PwC's Transformation and Investment in "Asset-Backed Business Consulting" Enables an Agile Response to COVID-19
July 06, 2020
IDC analysts attended PwC’s EMEA Virtual Analyst Days held on May 7 and 19, 2020. PwC’s EMEA leadership highlighted how PwC has responded to COVID-19.
The IDC Market Note (June 2020, IDC #EUR146498920) highlights that “During the virtual briefing, PwC EMEA executives outlined key responses to COVID-19 for PwC and its clients. They also spoke at length about how PwC's digital transformation has paid dividends, enabling business continuity during the pandemic and, through its asset-backed business consulting portfolio, agility in responsiveness necessitated by the crisis.”
IDC’s key takeaways from the day included:
- PwC’s response to COVID-19 has been decisive and impressive given the scale of the organisation. The firm has truly benefitted from digital investments and transformations it had made pre-COVID-19.
- PwC clients and the organisation have benefitted from its strategic investments in asset-backed business consulting services and BXT (Business, eXperience and Technology) framework. PwC maintains that these offerings are resonating with clients grappling with a quick and fluid response to the impact of COVID-19.
- PwC sees that the new world will mix both physical and virtual. So, there will be a move toward virtual experience centres within its BXT framework over the next five years.
Marco Amitrano, Co-EMEA and UK Consulting Leader, PwC said: "Our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems for our clients and society, and at this point in time, it's even more important to demonstrate how we are executing on it. We believe we have a responsibility across our global network to build resilience in our people, business and indeed our clients through such a challenging time. In an environment of uncertainty, our investments in technology and commitment to our people has enabled business continuity so we can continue serving our clients in these unprecedented times".
From IDC’s point of view, the Market Note states that: “PwC was able to shift 225,000 of its employees to remote working relatively easily due in part to its investments in cloud. It highlights G-Suite, Salesforce, and Workday as some of these front-, middle-, and back-office investments along with infrastructure, security, and data privacy investments to move to the cloud safely. PwC had not anticipated a climate where it would need to move all employees to work from home at the same time — never anticipating that kind of scale.”
It goes on to say: “COVID-19 has made being physically in the same location as the client impossible, so PwC has now introduced the Virtual BXT Method, an interactive collaboration platform for distributed teams, supporting multiple huddle groups and interactive whiteboarding. PwC said it is enabling major transformation programs to "carry on nicely." For instance, a large insurance client, in the middle of its transformation journey with PwC, began using the Virtual BXT Method and it has helped employees feel part of the solution to transform their front office and agent network. Consequently, the Virtual BXT Method is now being used using across other ongoing transformation programs.”
Christof Menzies, Co-EMEA and Germany Consulting Leader, PwC said: "Our business experience and industry expertise has helped us stay close to our clients to support them through the different phases of Covid-19's impact on their business, to mobilize, stabilise and strategize. Through our client work, for example, with Government and Public Sector, and Financial Services, our business led assets backed approach, has re-purposed and produced new assets at great speed to help monitor and manage this pandemic's impact, both in the short, medium and long term.”
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