Integrated Report transcript: Dion Shango shares the highlights 2021

Our 2021 Integrated Report tells the story of a remarkable year. The report focuses on our impact, value creation, strategy and related performance for the financial year that started on 1 July 2020 and ended on 30 June 2021.

The report demonstrates significant progress on our journey towards reimagining Africa, together, in a changing world. Competition in business has never been more intense, and societal expectations of business have never been greater. Businesses need to change faster and more thoroughly than ever before if they want to succeed.

In 2021 PwC Africa launched our refreshed global strategy, The New Equation. The New Equation is our response to the dramatic forces we see impacting the world - both now and in the future. Some of these forces have been in play for a number of years, including technological disruption, climate change and fractured geopolitics, with the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerating those trends. 

The New Equation addresses two fundamental and interconnected needs every organisation faces - the need to build trust across a broader range of stakeholders and the need to deliver sustained outcomes. 

The strategy positions PwC, wherever we are in the world, as builders of trust and a community of solvers who deliver sustained outcomes and help clients build trust with their stakeholders. 

We have over 9,000 people across Africa, with more than 5,000 based in South Africa, all making a difference and having an impact by delivering on our key strategic objectives, underpinned as always by quality, our values and our purpose. 

Our 2021 Integrated Report details PwC Africa’s six key focus areas for The New Equation strategy, which are trust, growth and value creation, ESG, digitisation, international development, and workforce.

The report also demonstrates our commitment to our societal purpose strategy, which is built on three pillars, to support seven of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. These three pillars are:  

• what we do as a firm,
• how we assist our clients, and 
• how we help the communities around us. 

Just as important is our focus on quality. We have rigorous policies, systems and processes in place to ensure audit quality, and to foster a culture of quality at every level of the firm. We talk more about this in our Transparency Report. 

What I'm most proud of is the resilience displayed by our people, even during the most adverse circumstances, and this can be seen in our positive results. 

The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be challenging during FY21. But we successfully continued operating our business and serving our clients. Our existing tools and historical investment in technology and infrastructure allowed our people to work and engage with our clients in different ways. This was further embedded during FY21.

Digital transformation remains a key strategic area for PwC. We have continued our digital upskilling journey, offering all our people intermediate-level training in data analytics, visualisation, and robotic process automation. In FY21 we also started offering advanced courses on data analytics and visualisation and 2,195 staff members in South Africa completed some form of digital upskilling. 

The report also covers our transformation journey. We are particularly proud of how this is evident in the composition of our executive structures within the firm and the impact we have made in advancing women in business.

In FY21 our main priority remained keeping our people healthy and giving them the flexibility to care for themselves and their loved ones. 

We believe in building trusted relationships with our clients, people and all stakeholders. By sharing this report with you, we want to improve your understanding of how we create value by fulfilling our purpose – to build trust in society and solve important problems.