The digital channel has touched all industries and is continuing to dramatically impact the way companies conduct their business. The rate of change and the ongoing creation and destruction of business models is staggering. The winners will be those who can most effectively adapt to the expectations of the digital customer (individual, enterprise, vendor, partner, and distributor).
Companies need to align their business model and integrate both digital and conventional products, services and channels – acknowledging that disruption has taken place. The arrival of COVID has in fact accelerated the need for such transformation.
In this regard our Digital Solutions teams work closely with client organisations to tailor a pragmatic, strategic and comprehensive approach. We focus on enabling business to create value from the digital economy by offering a collaborative and integrated end-to-end digital consulting solution – we assess your business to help you make sense of both the drivers of disruption, as well as the levers that can be enhanced by Digital Change.
What we've done
Digital Transformation and Experience
We have continued to build on our successful track record in providing digital transformation and experience strategic advice coupled with project and change management support. During the period under review we have been particularly active in a number of studies funded through EU DG Reform to assist local public sector beneficiaries in managing their digital transformation initiatives. We also continue to provide QA services with regard to the Government’s IT project to introduce new financial management systems across its various ministries and departments.
Within the banking and insurance sectors we have been and continue to be involved in supporting a number of key organisations with their IFRS9, IFRS17, PSD2 and FATCA/CRS digital transformation initiatives. Likewise, we have been particularly engaged over the past year in supporting clients on digital strategy, IT sourcing and project management implementation support.
Data and Analytics
During the year we successfully concluded a key engagement to develop and deploy a digital data analytics platform for Infrastructure Malta comprising drone-captured visual images of Malta and Gozo in order to survey, analyse and prioritise the condition of the local road network. The data set, stored on a cloud based geospatial application, continues to be supported.
We have leveraged this capacity and know-how to further develop data analytics and RPA tools to support executive decision making. In this regard we have been engaged by a number of client organisations to deploy custom-built executive business intelligence tools to extract data from across various legacy systems and facilitate more timely and better decision making.
In this regard we have also deployed our know-how internally and have undertaken various internal projects aimed at transforming and streamlining our internal processes and functions.
Cyber Security
COVID-19 presented an opportunity for cybercriminals leading to increased phishing attacks using pandemic information as a ruse. With many employees working from home the attack surface increased unexpectedly and weak areas such as home PCs, Wi-Fi and Internet connections became part of the corporate IT estate. PwC assisted clients to assess their cyber security defences through health checks; technology audits; penetration testing as well as phishing simulation to verify whether staff would recognise a well-crafted phishing email.
The realisation of remote working becoming “normal” also helped to run penetration tests for clients on specialised platforms for financial services and government entities in collaboration with specialised testers in PwC Spain and PwC Belgium.
One of a series of webinars PwC hosted was dedicated to cyber security in a COVID world. Information security training also increased to raise awareness of risks, threats and countermeasures when working remotely, as well as to highlight the importance of cyber resilience within business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
In regulated sectors, authorities raised the bar for operators to demonstrate that appropriate security measures are in place to protect information confidentiality, systems integrity and business continuity. PwC helped clients to improve defences and to verify effectiveness whilst complying with regulations.
Systems Audits in the blockchain space
Following the introduction of new legislation to regulate DLT/blockchain based business and cryptocurrency commerce, this year, PwC in Malta completed the first systems audit under the MDIA framework in collaboration with specialists from PwC Italy. A number of financial audits for crypto funds with complex IT setups for the storage of crypto assets required a combination of skills from different parts of the firm including blockchain, IT assurance, and cyber security expertise.
IT Managed Services
With the COVID-19 lock down measures introduced in March many businesses had to deal with setting up remote working facilities practically overnight. PwC’s IT Managed Services team mobilised to implement or scale up secure connectivity and introduce video-conferencing en-masse to keep businesses running in the new normal. Ironically, the pandemic had a positive impact in forcing so many to adopt paperless, digital processes that would normally have taken a long time to implement.
The team also helped clients to make better use of the investment in cloud services – going beyond email to document management and workflow solutions as well as improved security features that are vital when so many users are working from home, using home Wi-Fi and Internet connections
More support services as well as implementation projects were delivered remotely as the PwC team also worked from home. PwC, like many of its clients enjoyed the benefit of secure, scalable IT infrastructure that made the switch to remote working a smooth transition, allowing management to concentrate on business challenges brought about by COVID-19.
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