PwC Risk and Response

Managing risk in an increasingly uncertain world

We’re living in a fast-changing and increasingly complex environment. Businesses are feeling more and more vulnerable to the dangers of cybercrime, systemic failure, fraud, corruption, regulatory investigation and the daunting prospect of costly remediation.

It’s time to turn risk into an opportunity and to take preventative measures to help you avoid the uncertainty that inhibits opportunity. If a crisis does occur, we identify the source of the problem, minimise the cost and pain, and then rebuild trust. We install more effective systems to preclude the likelihood of recurrence.

Our strategy is to ensure that the identification of risk is an opportunity to prepare, respond and emerge stronger.

PwC Financial Crime Unit - Manila Operations Center

The Center is dedicated to support financial services clients in delivering large scale Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your Customer (KYC) programmes and business as usual operations mainly in the Financial Crime area.

Remediation Centres

We know that the fight against financial crime is often considered time-consuming and labour-intensive. In order to help our clients, we've developed the capability to remediate and operate financial crime compliance processes at scale and a lower cost point with our dedicated Financial Crime Unit facility in Manila.

Taking a human-centred approach to risk

Modern-day crisis management isn’t exclusively about mitigating risk and communicating promptly with stakeholders. It’s also about acknowledging that the impact of unforeseen circumstances can reverberate beyond business-as-usual to take a serious human toll.

At PwC, we understand that any remediation process or attempt to build risk resilience must address the emotional damage a crisis can wreak on a company, alongside issues around logistics and reputation. For a major waste-management company that was asked to ground its fleet of trucks in the wake of a catastrophic accident, PwC empowered an empathetic and emotionally intelligent approach to leadership while drawing on our deep knowledge of forensic risk and safety systems and our globally renowned crisis methodology.

By working in tandem with the regulator as well as the organisation, we pooled collective strengths to create a meaningful system for the risk response process. Our joint effort sent a consistent message to employees and board members and imbued stakeholders with confidence.

This clear-eyed series of actions enabled a calm and methodical process that saw trucks return to the road and quickly identified and managed potential issues and bottlenecks. This set the stage for a risk outlook that prioritised people over profits. It also helped the business bounce back from crisis stronger, equipped with tools to tackle challenges in the future.

Championing a bold approach to identity management

Managing digital identity is a complex business. A failure to govern the levels of access and privilege granted to employees across an organisation can create the risk of data leaks. It can also open the door to security breaches that can threaten an organisation’s credibility and ultimately hurt bottom lines.

PwC understands that digital identity management isn’t just a matter of making sure an employees’ access to platforms, systems, and applications lines up with their roles and responsibilities. It’s a moving target that impacts everything from employee onboarding and internal security to the ability to respond quickly to change.

A partnership with a major financial services organization saw PwC draw on our global delivery model as well as agile, DevOps and automation practices. Through this joint effort, we built on and future-proofed the company’s robust identity management capability — a move which fine-tuned security, improved efficiency and unlocked hidden pockets of value across the company. We transformed a security risk into an organisational asset built around clarity and agility — one that empowers the company to consolidate existing skills and react swiftly to future challenges. The collaboration also helped the organisation seamlessly manage its diverse workforce and achieve its strategic aims with aplomb.

Turning compliance into competitive advantage

Compliance can be complicated. Businesses in highly regulated industries know that it takes serious investment and near-constant vigilance to stay abreast of reporting requirements. Unfortunately, failure to invest in robust regulatory processes can risk leaving companies vulnerable to breaches. These can destroy credibility, create barriers within an organisation and attract crippling fines.

At PwC, we understand that compliance isn’t an afterthought. It’s a critical function that can impact everything from strategy and operations to future growth. We worked closely with a major global gaming organisation to significantly uplift their anti-money laundering (AML) program and procedures, which in turn sparked an uplift in compliance across their business. We also helped incorporate risk assessment measures in their processes that were aimed at proactively detecting — and mitigating — future issues.

By empowering the organisation to take a best-in-class approach to compliance, rather than the usual ‘tick the box’ approach, we helped them regain the trust of regulators around the world. We also turned risk resilience into a competitive advantage, creating the strongest position for achieving growth ambitions in the process.

Rethinking the fallout from fraud

In the modern-day organisation, honesty and transparency aren’t just value statements. They’re essential qualities that are intrinsic to building customer relationships and cultivating trust. That’s why the detection of fraud — from the non-disclosure of gifts to illicit payments — can do irrevocable damage to a company’s reputation, a fact exacerbated by the 24-hour news cycle. It can also inadvertently create patterns of behaviour that negatively impact workplace culture.

At PwC, we understand that although fraud may stem from the actions of one or two individuals, its consequences are widespread. For a major government organisation, we combined a deep knowledge of forensic accounting and insights from a multidisciplinary team of experts to uncover a serious instance of corruption and fraud — one that was costing money and risked hurting the company’s hard-won public credibility. Our access to best-in-class fraud detection technology also helped deliver the real-world evidence that’s key to the resolution of criminal investigations.

This partnership empowered the company to create new policies, procedures and systems that put values such as ethics, accountability and transparency front and centre, saving it significant costs going forward. We helped the organisation regain the confidence of the public and emerge from this crisis, clear-eyed and fit to tackle future challenges as they arise.