opening will clearly reduce the opportunity for the big services providers to craft solutions on their terms.
How big a threat are these players, in general, they are more of an "annoyance" almost for the major services providers at this stage, but with strong hiring and growth plans, it is clear that they will increase their influence. Will PwC consulting ever grow large enough that HP will be willing to pay US$18Billion for them, perhaps not, but the remaining Big 4, will be in a position to guide IT strategy moving forward at an even greater rate then now.
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