In retrospect, the following should have happened: – AA management would have rolled their consulting business into AC – AA management would have abided by many promises made to AC to limit its marketplace incursions into consulting – AC would have continued to share its earnings – AA would never have let audit integrity take a back seat to consulting fees – Both business entities would have partnered in the marketplace to further enrich each other’s businesses – Sunbeam, Waste Management, Enron and other troubled audits wouldn’t have happened – AA would still be here today But they did happen and they did because: – Internecine fighting got personal and the monetary stakes were very high – Trust between the business units was replaced with competition – The combined firm CEO appears to have failed to provide long-range insight into the evolving problems and let matters spiral to a devastating conclusion – Money pitted partners against partners An arbitrator had to get called in to sort things out and eventually concluded that AC should go its own way…. The partners that used to be within that firm need to explore how Enron happened, why their firm let it occur, how did it foster the schism with AC, etc. There are clearly several business case studies to be developed from this sad chapter in business but we cannot let these lessons be lost.
