PwC : Everything you need to know

PwC: Everything you need to know

About PwC

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a multinational professional services network of companies, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It ranks as the second-largest professional services network globally and is considered among the Big Four accounting firms.

PwC holds offices in more than 740 locations in 157 countries. As of 2021, it employs over 295,000 staff, about a quarter of whom are based in the Americas, a third in the Asia-Pacific region, and 42% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The company’s global revenue reached $45.142 billion in FY 2021, around $17 billion of which was generated by its assurance division $11 billion by its tax and legal practice, and $17 billion by its advisory unit. PwC firms provide services to 84% of Global Fortune 500 companies in 2021.

Based in London, PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited is the coordinating entity for PwC’s international network of firms. It manages the global brand and develops policies and initiatives to create a unified approach in different areas, including risk, quality, and strategy. The entity does not provide services to clients.

Brief history

PricewaterhouseCoopers was founded through a merger between two accounting firms – Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand – in 1998. Both firms had histories dating back to the 19th century. As part of a branding effort, the company’s trading name was shortened to PwC in September 2010.

After the merger, the firm’s professional consulting branch generated much of its revenues. PwC came under increasing pressure to avoid conflicts of interest by not providing some consulting services – including financial systems design and implementation – to its audit clients. Because PwC audited a big percentage of the world’s largest companies, this started to limit its consulting market. As a result, PwC Consulting began to conduct business under its own name rather than as the Management Consultancy Services (MCS) division of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In May 2002, PwC announced that its consulting activities would be spun off as an independent entity and hired an outside CEO to run the global firm. Months later, however, PwC sold its entire consultancy business to IBM for approximately $3.5 billion in cash and stocks. PwC’s consultancy business was absorbed into IBM Global Business Services, which increased the size and capabilities of the tech giant’s growing consultancy practice.

In 2009, PwC started rebuilding its consultancy practice with significant acquisitions, including Paragon Consulting Group and the commercial services business of BearingPoint. The firm continued this process by acquiring Diamond Management & Technology Consultants in November 2010 and PRTM the following year. In 2012, PwC acquired Logan Tod & Co, a digital analytics and optimisation consultancy, and Ant's Eye View, a social media strategy development and consulting firm, to build upon its growing management consulting client impact and engagement capabilities.

In 2016, PwC and InvestCloud, LLC, the world’s largest Digital App Platform announced that they entered into a non-exclusive joint business partnership aimed at speeding up the adoption and implementation of the InvestCloud Digital App Platform. The following year, PwC accepted bitcoin as payment for advisory services, the first time the company or any of the Big Four accounting firms, accepted virtual currency as payment. In February 2020, PwC announced a new collaboration with technology firm ThoughtRiver to launch AI-driven LawTech products designed to standardise PwC's service to UK law clients.

Leadership at PwC

Robert Moritz – Chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited

Moritz serves as the global chairman of PwC, a post he has held since 2016. In his more than three decades with the company, he has held various leadership roles, the most recent of which as chairman and senior partner of its US operations.

Apart from being PwC’s representative with the Global Public Policy Committee and other profession-focused organizations, Moritz is a member of the World Economic Forum International Business Council and Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. He also holds membership in the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. Moritz chairs the Global Leadership Council of Generation Unlimited, a UNICEF-affiliated organisation focused on helping young people develop skills for the future. He is also a UN HeForShe Corporate Impact Champion.

Culture at PwC

PwC’s “New world. New skills.” initiative is aimed at addressing the mismatch between the skills people have today and those needed for the workforce of the future. The programme focuses on reaching millions of people, NGOs, and social enterprises. In 2020, PwC announced a global collaboration with UNICEF in support of Generation Unlimited, a multi-sector partnership aimed at helping 1.8 billion young people transition from school to work by 2030.

PwC has also made a worldwide science-based commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. The commitment includes supporting its clients to cut their emissions and reducing those from the PwC network’s operations and suppliers. PwC commits to decarbonise its operations in line with independently validated science-based targets, including its travel footprint and neutralise its remaining climate impact through carbon removal projects.