PwC plans to overhaul its global consulting business in a bid to eliminate the sometimes disjointed service when its national firms work together, which bosses view as a disadvantage against more tightly integrated rivals.<\/p>\n
A blueprint being drawn up by international leaders is designed to standardise PwC\u2019s services across the globe and increase the use of shared staff in locations such as India, according to five people familiar with the effort.<\/p>\n
The planning has been given a new urgency by the rise of AI and the threat of major upheaval across the consulting industry, the people said.<\/p>\n
PwC UK made one of the first moves to adopt the new strategy, telling staff on Tuesday that it would merge its risk and consulting divisions, bringing together two of its three advisory businesses, which sit alongside audit and tax. The deal advisory unit will remain separate.<\/p>\n
Marco Amitrano, PwC UK senior partner, said: \u201cThis decision is about global alignment and we are leading on this along with our colleagues in the US and global firms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike most multinationals, PwC and the other Big Four accounting and consulting groups \u2013 Deloitte, EY and KPMG \u2013 are structured as networks of locally owned partnerships under an international umbrella organisation. That often creates complexity when serving multinational clients.<\/p>\n
PwC\u2019s rivals have merged some member firms or handed significant power to the central organisation. EY planned an even more radical solution of merging all of its locally owned consulting businesses and floating the combined entity on the US stock market, before infighting doomed the plan.<\/p>\n
Mohamed Kande, the first consultant to be appointed PwC\u2019s global chair, has been pushing for tighter integration but has pulled back from the most radical options for fear of creating friction within the network, according to some people familiar with the planning.<\/p>\n
The reorganisation is still politically fraught, the people said. While global bosses at Big Four firms have long pushed for common standards across all countries, national member firms have historically been resistant to giving up control of parts of their business.<\/p>\n
The objective is to standardise training and demand planning, and to direct client projects to the parts of the firm\u2019s international operations with appropriate capabilities and highest quality, said one of the people.<\/p>\n
Another person said PwC would keep its \u201ceconomic model under review [and] if further territory integration is believed to make us stronger and more effective, then we will progress those things\u201d.<\/p>\n
The blueprint is designed to align service offerings and promote shared technology platforms, such as the AI-led \u201cPwC One\u201d suite of products recently launched by the US business.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a more globally integrated business is really important,\u201d PwC US chief executive Paul Griggs told the FT. \u201cWhere a client resides shouldn\u2019t limit the expertise of PwC that they receive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the plans, PwC UK\u2019s merged risk and consulting businesses will be led by Jonathan House, who is the current head of consulting, from July. Head of risk, Claire Reid, will become PwC UK\u2019s chief technology and innovation officer, it announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The enlarged UK consulting division, advising on a range of matters from AI to supply chain management and regulation, will employ 4,600 people and have about \u00a31.1bn in annual revenues.<\/p>\n
Amitrano said merging service lines would help tackle multinationals\u2019 complex projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s challenges don\u2019t fall into neat categories,\u201d he said. \u201cAn issue like cyber can cut across geopolitical risk, technological advancement and ultimately business strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The merger would enable quicker advice for clients \u201crather than\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. saying, \u2018we will get back to you in a day because we just need to co-ordinate those [service] lines\u2019\u201d. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PwC plans to overhaul its global consulting business in a bid to eliminate the sometimes disjointed service when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,8924,40229,61,60,18040,25193],"class_list":{"0":"post-399622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-deloitte","10":"tag-ey","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-kpmg","14":"tag-pwc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}