If you think accounting is boring, then you have not heard the tale of Deloitte’s espionage practice. 

It has hit the headlines recently that Deloitte is hiring almost 400 people in the Washington DC area for their federal practice. 




This federal practice is a practice that was built on information gathered from Deloitte’s coporate espionage program. 

The purposes of this espionage practice was to help out Deloitte in anyway possible. It could be to help Deloitte provide useful information to clients or help Deloitte acquire struggling companies. 

Deloitte Corporate Espionage

Deloitte Corporate Espionage

Spying for acquisitions

One of the recent stories that was highlighted was how Deloitte used this information to acquire Bearingpoint for $350 million. Utilizing their esponiage practice to acquire Bearingpoint was the primary focus of the recent news. 




There has been information that Deloitte received a tip about Bearingpoint having financial difficulties. Deloitte siezed on this information because Deloitte was looking to grow their federal government consulting practice. 

After receiving the intel, Deloitte deployed some field operatives to collect further information. These operatives arrived at a convention center where the executives at BearingPoint were meeting. The Deloitte spies waited for the BearingPoint executives to leave the convention center before swooping in and stealing financial documents. Those documents are what supposedly led to Deloitte’s acquisition of BearingPoint several years later. 

That acquisition enabled Deloitte to grow its government services division to great heights and give them the competitive edge in the industry. 

Spying for clients




This espionage practice was also used to help out potential clients. For example, Deloitte could use information collected through this espionage to help Walmart understand Target’s pricing models. 

Spying on other Big 4 Accounting Firms

Supposedly Deloitte also used their espionage practice to spy on the other Big 4 Accounting Firms – PwC, KPMG and EY. Deloitte utilized their corporate espionage division to determine other big 4 firms’ pricing models, new product lines, discounts and new services. 

They accomplished this by utilizing their established network of ex-employees of other big 4 accounting firms. They also collected data at trade shows.

Conclusion

If you are bored with your current job at the Big 4, look into Deloitte’s federal practice. You might get lucky and land a gig spying on other Big 4 firms or even clients of the Big 4.