Investing today to shape tomorrow

Lucienne: For PwC it means investing now for the future. In this world full of uncertainty, geopolitical unrest, and the world, which is being reshaped by AI, it means strengthening our core services, assurance, tax, deals, and consulting, by modernising the way that we work and how we serve clients. 
 
So it's investing in technology enabled services. And that coupled with investing 
in professional skills and trusted human judgment, we can address clients' needs and deliver lasting outcomes. 

Lucienne: So, besides the changing of the brand and the refurbishment of office space, which is visible, there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes. We are modernising the way that we're doing things, enhancing access to AI tools 
to everyone within the firm, and building the necessary skills, like in AI, for example, 
developing AI skills across the firm. We are living the transformation journey that we are advising our clients on. 
 
One other thing, which I would say is even more hidden, is the way that we're organising ourselves. We believe that for a lot of the services that clients need in the future, it would require a hybrid of skills. So, people coming from different teams, specialities, across the firm. It is bringing those capabilities to work together on a particular client issue. 
 
Our clients’ needs are becoming more complex. For this reason, the firm has invested in technology, managed services, as well as alliances. 

Lucienne: So, the three aspects you mentioned, technology, managed services, and alliances are considered to be key enablers. For example, if clients are going through a transformation journey, they need a mix of the technology part and the subject matter experts. It could be regulatory. It could be the finance people. And that's an opportunity to come up with something which is, more powerful for our clients. 
 
Alliances are important because as you can imagine, it will be very difficult, if not impossible for one single firm to have all the skills that are necessary from A to Z. So, while creating alliances, partnerships with the network, with other network firms, or even with third parties, we can access those capabilities that we might not have in-house. 
 
It also allows us, in certain cases, to be more agile, for example, to move to the implementation. I mean, from a challenge point of view, upskilling people, making sure they have the right skills, and setting the right pace. Because we're investing and now it's determining exactly as well what pace to adopt.

Lucienne: I think the last year has shown the resilience of our firm and the strength of our people. But what it has also shown is that we cannot keep on relying on practices that we've been adopting for so long.

So, two priorities emerge in my mind, one to keep on investing in AI enabled services and skills of our people and integrate those two together. Secondly, we also need to connect our expertise to clients’ needs. We do this by finding how we can keep on adding value to our clients.

In my mind, it's continuing to enhance our services so that we achieve two things: a more lasting impact, for our clients and a more meaningful experience as well for our people. 

Lucienne: Thank you.