"The twelve-month period to June 2019 was challenging but also rewarding for our Assurance practice. We maintained our strong revenue base, actually growing it in the first half of 2019, as we continued to attract new clients to the firm and to consolidate our relationships with existing ones. During this period, income from statutory audit and directly related services amounted to 44% of the firm’s total income. Total audit and assurance revenue represented 51% of our total revenue."
Simon Flynn
Head of Assurance
The environment within which we are carrying out our statutory audits is undergoing a period of significant change. Audit reform legislation in the EU has been far reaching and the requirement for mandatory firm rotation for the auditors of Public Interest Entities is alone a major game changer in the market. Coupled with this, tighter restrictions on the provision of non-audit services will also redefine the overall strategy of audit firms.
At PwC, we have embraced these changes and continue to move forward with confidence in this respect. We recognise that we are market leaders in the audit of Public Interest Entities and have so far been extremely successful in retaining the audit mandates of those audit clients who were obliged to request multiple proposals for their audits. We know that when actual audit rotation kicks in this will be more disruptive but we are planning for this well before it happens.
What we've done
- Quality in everything we do
- Recruitment, retention and training
- Technology
Quality in everything we do
Quality remains the cornerstone of our audit practice. Independence and objectivity are equally important pillars that underscore all that we do and what we stand for. We have continued to invest in resources, and in systems, to ensure that our focus on these areas remains unyielding. This includes initiatives that give increased importance to audit efficiency and effectiveness and the restructuring of our audit teams to ensure that we deliver value to our clients from a technical, industry knowledge and business perspective.
Coupled with this, in the past year we have continued to invest significantly in upskilling our resources not only in the core competencies, but also focusing on wider skillsets of technology and innovative ways to approach audit engagements. Each investment reflects a common determination to understand the factors that drive quality, value adding solutions to clients and identification of opportunities for enhancement.
We continue to apply PwC Audit, a common audit methodology that provides the framework to ensure that our work is fully compliant with all relevant audit standards and that facilitates the execution, review and control of our audits. Like all PwC offices, we have introduced a new audit tool that embeds AI, digitalised approaches to testing, BI and visualisation tools in tune with our vision for the future of audit. Quality also embeds security in the way we obtain, share and retain client data. Our new audit tool facilitates communication with clients over a safe platform to ensure that we deliver a seamless and safe transfer of audit documentation.
Recruitment, retention and training
Recruitment, retention and the on-going training of our people are areas where we continue to invest time, resources and focus. We recognise the importance of having a proficient, skilled and motivated team of professionals to take to the market and work incessantly for this to happen.
Our staff numbers are growing significantly both from local and from overseas sources. Training offerings are constantly being expanded to keep up with developments both from a general and from an industry specific standpoint and the creation of our new training centre at The Hub has enabled us to be more versatile and innovative in the training that we offer to our people. Training is what we believe distinguishes our resources. Upskilling is enabling us to grow the skills and talent of our people across all grades with a view to deliver a unique experience and opportunity for career development of people and to also ensure that we deliver a superior product to our clients. Such initiatives encourage people retention and we regularly have discussions with our people about the huge opportunities that exist within our firm for ambitious, talented and driven individuals.
Technology
As we move our assurance practice forward into an ever-changing world we recognise the need for the service that we offer to remain relevant. We deliver our services in a different, modern and above all technologically up to date manner. This is our Intelligent Digital audit approach, a process very dependent on IT with a suite of tools that support and enrich our audit approach. This enables us to not only audit whole sets of client data, as compared to the sampling methodologies of the past, but to also deliver increased value adding findings for discussions with key stakeholders. We are committed to continuing to invest more in technology to automate, simplify and streamline our services further thereby improving processes and making the whole audit experience more connected for our clients and our people.
Our comprehensive and technologically enabled audit methodology delivered by our firm maintains the strong values we are proud to uphold. We remain committed to having a positive impact on our people, clients, on the business community that we serve and on society as a whole.
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