Businesses have always had to evolve and adapt to remain competitive. This is particularly relevant today whereby a range of disruptive forces are accelerating the pressure to transform: the after-effects of the global pandemic, rapid technological change, geopolitical tensions, rampant inflation, new cybersecurity threats, climate change, increasing attention to ESG issues and global supply chain disruptions, to name but a few. We are finding that our clients are increasingly requesting faster turnkey solutions.
During the past year, our local practice has continued to invest aggressively in our Digital Services offerings, underpinned by PwC’s The New Equation global strategy, to help our clients in building trust and achieve sustained business outcomes. Besides continuing to be well-grounded within the strategic technology consulting areas, we are developing new revenue streams in the execution and delivery of solutions in the business applications, data analytics, cyber security and managed services areas.
Digital Consulting
Over the past year, we have continuously supported clients across a variety of different industries in their digital transformation journeys, driving projects across all stages from strategy to execution. In the public sector space, we have been engaged by DG REFORM to assist the shipping section of a local transport entity in its Strategic Digital Transformation Programme to become a digitally advanced maritime administration aimed at enhancing Malta's competitiveness within the global maritime industry.
Moreover, we also assisted the Government in analysing the composition and usage of its General Use Vehicle (GUVs) fleet by applying technologies such as the Internet of Things and Advanced Analytical Algorithms. Such analysis will pave the way for Government to make more optimal use of its fleet and embrace new technological trends to enhance the digital operation of such a fleet.
Similarly, we also assisted one of the transport entities in Malta in analysing the various results stemming from a nationwide survey carried out in 2021 across various dimensions/thematic areas. The results of such analysis will act as inputs into Government Transport Policy over the coming years.
As already reported in previous years, we also continued to provide quality assurance support on the Government's implementation of its Financial Management IT systems.
In the private sector industry areas, we have been particularly active in assisting our clients in analysing their operations from the perspectives of Process, Technology and Data to identify opportunities for process improvement and automation. We have been active in formulating digital strategies and underlying transformational initiatives to allow business organisations to optimise their business models and processes. In the Financial Services sector, we continue to provide ongoing support to large local banks and insurance organisations concerning their IFRS 9, IFRS 17, Data Governance and Quality and various Digital Transformation Initiatives.
Business Solutions Delivery
The past year was a defining year for our Business Solutions Delivery services with our firm being engaged by MITA to implement a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations solution. This is a five-year contract involving implementation and ongoing support. By working closely with our PwC global network we also continue to develop other opportunities for Microsoft solutions covering ERP, CRM and Power Platform. We have also been very active on the Customer Transformation front and have been developing integrated solution offerings incorporating Customer and Salesforce consultants. Over the past year we have built up a team of five trained and certified consultants on Salesforce and we continue to forge further into this domain supported also by our network.
Cyber Security
FY22 has undoubtedly been a year of significant regulatory movement in the cyber security and resilience space across the EU. First, the EU reached a provisional agreement on two important EU-wide legislations: the Network and Information Security 2 (NIS2) directive, which aimed to achieve a high common level of cyber security across its member states; and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), aimed at harmonising the digital operational resilience across the European financial sector. In addition, the European Cyber Resilience Act has been proposed for regulating cyber security requirements of hardware and software products, clearly with the intent of mitigating the devastating effects of supply chain attacks.
Our local Cyber Security & Privacy practice has been monitoring this new legislation very closely to better understand how it will impact our clients. Earlier in the year, we launched an informative DORA webinar series in collaboration with the MFSA, supported by guest speakers from our PwC Network. Feedback on this topic was encouraging, and numerous entities have been engaging with us as the regulatory landscape continues to shift. We have also been exploring various tools that can support businesses in managing their cyber risk and, in this respect, we successfully unveiled our Cyber Risk Reporting Platform (CRRP) solution during the third quarter.
Beyond our established advisory service offering involving cyber governance, risk, and compliance, we continued to grow our team, competencies, and experience in providing threat and vulnerability management services to local and international clients. In particular, we have been overseeing the vulnerability management programme of various clients, as well as delivering point-in-time assessments such as network and web penetration tests as well as social engineering simulations.
We believe that our greatest asset is our people. To this end, to address the sizeable skills gap in the market, we have launched an internal training and certification framework to upskill our cyber security specialists of varying experience levels, providing them with the opportunity to gain certifications such as the Security+, OSCP, CISM, and CISSP, among others.
Digital and Information Technology Assurance
During the year we noted a greater need in the market to place more and more trust in IT systems across various regulated and unregulated industries. There were also several high-profile international security incidents. In line with our strategy to build trust and deliver sustained outcomes, we offer our clients several certified and specialised IT individuals to provide advice and assurance on IT controls over critical information systems and help relieve them of their concerns when it comes to financial reporting. We also evaluate clients’ compliance with the relevant security and control policies, procedures and international best practices.
IT Managed Services
Given the tight labour market for key IT talent, many clients face the challenges to recruit and retain a fully-fledged team of in-house IT specialists. In this regard, an increasing number of clients have been opting for our IT Managed Services offering to provide an outsourced IT function. Most of the projects we have undertaken have involved migrating systems to the Cloud, typically starting from email and other collaboration tools. Several clients have successfully moved all systems and software off-site, reducing management and maintenance costs and gaining the flexibility to scale the IT infrastructure in alignment with the business, thereby making IT a variable cost.
During the past year, we also helped clients in various sectors through strategy, planning, piloting, migration, training, and deployment to enable a smooth transition from in-house systems to cloud-based services with minimal disruption to their business. PwC, like many of its clients, enjoys the benefit of a secure and scalable IT infrastructure. Our local team is focused on delivering solutions at scale and strengthening our security practices by mitigating risk through the proactive identification of vulnerabilities and threats.
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