Today’s singular focus was a company visit to PWC, one of the Big Four accounting firms and an internationally renowned professional services network with over $40B annual revenues. Their most lucrative practices are Assurance, Advisory, and Tax and Legal.
The PWC building itself spoke volumes about the company. It looked modern and polished on both the inside and the outside, located in a busy part of Nicosia between Wargaming and the Presidential Palace. Between the bar, yoga balls, ceiling grass, and abundance of screens and glass, the top floor of the building was strongly reminiscent of the American corporate buildings I’ve been in (particularly the more progressive tech-oriented ones like Dropbox). In the introductory presentation, the presenter made it clear that this was an intentional effort to convey the notion that PWC is not a conventional workspace—it emphasizes freedom and creativity. Of course, every company likes to claim that they don’t micromanage their employees, but I can’t know whether they follow through on their promises without working there.
The first presentation focused heavily on supply chain management. Unsurprisingly, I was particularly interested in the machine learning aspects of his presentation, which he fortunately touched on heavily. I learned that artificial intelligence in supply chain management is now considered more of a requirement than an optional supplement, which was interesting considering I had no idea the technology was already fleshed out to this degree. Out of the subsequent three presentations, I found the one about circular supply chains the most interesting, as it taught me about the considerations companies must make to justify establishing a nonlinear supply chain.
As a consulting/accounting firm, PWC itself doesn’t fit into a supply chain in a cut-and-dry way, but the impact of its services would be seen very early on in the development of a product or service. They’re fairly versatile and could feasibly help a company with a number of things related to their supply chain, but they ultimately won’t contribute anything to the direct process of moving products and materials.
It’s difficult to compare US and Cyprus business practices through the lens of PWC because the company, despite having a branch in Cyprus, is headquartered in London and has a strong US presence. However, as I was saying in the second paragraph, they clearly pride themselves on being relatively innovative with their workplace environment. This is a practice I’ve heard of more in the US than Cyprus, but that could just be bias stemming from my lack of experience with the Cyprus industry.