Introduction
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a multinational company that has its headquarters in the United Kingdom.It is renowned worldwide to be the largest accountancy services provider in over 160 countries worldwide.The name was formed by the combination of names Pricewaterhouse and Coopers Lybrand after they decided to have a merger in the year 1998.
What they do
PricewaterhouseCoopers is known worldwide to be the largest professional services provider. They provide accountancy and consultancy services worldwide in over 160 countries and has offices in over 787 cities worldwide. Their professional services range from management and consultancy services, outsourced business services, financial solutions advice, tax consultancy and legal advice and mostly auditing services.
Tax advisory services are aimed at helping companies in planning, ensuring compliance to the local tax laws and adherence to local customs regulations. Other advisory services which are mainly consultancy services cover issues such as strategy management, overall performance improvement, business asset valuation such as the land buildings and other assets. Other services include business recovery services from poor performance, crisis management, corporate financing solutions and transaction services.
In the general market, their services aim to target the various broad industries specialties such as the private sector services, government institutions and infrastructure, entertainment and communication industry, financial service providers and the general consumer products and services.
Mission and vision
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ mission is to provide their customers and clients with solutions to complex business problems that exist in the day to day financial life. They also have a vision in continuing to improve performance in managing risk related issues and being able to estimate their ability to enhance value building and improvement.
What made PWC so successful and how they gained the success to become a worldwide company
After Pricewaterhouse and Coopers Lybrand merged in the year 1998, they were able to form the largest accounting partnership and business consultancy services provider worldwide. With approximately 180,000 professional employees worldwide, they were able to provide a wide range of services to over 159 countries and 776 cities. This ensured that their services were easily accessible to almost all countries in the world and as a result made people gain trust as the best consultancy business services provider.
Being able to have a global outreach and providing services across Europe and various countries worldwide, they were able to put themselves in a different league. Merging also enabled them have a wide base of consultancy services that generate fees which ensured their sustainability in the future. Growth was attributed to factors such the ability to provide and implement a variety of complex services to international corporations. Having seen auditing services being increasingly risky and expensive, they decided to venture deeply into consultancy services. This was to avoid paying huge payments related to the collapse of companies they were accused of auditing.
In one instance that involved the fraud of MiniScribe investors’ a disk making company, they were forced to pay law suit claims amounting to $ 92 million to the investors. Later on several factors helped in their recovery such as increase in the fee income and expansion into the Russian and Eastern Europe market. Through the merger the company the company has been able to build strong relationships that have meaningful value to their clients.
The key and core values that they come back to over and over again
In ensuring that they achieve their objectives, PricewaterhouseCoopers ensures that core business values are always maintained. One of the core values that they come back to over and over again is by ensuring the best and most talented employees are retained. Also in an effort to ensuring a qualified workforce, they conduct recruitment programs that provide life changing opportunities and making sure that the gap between top management and young talent is continuously reduced.
The second core value is by ensuring the employees have a flexible working culture, which gives them an opportunity to create a balance between home issues and work related issues. They do this by providing the employees the freedom to choose where they want to work and the environment which employees deem as suitable to them.
Thirdly, PricewaterhouseCoopers has ensured the employees are always updated on the technology that will make work easier and efficient. Ability to harness and integrate technology has ensured that there is flexibility at the work place. Efficient technology is important as it maintains and portrays the company as the best service provider in the market.
Fundamental business values in product/service distinctions
Some of the business values that make the company distinct from other competitors is their ability to provide services to both the public and private sector as a whole. With the acquisition of a global network after their merger in the year 1998, PricewaterhouseCoopers made sure that there is a strong presence of well trained staff in all of their branches.
Current performance
Currently the company has an improved performance in the overall market which they have invested in. This is mostly seen in china with a growth of up to fifty percent. In the year 2012 financial year it generated total revenue of up to $31.5 billion part of which $14.9 billion came from assurance practices while $7.9 billion was generated from taxation services.
PricewaterhouseCoopers corporate social responsibility
The company has over the years committed itself in contributing its time, skills and finances to the globe. In the market they contribute towards various social functions such as youth education, in the community they ensure that a culture of business responsibility is maintained. In their efforts to make contributions towards the youth by ensuring the recruits always receive financial literacy. The company also ensures that the students are able to make sound financial decisions which lead to development of the economy.
It was observed that there has been an ever increasing gap between the top company and the upcoming youth. Hence in response to this challenge they have worked towards ensuring retention of the best talent in the market. They did this by providing an opportunity of a lifetime by employing talented individuals who contribute better services that make a healthier economy. Another way of ensuring youth education is by motivating and developing a culture of recruiting the next generation leaders.
Another way of social corporate responsibility is by contributing to the community through charity programs. As an organization, PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a culture of giving back to the community from donations made to the foundation. The donations are received internally from the employees who make contributions through the website. In their efforts to help the community PricewaterhouseCoopers received a recognition award in the year 2011 for having the best employee volunteer program.