Video transcript: Functional excellence

Transcript

Nick Groves: Functional excellence for me is, of course, about a function being able to execute efficiently and effectively. But it's much more than that.

Will Stevns: It's very rare that we're just working with our clients in that particular single function.

Sarah Moore: The magic in all of this is when we work in an integrated way. It's about the way that we all come together.

Nick: The challenges, and questions, that clients feel right now are huge.We're dealing with uncertainty and volatility, but also we're at a crossroads with new investments and technologies.

Sarah: We are helping clients address many challenges. It could be the way they structure their organisations. It might be the way that they are providing services to their clients.

Nick: The function that I mostly work with, finance, functional excellence means two things. It means being able to run the finance function really effectively, but free up mind space to help the business think about its next pivot. So I like to say that finance is like looking at the whole chessboard. You can see where all the pieces are, could be thinking three, four, five, ten moves ahead.

Sarah: We're here to support our clients with making sure that there's the best possible experience for their workforce and of course, their clients who will benefit from happy, engaged people who are delivering at the best of their ability.

Will: When I talk to my clients about why they use PwC, it's very simple. It is our people. We've got all of the right people, all the right skills in one place, bringing all those pieces together from insight through design and actually then to build and run. Our ability to drive a front to back transformation is differentiating.

Nick: Bringing sector expertise to bear on functional transformation is also really critical.

Will: Our work spans a whole range of sectors, everything from transforming the experience of citizens in local government all the way through some of the biggest retail and consumer goods brands, and rethinking the way that digital is changing the way that we interact with those organisations, and then into financial services as well.

Nick: We can draw on not just all of the expertise that’s required to make finance work really effectively, but deeper skills around tax or risk and compliance and all of the technology that underpins a major finance transformation.

Will: What's interesting and exciting for us at the moment is the impact of AI.

Sarah: There's a fantastic opportunity right now for our clients around GBS—global business services—taking agentic AI and creating workers who we would call agents. What we're seeing is that blend of finance, HR, legal, technology, you name it, all coming together, but with agents who can provide repeatable, consistent quality services to our clients.

I would say the best bit about my job is being able to make change at a time of such innovation.