Price Waterhouse Cooper

Team A Week 4 Assignment

University of Phoenix

ECO 365

Eric Herrick

March 9, 2009

Introduction

As mention in previous analysis, Price Waterhouse Cooper is one of the world’s largest accounting firms, and rank as one of the giants in the global professional services arena. PwC has continuously proved itself as a dominant player in the oligopoly market, especially after the Big Eight became the Big Four. Can PwC remain the dominant player in this market? Will it be operating in the same direction? Will there be any new competitors that will pose threats to the company? In this paper, we will use our previous current market data and analysis to forecast PwC future market condition.

Market Structure

Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) will likely continue to operate in an oligopoly for the foreseeable future. PwC in addition to Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG dominate the audit and assurance market today. These firms are in a unique situation where their size has created barriers to entry for nearly all competitors. As the global economy rebounds the call for better governance will increase and there will be few firms capable of handling the increased in workloads.

New Companies

Very few new companies have entered into PwC’s market due to limits on the abilities of companies to take on the level of work required. Traditionally most accounting firms grow through mergers and this process is very resource intensive and costly. However, in the new auditing world post world economic meltdown, firms may indeed have to grow to meet the demands of their clients. Both public and private industry face the real possibility of tremendous disclosure as governments around the world prop up entire industries. As small and midsize firms such as Grant Thornton, BDO Seidman, and RSM McGladrey are forced to offer more robust services to their clients they could by default enter into the world of PwC.

Pricing

Pricing is one of the...