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VALLEY OF THE KINGS
One of the Largest Professional Services Firms in the World Re-Imagines its Future
Challenge
“We’ve been tasked by PwC’s CEO to define a ten-year strategy for the firm,” said PwC’s Global Strategy leader – and we’ve had our best strategic minds on this for months. We met with our top-20 C-level clients and asked them to forecast the key developments over the next decade which will shape the world in which they compete.” It’s time to tell their story, she explained, and communicate our strategy in a completely unique way. “You have no handcuffs on how you do it,” she continued, “but we need to inspire thousands of our employees to imagine a future that informs and inspires them to stretch further than they ever have and help us become the undisputed global market leader in professional services.” “Take what we have,” she said. “And give us fireworks.”
Action
Joe Duffy, the PwC Advisory partner in charge of U.S. Advisory strategy and M&A opportunities recommended the Excerra principal to PwC’s global CEO, Juan Pujadas. The expert’s role was to write the “front bumper” and key messaging for the 140-page document. That included title and core theme, prologue, a 15-page introduction, a 15-page vision statement and an introduction to each chapter that wove the tapestry of messaging deeply across the document. Using a story-telling tactic, he wrapped these elements in the future, 2018, in the context of a fictitious PwC-sponsored executive summit titled “Remembering 2008: Strategic Decisions Met and Missed Over the Last Decade of Change.” In addition to all members of the 2018 PwC Global Strategy Counsel in attendance, the story’s participants included the firm’s top client CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, CISOs, CCOs, CAEs, and Tax Directors. The question used to launch the meeting – and to structure the entire strategy plan’s framework was: “Which one or two key developments have changed the fundamentals of your business over the last decade?”
Impact
This high-level visioning white paper was used as a reference document for dozens of the firm’s practices across 18 industries and multiple solutions to operationalize and align their goals and resources for the three-year period from 2008 through 2010. The strategy team was thrilled with the outcome and helped refine it to highlight key nuances they had spent months collecting. The PwC CEO was pleased. Commenting to the PwC Global Strategy leader, he said: “This is the best-written business document I’ve ever read.”