About PwC Middle East
Introduction
According to “PwC Middle East” (2016), it was established in the region for 40 years, PwC has more than 4,000 people in 12 countries across the region: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, and Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (p.1).
As stated on their website, their regional team of more than 4,000 people operates across the Middle East bringing international experience delivered within the context of the region and its culture. It can bring the collective knowledge and experience of more than 208,000 people across the entire global PwC network in advisory, assurance and tax to help customers find the value they are looking for (PwC, 2016).
As listed on the services page on their website, the main services offered by the company are assurance and audit, consulting, deals, family business and Tax & legal services. They have entered into consulting as a major player by acquiring Booze & Co. which I have mentioned in detail in the following pages as part of their strategy.
Vision
According to (“PwC Middle East”, 2016), “Our vision is Creating value for our clients, people and communities in a changing world” (p. 1). This is the mantra the company and its employees live with. It clearly touches on three aspects; customer centricity and creating value for them, people centricity, which includes internal and external customers including the employees and the social communities. It is not just about earning and growing in terms of revenue or dollars, but it is to establish a brand which is trusted and liked. It has been proven with the existence and growth of the company for four decades in the region and for a very long time globally. Other than this primary vision, they also focus a lot on innovation, lead with agility, trust building, brand value and value addition to the customers.
Brand and Recognition
Anderson (2015) published in the report through IDC based on quantitative and qualitative research to state that PwC is the leader in this industry. According to the report, PwC is a Big Four global professional services organization established as a global network of member firms with more than 195,000 employees globally in 758 locations across 157 countries. PwC serves client organizations across all sectors and functional areas. PwC provides services through 3 divisions, or "lines of service": assurance, tax, and advisory. The advisory business contains deals and consulting (p.3)
Figure 1: Snapshot of the big players place against each other. This is adapted from IDC report, 2015, Retrieved from http://idcdocserv.com/254320e_PWC
PwC Financial Highlights
As per the data shared in the PwC financial report (2015), net revenue of the company was $ 35.4 billion with total employee strength of 208, 109. The stock price is at $71.90 as of today. If we look at the 5 year history, it has consistently grown from $40 to $71 and this is a great achievement in terms of consistency and growth in the tough competitive market (p.6).
Strategy
As stated by PwC Middle East (2016), the core focus areas of the strategy in this region are
Brilliant mergers and acquisitions
Focus on providing best consulting in the world
Moving beyond globalization
Invest in technology and data driven decision making
Solving the tax challenge for government and companies in middle east
Launch the region’s first innovative Digital Experience Center
Adopting the public private model
Make the employees happy and satisfied (p.1).
PwC Middle East works as a partner of PwC global and these strategies are driven from the overall vision of the company. The strategy includes four primary objectives; customer focus for their delight, employee focus for making PwC a great place to work, growth and diversification in terms of new industries and services and last but not the least, the social responsibility. When the company works with a goal of fulfillment on all these areas and then creates focused groups to build a strategy that can achieve all this, it is more probable to achieve the goals and targets. Many companies in the same league are doing similar planning and with the large market size, they are growing as well. But the key for the successful players is good strategy and better execution.
Question1. What drove this evolution of strategy?
As the company works and provides different services, it has to strategize in each area separately and as one organization as well. If we talk about the mergers and acquisitions, with the acquisition of one of the best consulting firms in the Middle East; Booz & Co., this was one of the biggest strategic move.
Rapoport (2014) published in his report in The Wall Street Journal that Accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers is expected to complete its acquisition of management-consulting firm Booz & Co. Thursday and is renaming Booz "Strategy&." The deal, announced last fall, is among the most prominent acquisitions by an accounting firm in years, and it furthers PwC's recent push into the consulting field. PwC's consulting business brings in nearly a third of its revenue and is growing faster than its core auditing business (p.1).
In a press release in Dubai (2015), it was shared that the post-merger company Booz & Co., which is now ‘PwC and Strategy&’ on the same day of press release announced the launch and the idea of the first Digital Experience Centre in Middle East for its clients and its people, to accelerate the services provided to the digital and technology centric clients by different forms. There was a lot of emphasis on ‘its clients and its people’. This digital experience center will be based out of Dubai and the experience center will open in mid-2016. This will be a huge facility and it was told that it will occupy one complete and the entire floor of Emaar Square offices. This will include many sections however the main parts of the digital and physical environment which were named will be a state-of-the-art immersion lab and collaboration spaces where firms and clients can brain storm and collaborate, engineered for PwC and clients to reimagine their customer’s experience, their businesses and co-create a plan to get there. “Businesses and Governments don’t need a digital strategy, they need a strategy for the digital age,” said Hani Ashkar, PwC Middle East Senior Partner (p.1).
“DUBAI FDI”, (2016) stated in their report that it has become a very popular and proven tool in the form of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for funding new and big infrastructure projects across the world. The governments also get the opportunity for the macroeconomics to move large upfront capital spending off their near-term financing commitments using Public Private Partnerships. PPP schemes can also play a further role in promoting economic diversification and foreign direct investment (p.2). With this goal in mind, PwC has strategized to work for public sector and help the government to utilize this amazing option. It gives a boost to the organization as well and is a win-win scenario.
Companies like PwC invest humungous amount of time and money in strategizing. With the existence since four decades in Middle East, the experience of the company in other regions, the strong leadership team and the proactive business model drive this kind of strategy. In today’s world of cut throat competition, to get the competitive edge, these companies have to stay ahead in the game. PwC Middle East also invests heavily in technology and analytics to predict the right direction to be taken in future.
Question2. Were the strategies a part of the strategic planning exercise or due to unpredictable circumstances? Why?
In my opinion and study about the company, the strategies formulated by PwC Middle East were part of the strategic planning exercise rather than a result of unpredictable circumstances. A good strategy has to be based on current and future expectations and goals of the organization. Sometimes, it happens that based on the unpredictable circumstances, the companies have to shift the gears and focus more on certain areas, however, the technology advancement of this scale, getting into consulting with large acquisitions and mergers, building a state of the art technology center, building PPP by looking into future for decades, are not an unpredictable circumstance in this case. This was a well-planned and thought-through a strategic planning exercise with an effort and predictions for many years.
According to a study by Gartner (2014), PwC is in the magic quadrant for business analytics services (Gartner, 2014). What it means is, they are focusing a lot on providing business analytics solutions to companies and also using it for their own growth using the rise of intelligent decision making. In the last ten years, the field of analytics has grown exponentially. More or less every consulting company is providing these services because every client and business today wants to take informed decisions based on data by taking the advantage of the sea of information around us. The differentiator for PwC to appear in the magic quadrant was their strategy and execution.
Looking at the reports and publications like Middle East Economic Crime Survey 2016, or Managing Tax, GCC IPO Market Watch or many other publications by PwC, it is evident that the strategy they make or form has been always for a few years in the future and not circumstance based due to unpredictable events. The kind of money and time spent in all the initiatives tells us clearly that this all is a long term vision which is driving the growth and success of the company.
The blend of the long term vision, strong and smart strategy and perfect execution makes what PwC as a whole and the PwC Middle East is today. With more focus of customers and employees, it is ranked 53 in the list of the best 100 companies to work for (Fortune, 2016).
In the end, I would say that as a strategy is mostly a plan of action which is generally designed or built to achieve a company’s long- term aim, these well thought strategies are long term, thought through, robust and not influenced by any unforeseen internal or external circumstances.
References
Anderson, C. (2015). IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Business Consulting Services 2015 Vendor Assessment. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from http://idcdocserv.com/254320e_PWC
DUBAI FDI. (2016). Adopting the Public Private Partnerships Model and its role in attracting Foreign Direct Investment. Retrieved on April 4, 2016, from http://www.pwc.com/m1/en/publications/documents/adopting-ppp-and-its-role-in-attracting-fdi-dubai.pdf
Fortune. (2016). 100 Best companies to work for 2016. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from http://fortune.com/best-companies/pricewaterhousecoopers-pwc-53/
Gartner. (2014). Retrieved April 4, 2016, from https://www.gartner.com/doc/2801229/magic-quadrant-business-analytics-services
PwC – About us. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2016, from http://www.pwc.com/m1/en/about-us.html
PwC – Press Release. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2016, from http://www.pwc.com/m1/en/media-centre/2015/pwc-strategyand-to-launch--first-innovative-digital-experience-centre.html
PwC – Annual Report. (2015). Retrieved April 4, 2016, from http://www.pwcannualreport.co.uk/files/PwC-Annual-Report-2015-Financial-Statements.pdf
Rapoport, M. (2014). PricewaterhouseCoopers Renaming Booz & Co. as 'Strategy&'. The Wall Street Journal.
