Zeiten des Wandels: PwC-CMO Jan-Hendrik Völker-Albert über Transformation

m&kJan Hendrik Völker-Albert, we are meeting in PwC's Experience Center in Zurich - a place that looks more like a start-up than a consulting firm. Why are we here?

Jan-Hendrik Völker-AlbertI believe our Experience Center represents the PwC of the future - and shows how we can work with clients to develop solutions to their individual challenges. We try to bring together the best of three worlds: Business expertise, technology expertise and customer experience.

You know your way around complex challenges: Before joining PwC, you were responsible for SBB marketing and thus for one of Switzerland's most exposed brands. How do you think back to that time today?

I always have fond memories of my time at SBB - especially of the big campaigns we launched back then, like the "Unterwegs zuhause" campaign. SBB simply has an incredible number of contact points: Over a million people use its services every day, and practically everyone in Switzerland is a perceived surrogate CEO for the company (laughs). This means that not only is every market cultivation measure linked to direct feedback, but you also constantly have the opportunity to make positive changes at all touchpoints.

When your own work is in the public spotlight like this, it also brings with it a certain amount of pressure - doesn't it?

I rather had the feeling that I had been given a very exciting challenge. In addition to customers, at SBB you also have to deal with very complex stakeholder groups

... for example, decision-makers from politics ...

Yes, and that's when you realize what marketing can do. If communicative measures really help to increase customer satisfaction, the stakeholders are happy too - or at least can't complain.

The change from one of "the" Swiss companies to an internationally oriented firm like PwC: Was that a culture shock?

I had worked in consulting before joining SBB, so I knew the business well. It was a bit like coming home. And I was used to adjusting to completely new settings all the time. By the way, there is more in common between the two companies than you might think. Both are number one in their respective fields, both are undergoing enormous transformation.

When you joined PwC, you not only took over Marketing and Communications in Switzerland - but also Digital Marketing at the European level. How did this dual role come about?

As part of my responsibility for all marketing and communications in Switzerland, we have made significant investments in our digital ecosystem and are one of the truly leading countries at PwC in this regard. This has quite logically resulted in a coordination function for the other European country markets.

How well did your company come through the Corona pandemic?

As a company, we have come through the lockdown period well so far, and also through the crisis. We have very quickly, very consistently aligned our services and our portfolio of offerings to the changing conditions. And after the investments we had made in our digital ecosystem, we sought a great deal of contact with our customers online. During the lockdown period, we sent out over 150,000 mailings in Switzerland alone. We offered countless webinars every week and used all the platforms that are available digitally to interact. Some contacts are even more intensive now than before the crisis.

For many companies, things are currently less than optimal. Is this due to the pandemic alone - or does the crisis also reveal weaknesses that existed before?

On the one hand, the current situation reveals structural weaknesses and shows where companies really need to take action - in some cases even very short-term action. On the other hand, the crisis also shows which companies have made significant investments in the future and are therefore now coming through the crisis much better than others.

Does such a crisis play into the hands of an auditing and consulting firm? The fact is that PwC is also busy identifying the structural weaknesses of companies...

To say something like that would be inappropriate. And it's important to remember that we do much more than uncover structural weaknesses. Our core business is to build trust in society, address important problems and uncover any weaknesses together with the customer, and develop new solutions and services based on this.

Do we really see "new" solutions in the area of digitization at the moment - or mainly the attempt to painstakingly keep analog processes alive with digital tools?

I do believe that change processes have now been significantly intensified and accelerated. In my opinion, however, the technology behind this is only one component. And certainly not the most important one in the overall game. What is much more important, from my experience and also for my marketing and communications function at PwC, than the technology that I can buy, deploy, implement in the shortest possible time, is the complete alignment and adaptation of the entire system and business model to the technological requirements, so that I really generate value for my company. And beyond that, it is often massively underestimated that you have to take all your employees with you on this journey. Only then will you be able to put the speed on the road and make an impact.

Transformation also occupies your company. We mentioned the Experience Center at the beginning of our conversation. Where is the journey taking you?

Here, in the Experience Center, we look together with our customers and also in the context of co-creation at what future services are expected and desired and try to develop ourselves continuously together with external partners. In this context, all technology-driven services such as blockchain, robotic process automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are naturally among the topics in which we want to be present.

Is this innovative course sufficiently perceived on the market? As an outsider, I sometimes have the feeling that the public still sees consulting as a job-cutting and cost-saving business.

I know exactly what you mean (laughs). I don't believe that we already have sufficient market awareness for new business areas. But we have invested heavily in this area in recent years and are trying to change our customers' perception.

This is complicated by the fact that the media mainly report on the "Big Four" when something is not going so well ...

Sure, and that's also a very relevant part of my communication task. On the one hand, to set positive communication points - but also to avoid negative communication points whenever possible. I know the prejudices people have about consulting: They are too expensive, too uncreative ... But we gave ourselves a very ambitious purpose more than a decade ago: "Building trust in society and solving important problems". This is our guiding star for all activities in the market and a very clear stance that we take. We are also sending out clear signals here - in Switzerland, for example, we have paid back all the short-time working allowances from the Corona crisis or not claimed them at all. Such signals also help us to differentiate ourselves from our market competitors.

That's certainly not always easy, I would think?

Differentiation is one of the core challenges of our industry. Because it is already the case in many people's view that audit and advisory firms are no longer sufficiently different from one another; indeed: increasingly interchangeable. So, for better or worse, we are committed to making PwC distinct. And we do that through a clear stance, through our Purpose, the corresponding values, and naturally also in the way we interact with clients. Here we know that we are unique.