Marketing Issue in Big Four Auditor Firms

Running Head: MARKETING ISSUE 0
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT AND
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

MARKETING ISSUE 1
Marketing issue illustrated in the article
This article is related to the big four auditor firms i.e. PwC, KPMG, EY and Deloitte
who are the four biggest professional service networks in the world offering financial and
auditing services to various business organisations and enterprises. These four firms audit
97% of FTSE 350 firms and accumulate 99% audit fees (Sikka, 2019).
The marketing issue that was found in this article considering these accounting firms
is connected with delivering no much public value instead of charging high fees. As per the
watchdog report, it was found that these companies are collecting huge fees in the name of
auditing and not providing the actual issues connected with the corporation that results in job
loss, tax revenues, pensions and many other big issues.
Moreover, any sort of compensation cannot be claimed by the victim of these failures
as they pertain no legal resources as auditors state their job only towards the organisation that
rents their services, not any creditor or stakeholder.
It is important for a company to understand that the price they are charging for their
product or service is one of the most important business decisions as it offers them a
perception to offer equal value to that charge price (Kim, Xu & Gupta, 2012). The audit
failure of these firms has shown that the permanency of auditors’ term in office results in
closeness with directors and impairs their scepticism. Such unethical marketing practices will
lead in diminishing of their corporate image in the marketplace and may also threaten their
sustainability.
Important stakeholders
Stakeholders are known to be members of groups which can affect or be affected with
the enterprise actions, policies and objectives. Some example of key stakeholders include
employees, clients, government, creditors, union and the community from which the business
draws its resources (Doherty, Haugh & Lyon, 2014).
In this article, important stakeholders are Watchdog, CMA, creditors, clients and
corporates and the employees who get impacted. In this, watchdog is known to be a