Deloitte Brazil

[LAIST Tour Begins, Fazenda Tozan, Churrascaria – Nova Pampa, Port of Santos, Deloitte, Embraer, Natura, Gol de Letra, Bom Bril, Agencia Click, Nextel Institute, May 6, Rio, Rio Weekend, Petrobras, PREVI]

Deloitte is a well recognized name in the consulting world, operating in 140 countries. In Brazil, Deloitte made its entry in 1911 where they were asked to audit British railroad companies. Today, Deloitte has grown to 4000 professionals working with 132 partners. They have a multifunctional approach (versus a siloed approach) where they provide integrated solutions and command a leading 19% market share of audit services in Brazil followed by KPMG at 17% and PWC at 11%.

They structure their portfolio of advisory services based on industry verticals. In Canada, Deloitte is known to focus on public and financial services whereas in Brazil they focus on manufacturing, retail and the growing financial services sector. Their growth targets are projected to move from 10% to 20% across the board with the highest growth occurring in their consulting services at 25%.

Even with the recent global financial distress, like many other consulting and advisory service firms, they have shifted their focus in branches like their Corporate Finance advisory from M&A deals to restructuring distressed companies and managing them in receivership. According to our contacts at Deloitte, Brazilian banks have been exceptionally successful despite (or rather because of) the financial crisis in the US. The top banks in Brazil are local banks (rather than subsidiaries of foreign parents) and their international presence has allowed them to extend their services beyond retail banking into commercial banking and even IPO’s in global capital markets.

Also, with the upcoming convergence of IFRS (Brazil’s current standard) and US GAAP and Brazil’s increasing role in the global market place, they anticipate having a spike in engagements from clients looking for advice on the implications of the changes in accounting standards and their implications on the complicated tax systems in Brazil (greatly differing by state).
Deloitte is also heavily involved in projects like the World Coup 2014 and the Olympics in Rio where they are not only assisting with capacity management of the facilities for the event itself, but also the legacy planning for the facilities in the future after the event itself is finished (ensuring long term sustainability and viability of the project costs).

Deloitte also has a strong focus on social projects, celebrating their “Impact Day” on June 11, the day of the World Cup, where they have a series of planned activities matching their core of applying knowledge with the development of educational programs. All of their professionals will be volunteering throughout the country taking children to play football with star athletes and preparing creative activities throughout the day.

Because of Deloitte’s unique relationship with a variety of top companies (boasting a client list that includes 80% of the Global F500 companies), they have provided us with contacts for our study tour which we will be visiting over the next few days. They also gave us an insider’s view of details into the developments of sectors within the Brazilian economy including the development of the infrastructure (marking the return of their focus on railroads). They gave us an in depth look at why Brazil is such an attractive country with which to have a presence in the global market place and why they have earned their place among the BRIC countries as one of the top emerging markets.