Advisory services

Helping clients deal with challenges and capitalise on opportunities 

Our latest Global Ceo Survey  found that business leaders are increasingly concerned about threats outside of their control such as trade conflicts and policy uncertainty. They are also contending with significant gaps in their own capabilities and with finding the right talent, and many feel they are struggling to extract the maximum value of their market and client data. 

Our clients range from leading multinational companies to local companies and start-ups, from family business and governments to private sector and private individuals. It is the role of our advisory teams to help all of them deal with change starting from strategy definition and dealing with the technology and upskilling challenges in providing onsite support in process and risk management, IT security and smart technology solutions. The objective is to anticipate and manage changes and risks and help them capitalise on opportunities to innovate and expand while coping with appropriate regulations.

New world, new skills 

We all know that the world of business is unrecognisable from over 30 years ago. Even when looking at the changes that have come in the last five to 10 years, from smartphone to the internet to AI and automation, how we work today looks very different.

While this has brought benefits for us, our stakeholders and society, we have also seen some pressing challenges.

How do we keep up with the skills required to create and use technologies to their full advantage? How do we make sure no one gets left behind, as artificial intelligence and robotics revolutionise the workplace and workforce? 

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Upskilling our people is key for us as a Firm and we are glad to have encouraged other businesses to join us on this upskilling journey.

As Christian Scharff, one of our Upskilling experts mentions it clearly in the video, any job can be divided in numerous tasks, some will be outsourced, some will be automated, the remaining ones will have to be dealt with new skills. Those new skills result from adapting to the digital world and are not necessarily digital skills in themselves.

In Advisory, we adapt our client service approach to enhance client experience, using technology and data solutions powered by state of the art business know-how

François Génaux
Advisory Leader

Enhancing the client experience 

We help each of our clients to understand their needs and priorities, build trust with their stakeholders, solve problems and create the value they need to be successful. To do so, a critical component of our strategy is to adapt our approach to the market and client experience, powered by technology and data.

We are glad to share two case studies which show concretely how we supported our clients: 

European commission (Business Avenue) flagship programme that supports SME

PwC Luxembourg, through its Accelerator expertise, supports the European Commission as an operator of EU Gateway | Business Avenues, a flagship programme that helps SMEs establish long-lasting business collaborations in Asia. In our role as the Coaching Network, we are running four different programmes targeting Korea, South East Asia, Japan and China. As the Coaching Network, PwC is responsible for the programme’s promotion and recruitment activities, coaching small and medium-sized enterprises on market expansion, internationalisation-readiness and helping participants to generate business collaborations and expand their business in Asia.

The programme tackles some fundamental challenges facing Europe: job creation, economic development and sustainable growth. In addition, it supports the EU’s trade agenda with partner countries. Scale, export growth and promotion of sustainability values are at the core of the programme’s activities. To tackle these key challenges, we focused firstly on scale: up to 2020, the programme will take 2,700 EU companies to Asia. For this, we have promoted this opportunity to thousands of SMEs across all the EU member states. Secondly, we directed our recruitment efforts to different economic sectors, with attention towards companies embodying sustainability values and concepts in terms of both product innovation and process development. The programme promotes European technologies abroad and includes a focus on SMEs that apply the principles of circular economy such as sustainable product design, extended product life-cycle, reusability, recycling. There are also missions specialised in solutions such as green energy, environmental and clean technologies, among other sectors. Last but not least, we placed business impact at the centre of our coaching and business matching approach to ensure that the needs and opportunities for each market and sector are consistently integrated in the programme methodology. EU Gateway | Business Avenues is a results oriented programme, and the success of participating companies in new markets is a key driver for all our activities. 

Feedback numbers collected between 2016-2018*, show that 97% of participants intend to apply again, whilst 92% of participants are either satisfied or very satisfied with the programme. Overall, 24% of business cooperation have enhanced economic growth in the EU as a reflex of company turnover growth, and participants report having created more than 1,900 new jobs in the EU since participating in the programme. 

Key figures until the end of 2020:

  • We will have organised 56 business missions to Asia, coached 2,700 participating European SMEs, promoted 9 business sectors, organised more than 25,000 meetings in target markets.
  • Overall for the programme: 22% of participants concluded sales or signed a contract and 30% expect to do so in the future. 

*Source: Programme Annual Report 2018, available at: eugateway.eu/about/documentation

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Foyer Assurances

Luxembourg won’t be the first market to be disrupted, but Luxembourg customer expectations will be rapidly influenced by what's happening in other markets. These are the words of Marc Lauer, CEO of Foyer Assurances, who considered that his company had only 24 to 26 months to prepare for disruption, this was the beginning of our journey with Foyer back in 2016, with the Foyer 2020 project.

Foyer needed to rethink their strategy towards a complete digitalisation of their business with a strong focus on its clients.

Laurent Petitcolas, Head of Projects and Organisations at Foyer, explains to us how important it was for his organisation to be challenged at the very top level and how crucial it was for their transformation to listen to their clients, with a new approach, by designing a new customer journey.

Bringing the voice of the client at executive committee level was instrumental for Foyer to remain relevant for their clients and even for society at large: an effective  way to deliver on their purpose.

Contact us

François Génaux

Advisory Partner, Advisory Leader, PwC Luxembourg

Tel: +352 49 48 48 4175