Solving together:
Transformation

We’re helping companies transform for enduring success.

Britain’s first female fighter pilot, Jo Salter
Now, Director at PwC UK
Helps PwC clients transform at speed

How can companies transform for enduring success?

To seek transformation is to be nimble, resilient, and reinvention-ready. In a world full of uncertainty and unique challenges, it’s more important than ever for businesses to embrace transformation and become the best version of themselves. At PwC, we’re helping our clients boldly transform to position themselves to achieve sustained outcomes and long-term success in the midst of tumultuous times. 

Businesses that succeed will be resilient – able to manage disruption, transform in response, and emerge stronger.”
Matt Mani
Matt Mani
Partner, Strategy&, PwC Netherlands

The challenge: a changing world where transformation is key

Businesses have always had to evolve and adapt to stay competitive. But today a range of disruptive forces is accelerating the pressure to transform: an ongoing 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 a few. 

Today’s business leaders are becoming quasi-experts at crisis management. Disruption has become the normal operating environment. We must be able to respond and recover quickly – and that starts with being aware of critical business systems.”
Sean Joyce
Sean Joyce
Global Cybersecurity and Privacy Leader, PwC US

Client catalysts for business transformation

Technology innovation

83% of CEOs are changing their investment focus over the next three years to digital transformation.

Source: PwC Annual Global CEO Survey 2021
Increasing ESG requirements

Half of global consumers say a company’s ESG actions often or always influence their trust in the company or likelihood to recommend it.

Source: PwC 2022 Global Consumer Pulse Survey
Changing customer expectations

Over a quarter of global consumers are cutting back their spending as a result of rising prices.

Source: PwC 2022 Global Consumer Pulse Survey
Global connectedness

More than 50% of CEOs in the US and China are continuing their efforts to adjust their supply chain and sourcing strategies.

Source: PwC Manufacturing COO Pulse Survey
External disruption

71% of CEOs are very or extremely concerned about geopolitical conflict and its impact on revenue.

Source: PwC Annual Global CEO Survey 2022
Regulatory uncertainty

~40% of CEOs are extremely concerned about over-regulation and policy uncertainty.

Source: PwC Annual Global CEO Survey 2021

Together, these pressures mean businesses need to transform on a number of fronts such as their value-creation strategy, operating models, technology integration, workforce strategy, and ESG strategy. Transformation in these areas presents opportunities to gain fresh competitive advantage through building a business model that is fit for the future.

We don’t see these pressures easing anytime soon. Agile businesses that can manage through multiple disruptions while keeping their focus on the demands of their customers are in the best position to succeed in this tumultuous environment.”
Sean Joyce
Sabine Durand-Hayes
Global Consumer Markets Leader, PwC France

Four cornerstones of transformation success

We’ve found that successful transformation requires a coherent strategy and disciplined execution in four essential areas: a company’s value-creation strategy, operating model, people models & capabilities, and technology capabilities. All four areas are key to transformations that enable companies to achieve sustained outcomes and long-term success. 

The four areas of successful business transformation are Value Creation: Shape clear value strategy - Operating Model: Become fit for growth - Workforce: Engage people to accelerate - Technology: Integrate technology for advantage

In this chapter, we’ll share some of the ways we are helping clients transform their core value-creation strategy, operating models and technology.

To see how we are helping clients transform their workforce strategy, please see our People chapter. Workforce strategy is an integral part of a broader business transformation. In brief, we assist our clients with a proactive upskilling and talent development strategy to address workforce shortages in critical skills while also rightsizing the workforce to adjust the mix of skills. We support our clients with a range of workforce challenges: recruiting, retaining, and motivating loyal staff; helping people achieve their potential; boosting productivity; and navigating the challenges of the modern workplace from hybrid working to employees’ desire for meaningful work. Together, these areas of action help clients build a workforce ready to help the business meet its transformation goals and achieve sustained success.  

To see how we are helping clients transform their businesses to achieve ESG alignment, please see our ESG chapter. 

 

We help clients transform their value-creation strategy

We help our clients redefine the unique capabilities and market propositions that make them successful enterprises. Below we highlight three of the ways we are doing this: supporting new customer propositions, creating new forms of value, and developing the right portfolio through acquisitions and divestitures.

We’re helping clients deliver new customer propositions

Customer expectations are ever-changing. To achieve sustained success, companies must adapt. For example, today many consumers prefer flexible access to products-as-a-service, including goods like cars that consumers have traditionally owned. Volvo Cars is a leader in this space, adapting its customer proposition to offer a flexible car subscription service. We are supporting Volvo to transform this service to provide an outstanding experience aligned to today’s consumer expectations.

 

Case
Study

Redefining Customer Care

Volvo Cars is redefining how the brand engages with customers to create personal, sustainable and safe experiences at every interaction. Part of that initiative sits in the direct-to-consumer programme, that offers customers new and alternative mobility ownership options such as car subscription.

The problem? The global Volvo Cars teams needed to scale services and enable technology across markets quickly and consistently. Volvo brought in PwC UK to support them on their journey, including:

  • rapidly co-create a shared vision and roadmap for Volvo Care and create team alignment
  • nurture 'one global team' mindset
  • make end-users central to digital product and service design
  • reduce scaling risk by reinforcing the technology platform and data that underpin the programme

Working together, Volvo and PwC defined new ways of working for the global digital communities and set up a clear 'north star' supported by a detailed roadmap, positioning Volvo Cars to be a leader in service innovation. The company is expanding its capabilities in AI, digital machine learning, chatbots, analytics, intelligent conversation profiling, and more to further enhance its offering. Volvo Cars is continuously evolving its Care product and proposition live across 27 markets, enabling Volvo Care agents to build stronger, lasting direct relationships with customers.

We identify value creation opportunities and use technology to leverage them

Technology, applied in the right way, can transform a company’s ability to achieve sustained outcomes. For example, we helped pharma company PTC Therapeutics move from paper-based to digital processes, transforming its ability to fight disease. 

 

Case
Study

Modernising processes to fuel the fight against rare diseases

PTC Therapeutics develops treatments for rare diseases. The company’s work relies on the rapid exchange of information with medical researchers and patients.

The manual process PTC used to manage these critical activities slowed its progress in making medical breakthroughs. PwC US helped to bring all these elements under one digital system, developing a lasting solution which has reduced response times and streamlined work. Time that employees had spent reading emails, hunting down responses and creating paper trails is now used to work on high-value programmes that help the company achieve its ultimate mission: developing life-changing drugs. Please see the case study to learn more.

We identified a key to making the right acquisition

Key to value creation is having the right portfolio. Our research shows that while merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has increased in this new world of rapid disruption, 53% of corporate acquisitions underperformed their industry peers. This year, we identified a key factor in successful mergers and acquisitions: complementary capabilities between buyer and target that create a new value proposition that is bigger than the sum of its parts. 

In addition, we uncovered five steps leaders can take to make the right deal that creates new value for the company:

 

Five steps to making the right deal

  • 1
    Determine the capabilities you have and the ones you need
  • 2
    Conduct ongoing portfolio optimisation reviews
  • 3
    Become a prepared, always-ready acquirer
  • 4
    Build distinctive M&A integration insight and capability
  • 5
    Be decisive and act now
We're seeing an acceleration of strategic decisions to enhance portfolio optimisation as dealmakers divest to free up capital to focus on acquiring capabilities and transforming core business areas through M&A.
Sean Joyce
Malcolm Lloyd
Global Deals Leader, PwC Spain
 

We help clients transform their operating models

We support our clients to establish the operating models they need to achieve their strategy, growth, and value objectives - and ultimately deliver sustained outcomes. This kind of transformation is as important as ever because, facing inflation and economic uncertainty, many companies are changing their operating models to focus on building differentiating capabilities that fuel growth while also optimising cost and spend. Read on to see how we transformed the operating models of a national healthcare system and a multi-billion dollar company to enable both organisations to achieve sustained success. 

 

Case
Study

We designed the complete operating model for a multi-billion dollar company

When Unilever, one of the world’s biggest consumer product firms, decided to separate its multi-billion dollar global tea business (now called ekaterra), the newly independent division needed its own operating model - fast.

In a matter of months, an end-to-end operating model was designed in close collaboration with Unilever, covering every part of the business: supply chain, sales, marketing, HR, finance, controls, and more. As a result of our insight and collaborative relationship with Unilever, we were able to successfully stand up the new company’s processes, data, and systems across all functions and more than 80 countries.

Achieving such a colossal outcome in a short space of time was possible only with the support of PwC experts in deals, risk, tax, HR, consulting, and more, led by PwC UK working together in a true global community of solvers including members from a number of countries - all in close collaboration with Unilever.

Case
Study

When better operations save lives: transforming a national healthcare system

Great healthcare is built on the daily efforts of caring doctors and nurses. It is also built on high-quality capabilities and performance reporting.

Our Middle East and UK firms helped transform healthcare for millions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a trusted partner for the Ministry of Health’s Adaa Health Programme, renowned as the world’s largest healthcare transformation programme.

Our combined team supported over 50 hospitals and 250 primary health centres to enable performance to be tracked centrally. We enabled world-class care through over 600 workforce-led improvement initiatives and built capabilities for more than 2,500 change leaders and champions. Our team supported the nation’s healthcare system throughout the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, guiding the restart and recovery of services as well as enhancing the wellbeing of frontline staff.

We’re helping clients reinvent complex processes to achieve better outcomes

Sometimes what makes the difference between good and great organisations is the quality of execution. We help clients transform complex operations for improved outcomes. Below is one example of how we delivered end-to-end transformation of a complex process key to quality of life in one of India’s largest cities. 

 

Case
Study

Transforming city services to create the ‘Cleanest State Capital’ in India

The Indian city of Gandhinagar had a problem with waste management. Waste was not collected efficiently, affecting the cleanliness of the streets and hurting citizens’ health.

PwC India applied multiple approaches to create sustained change such as creating true accountability with the agencies collecting the waste and tracking the effectiveness of pick-up. The programme also sought to change consumer behaviour, for example by organising campaigns to help the public understand that separating their waste properly means cleaner streets.

The result? Waste management processes have been transformed, and Gandhinagar secured India’s award for ‘Cleanest State Capital.’

We help clients transform through technology

Technology can enable better data, smarter decisions, improved processes, and heightened efficiencies. We help our clients get the best from technology to deliver on their value-creation strategy and achieve sustained success. Below are just two examples of how we helped clients modernise and digitise to achieve sustained outcomes.

 

Case
Study

Keeping flights safe in a third of the world’s skies

PwC Australia delivered a tech transformation to improve efficiency and safety for a leading air traffic management agency that keeps flights safe in a third of the world’s skies.

Responsible for the safety of some of the most modern aircraft, the client was dependent on older, siloed, and manual systems. We helped them to centralise and integrate key systems (HR, finance, safety, technology, strategy, and operations) on a modern ERP platform, delivering streamlined management, a single source of record and, ultimately, enhanced safety. Here are just two examples of the difference this is making on the ground:

  • Many HR functions were run on siloed spreadsheets. Now staff onboarding, training, scheduling and more are integrated on one ‘single view’ system.
  • Management of critical safety equipment like fire trucks was siloed. Performing a basic task like counting the number of trucks required asking a dozen people for information. Now critical equipment is managed on a single dashboard.

As a result of this project, the client is saving millions from efficiency gains, enabling them to invest in enhanced safety training and technology.

Case
Study

Reimagining the service supply chain at one of the world’s largest technology companies

Imagine the service supply chain challenges facing one of the world’s largest technology companies.

The company sells millions of units per year across multiple product types and platforms with a global installed base. At the same time, the company is expanding its service offering, creating new operational requirements and increased service expectations. In short, the traditional ‘break-fix’ service supply chain would no longer be fit for purpose. The mismatch of capabilities and market needs was negatively impacting customer satisfaction and cost.

PwC US worked with the company to identify root-cause issues, define the required capabilities and create a supply chain strategy that placed service at the core of revenue enablement and customer satisfaction. We worked with the client to design and deploy a single global control tower that will provide a complete view of all inventory at any given moment (the implementation is underway). This central view is making planning easier, smarter, and more efficient, complemented by a master data governance operating model designed to ensure the company can extract maximum value from its investments in technology and process improvement.

The improved efficiency, visibility and governance is creating an integrated, optimised, and future-ready service supply chain organisation that is more agile and able to deliver on rapidly changing customer expectations in a cost-effective manner. The service supply chain has shifted from a back-office function to the frontlines of revenue growth!

We help companies seize the opportunities of cutting-edge tech

From the metaverse to AI, technology keeps expanding our concept of the possible and creating opportunities for those who can leverage its power. Below are just two examples of how we are helping our clients achieve sustained success by making the most of technology’s potential. 

SPOTLIGHT ON DIGITAL ASSETS

Digital assets are on the cusp of mainstream adoption. We help business leaders understand what digital assets are and what they can do. From cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to central bank digital currencies, digital assets have the potential to impact virtually all areas of life and business as we know it – and further enable the metaverse to bridge the gap between virtual reality and the physical world. Our clients need to understand the issues, the opportunities and risks involved.

PwC is uniquely positioned to help our clients unlock opportunities, bringing the insights and capabilities needed to navigate complexity and find clarity. Our network of specialists from many lines of service (tech, tax, consulting, risk, audit and more) are working with clients to outline digital strategies and navigate regulatory frameworks.

Case
Study

Transforming global shipping through blockchain

Ninety percent of the world’s traded goods travel by ship. However, coordinating millions of shipments around the world is a mammoth task.

As a result, global shipping is often beset by congestion and container shortages. A global data platform powered by blockchain could help by, for example, enabling supply chain participants from around the world to collaborate more efficiently. First, however, antitrust and regulatory hurdles would have to be cleared in each of the many jurisdictions involved.

Our community of solvers from PwC legal, consulting, and technology teams across Hong Kong, Chile, Poland, South Korea, Ukraine and Australia came together to advise on a tech platform structure and help to navigate regulation, supporting the creation of the groundbreaking Global Shipping Business Network.

The network is transforming global shipping and world trade, in some instances, reducing cargo processing times from days to hours. This project highlights the importance of having integrated legal, consulting and technology capabilities to help address business challenges in a globalised economy.

However, digital transformation is not enough in isolation

"Without a fundamental business transformation, digitisation on its own is a road towards irrelevance."

Paul Leinwand, Principal, Strategy&, PwC US, and Matt Mani, Partner, Strategy&, PwC Netherlands, in Beyond Digital

In their new book Beyond Digital, PwC’s Paul Leinwand and Matt Mani explain that, while critical, digitisation alone does not lead to value-creating transformation or competitive advantage. To achieve success, companies must focus on capabilities and outcomes too. The future belongs to organisations that answer two fundamental questions, ‘What unique value do we contribute in today’s world?’ and ‘What capabilities allow us to create that value better than anyone else?’

That’s why we help clients create holistic change across their value-creation and operating models as well as their technology strategy and other parts of the business as part of a total transformation. 

We help clients achieve total transformation

Ultimately, transforming aspects of a client’s business such as technology, operations, and value-creation model often goes hand-in-hand as part of a total transformation. Below are two examples of how we have helped clients deliver a deep transformation to achieve competitive advantage and sustained success.

 

Case
Study

From the ‘Flintstones’ to ‘Star Trek’

PwC Germany managed the digital transformation of a global retail group from an offline company into a truly integrated online multi-channel company through a complete renewal of its legacy IT and process landscape.

Nearly a decade ago, when we began working with this client, many companies in the group ran their processes on the ‘Flintstones model’ – lots of hands and feet working hard underneath to make slow, manual, localised progress. Today, we’ve worked alongside the client to modernise, centralise, and automate IT and processes. Here are just a few examples:

  • Inventory optimisation. Store managers used to order inventory based on experience. Now, smart analytics can propose what inventory should be bought based on analysis of customer flow and purchases, even taking into account weather forecasts and local events like festivals.
  • Better customer acquisition and retention. We’ve delivered the data and digital infrastructure to support consistent global marketing campaigns and a better in-store experience for customers including faster checkout.
  • Warehouse centralisation and automation. Before, each region operated as a separate cell with its own warehouses and stock management. Today, we have redesigned the whole supply chain with centrally optimised stock flows and consolidated warehouses that can support cutting-edge robotics.

Today, we are working with the client to pilot the store of the future – for example, outlets that are 100% self-service.

Results: The retailer has nearly doubled its revenue during the period we have been working together. The client is on track to be €1.5 billion better off every year through a combination of operational savings and increased revenue due to the transformation we’ve achieved together.

Case
Study

Saving US$1 billion through business transformation

PwC teams from technology, advisory, and tax came together across multiple firms to create a true community of solvers in action, working together to support the client’s complete transformation of its operations, technology, and value proposition to maximise efficiency and sustainability.

Two examples of our work:

  • Use data for better decisions. We helped the client turn its vast amounts of global data into decision-making fuel by connecting global data in a central dashboard, identifying leading (instead of lagging) indicators for proactive decision-making.
  • Improve the value chain as a whole. From initial order to final payment, the client’s value chain involves hundreds of individual processes and data points. Instead of trying to solve problems at a single point, we look holistically at value-chain optimisation, addressing interdependencies so we deliver more valuable and enduring solutions.

Collectively, our work with the client has achieved US$1 billion in savings and countless improvements in operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making. Ultimately, this is improving the company’s proposition to the market and its ability to create value.

Brave leadership is key for bold transformation

Change is tough. Transformation requires bold leadership.

At PwC, we work with 84% of the Fortune Global 500 on a huge range of business challenges. The breadth of our work gives us a perspective on what it takes to be a transformative leader making the right moves to position an organisation for sustained success. We seek to share ideas and best practice in this area across the global business community.

For example, this year, we’ve brought our best thinking about transformative leadership into The Leadership Agenda hub. Here, senior business leaders can find thought-provoking insights about how to grapple with their toughest challenges and transform their companies for continued success.

In addition, we bring business leaders together to share ideas and best practices. These perspectives help us grow, sometimes in ways we don’t expect. That’s what we discovered when we brought together business leaders from 40 countries in 'Leaders Solving for Tomorrow’, the flagship programme of our Centre for Transformative Leadership. We took leaders out of the confines of their own organisations and sectors so they could take a broad view of what’s required to address shared challenges and transform to be future-ready. 

Rave reviews for our Leaders Solving for Tomorrow programme

‘Best leadership programme I’ve experienced’

‘I feel equipped with the tools needed to be a transformational leader’

‘The content should be compulsory for all leaders to watch’

Alliances for transformation

We unite communities of solvers in cross-company alliances to deliver breakthrough outcomes for clients

We bring the best of PwC together with our external alliance partners to create transformational outcomes for clients. By partnering, collaborating, and innovating with these global alliances, we have the right tools for tomorrow’s transformation. We've developed strong global alliances with a number of firms including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, Guidewire, Workday and Adobe. And as another example of our community of solvers, we also have alliances with many more technology companies at a regional or country level.

Microsoft alliance - Smart factories: PwC Germany partnered with Microsoft to help global manufacturer ZF Friedrichshafen AG reduce costs in their factories while improving quality, efficiency, and output. Alongside the client, we built a scalable digital manufacturing platform to drive digitisation at 192 production sites and support the client’s transformation journey. The platform is expected to produce annual cost savings of several hundred million dollars. The lessons learned at ZF Friedrichshafen AG can be used to accelerate any large-scale smart factory transformations. The project was made possible by our operation, process, and technical expertise paired with Microsoft’s engineering and tech expertise - a true community of solvers.

Oracle alliance - Digital transformation: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chipotle Mexican Grill had to go digital to serve their customers which required new delivery partners and a large input of data from multiple sources. Chipotle needed a more modern technology footprint and the ability to scale. PwC US collaborated with Chipotle on their digital transformation, working with our global alliance partner Oracle’s Cloud Technology.  The team was able to implement the cloud based programme in just seven months, enabling Chipotle to share information with many entities along their supply chain, increase digital sales and better plan for their future growth.  PwC brought our Oracle expertise, knowledge of the industry, as well as our security and controls and tax teams together to create a complete cross competency team to deliver the programme for Chipotle.  

Microsoft Azure alliance - Cloud for Legal: This year, PwC US introduced Cloud for Legal, a first of its kind set of solutions powered by Microsoft Azure, that enables law departments to work more effectively, efficiently and strategically - increasing the pace of innovation while unlocking the potential of data. Proprietary PwC technologies include, for example, a legal data lake, intelligent automation, legal natural language processing (NLP), and other AI-powered legal solutions, all of which are built on the Microsoft Cloud, to help clients draw even more value from their existing technology investments and law department’s operations.

SAP Alliance - Digital and process transformation:  PwC Singapore and global alliance partner SAP Concur collaborated with medical technology company Terumo to help in Terumo’s digital transformation. Terumo was looking to digitise and integrate their travel and expense policies, processes and systems across all Terumo Asia Pacific companies in the ASEAN Region. The issue was that Terumo was using a manual process for its travel and expenses which led to an increased risk related to fraud and policy compliance. PwC Singapore worked closely with Terumo to implement SAP Concur to align travel and expense policies, processes and systems.  As a result of the collaboration, Terumo was successful in rolling out SAP Concur within a short six-month timeline. Now, the process is simple for Terumo employees to navigate, easy to maintain, and provides visibility to leadership on spending, costs and potential fraud.

Here are a few examples of our award winning work with our alliances this year:

In conclusion

In a world of accelerated disruption, businesses in all industries need to transform to be resilient, agile, and future-ready. At PwC, we’re helping clients achieve bold transformation across all parts of their business to navigate new pressures, ranging from ESG to shifting customer expectations. The results we achieve are helping our clients to realise competitive advantage, build trust and drive sustained outcomes.


Contact us

Sarah Brown

Sarah Brown

Director, Global Corporate Affairs and Communications, PwC United Kingdom

Tel: +44 7384 248 785

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