"Having a great place to work and continuing to invest in your people, is more important than ever. Doing so now demonstrates our committment to the development of people and shows a real understanding of the importance of employing and motivating high quality people. In addition, any reduction in headcount means more pressure is placed on remaining employees and some of the more interesting and challenging work is not around to keep them motivated.
These last few months I have had many unexpected challenges and I have no doubt we will face more such challenges. But these challenges represent an opportunity for BDO. I am confident that BDO, both nationally, through its Member Firms and internationally, faces up to the challenges and seeks to take advantage of the opportunities".
Jeremy Newman
CEO, BDO International
BDO International (“BDO”) is a worldwide network of public accounting practices called Member Firms, serving international clients. Each BDO member firm is an independent legal entity in its own country.
The BDO network was founded in Europe some 45 years ago when forward-thinking accountancy firms from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, USA and Canada joined to form the Binder Seidman International Group. Ten years later, the European member firms took on the common name of Binder Dijker Otte & Co: BDO. The current worldwide structure was put in place in 1988 including the implementation of the BDO corporate identity.
BDO ranks as the 5th largest international accounting network in the world and is by far the largest of the mid-tier groups. It is present in some 110 countries with approximately 1095 offices worldwide employing nearly 30,000 professionals. Revenues of BDO Member Firms reached US$5.14 billion (ˆ 3.65 billion) during 2008.
BDO serves growth orientated, owner-managed businesses with expanding international requirements, governments, institutions, non-profit organisations. Additionally and increasingly, BDO is winning assignments with prestigious, multinational clients and the larger privately-owned companies.
BDO’s growth is significant and indicative of its unique position in the market. It is the international accounting network that combines the flexibility, specialist expertise, closeness and personal service of a local firm, together with all the capabilities, network and strength of the large scale, global players - it truly transcends the market, offering the best of both worlds: quality service with global recognition.
The client base of BDO is represented by companies operating in diverse industries and includes transnational corporations and leading international financial institutions.
BDO Statistics
Fee income
At 30 September 2008, the total annual fee income of all BDO Member Firms was US $ 5.14 billion (ˆ3.65 billion).Revenue Growth split by region
Europe & North Africa's revenue growth was 10% of the organisation’s global income in 2007-2008, and North America & Caribbean 11%. Latin America accounted for 22% of the revenue growth, Asia and Pacific 11% and the Southern Africa and Middle East regions the rest.Personnel
44,000 employees were working in 1095 offices of BDO Member Firms in 110 countries around the world at the end of September 2008. Professional personnel made up 76% of this figure, partners 8%, support staff and others 16%.Discipline
Audit and accounting accounted for 57.1% of the total fees, with tax consulting at 20.1% and specialist advisory services (includes corporate finance and transaction, business restructuring and forensic, risk advisory, management consulting and business advisory services) amounted to 19.9%.
| Fee split by discipline | |
|---|---|
| Audit & Accounting | 57.1% |
| Tax | 20.1% |
| Specialist advisory services | 19.9% |
| Other | 2.9% |
