PWC Company

William Cooper established an accountancy firm in London, England, in 1854. When his three brothers joined seven years later, it became Cooper Brothers. Lybrand, Ross Brothers, and Montgomery were founded in the United States in 1898 by Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr., and his brother T. Edward Ross. Coopers & Lybrand was formed in 1973 when the three-member firms in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada changed their identities. Then, in 1980, Coopers & Lybrand significantly increased its insolvency expertise by acquiring Cork Gully, a leading firm in the UK. The firm was created in September 1998 when Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse.

Price Waterhouse was well-known as an accounting firm by the late nineteenth century. Price Waterhouse established an office in New York in 1890 due to expanding trade between the United Kingdom and the United States, and the American firm grew.

The firm bought BGT Partners, a 17-year-old digital consultant, on November 4, 2013. In November 2016, PwC purchased NSI DMCC, Salesforce's largest Middle East implementation partner, a technology/consulting firm. PwC accepted bitcoin as payment for consulting services in November 2017, marking the first time the organization, or any of the Big Four accountancy firms, had done so. PwC and technology firm ThoughtRiver announced a new partnership in February 2020 to produce AI-driven LawTech products targeted at standardizing PwC's service to UK law clients.

The global network of firms is coordinated by PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, situated in London, England. It oversees the worldwide brand and establishes policies and programs to ensure that risk, quality, and strategy are all addressed consistently and coordinated. It does not offer any services to customers. PwC is the fourth-largest privately held firm in the United States as of 2021.

Corporate affairs and culture

The company employs a huge number of young people, with millennials accounting for 80 percent of the workforce as of 2017. According to PwC, education is used to bridge the cultural gap between generations. The company uses a three-step "Connect-Embed-Improve" strategy to boost employee engagement. Employees at PwC enjoy a lot of freedom when scheduling their work hours, as long as top management approves. PwC developed the first global "Code of Conduct" for the accounting profession in 2002. As part of its commitment to promote an inclusive culture and address the racial imbalance, PwC formed the ColorBrave Charity Committee, which comprises workers from around the company.

Partnerships

PwC's decision to begin moving its operations to the cloud included partnering with Google. Google established a partnership with PwC in 2014 to help businesses adopt cloud computing. PwC is one of Google Workspace's three million business clients that pay for services previously known as G Suite and Apps for Work. PwC and Microsoft partnered in India in 2016 to deliver the services of both firms to the Indian business community. In 2016, the company established a five-course online educational platform named "Data Analysis and Presentation Skills" in collaboration with Coursera.

PwC collaborates with the UN to keep the international organization's monitoring systems current. PwC is also a founding partner of UN Women's HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 Initiative, created in 2015 to promote gender equality. The program developed an online course to raise awareness of unintentional gender prejudice in the workplace.

PwC, together with Microsoft, was one of the main sponsors of the inaugural ID2020 Summit, which took place in May 2016 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Over 400 participants attended the summit to debate how to deliver digital identity to all, a specified Sustainable Development Goal that includes 1.5 billion people who lack recognized identification.

Operations

Due to local statutory constraints, PwC refers to the PwC network and one or more of its member companies, each of which is a separate legal organization. Like other professional services firms, each member firm is financially and legally self-contained. PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, a private corporation limited by guarantee under English law, is in charge of PwC. PwC is also registered as a multifunctional organization that offers legal services. PwC's revenue growth in FY18 was 15 percent in Asia, followed by a 12 percent increase in the Middle East and Africa.

Staff and offices

PwC had 295,371 employees worldwide as of June 30, 2021. Western Europe, Asia, and the Americas employ the greatest number of people. PwC has roughly 800 locations in 157 countries with partners.