While it was not for everyone, clients were demonstrating a preference for one-stop-shop providers in the current economic climate.

"Clients want one firm to help them solve those big questions end-to-end," Mr Plumridge said.

"They don't want to hand off to internal teams half way through, or get other advisers involved and have to start all over again. They want [big strategy] questions answered, and they want to see results hit their balance sheet and income statement," he said.

Unanswered questions

PwC Australia was to release its annual results on Tuesday.

In advance of the announcement, Mr Plumridge declined to disclose income generated by the consulting division for the 2014-15 financial year, or if acquisitive growth had eclipsed organic growth.

This left a lot of questions unanswered.

Although the price tag remained a closely guarded secret, the global combination of PwC and Booz had been heralded by most industry commentators as a smart move.


It had become increasingly difficult for venerable strategic consulting brands to generate new revenue from their existing customer base in recent years.

For PwC, it fast-tracked the construction of its consulting brand (a build it had been studiously working towards since its divestiture in 2002) but also signalled PwC's intention of becoming a serious transformative player.

Mr Plumridge said early anxiety among staff about the merger had settled down.

"Anxiety occurs in an organisation that's not growing. Our business is growing, there's huge opportunity for all staff," Mr Plumridge said.

The acquisition added about 20 partners to PwC's consulting division in Australia, bringing the total number of consulting partners to 150, plus 1500 staff.

Mr Plumridge said redundancies and resignations had been minimal, with staff turnover in PwC's consulting division at its lowest in four years.

Staff attrition for fiscal 2015 was less than 10 per cent. About 10 back-office staff were deployed to different roles as part of the integration.

"People are voting with their feet about [the virtue] of what's happening in consulting and across the firm," Mr Plumridge said.


He said "there was still work to be done".

Growth areas for big four

Mr Plumridge added three Booz heavy-hitters to his leadership team, including former Australian managing partner Chris Manning, Tim Jackson, who was regional manager of Booz across ANZ and south-east Asia, and financial services expert Peter Burns.

"They need to help us understand their business," Mr Plumridge said.

PwC consulting division was targeting double-digit revenue growth for the 2015-16 financial year.

Mr Plumridge would not say how much the consulting division contributed to the firm's overall income before PwC's annual results announcement next week.

But it was widely accepted that consulting and advisory were the big growth areas at the big four accounting firms. In the last five years, advisory services had come to account for roughly a third of sales at PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG, if not more.

Mr Plumridge joined PwC just over a year ago from EY where he headed the advisory division for several years.

The Booz acquisition was a big drawcard, he said.

"That combination was one of the reasons I joined the firm. This value proposition from strategy through to execution is quite exciting."

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