PwC’s new India consulting JV signals bigger global role for India

PwC is positioning India at the centre of its global consulting strategy by combining its Indian consulting business with the US firm’s India advisory operations, said top PwC executives. The move marks a shift from India being primarily a delivery hub to becoming a more integrated part of PwC’s global consulting business, with more global work flowing into India and greater access to PwC’s global capabilities for Indian clients, Paul Griggs, CEO of PwC US, told ET. The combined business will bring together nearly 40,000 people and create a single, non-regulated consulting structure in India, a first among the Big Four in the country. In an exclusive chat with ET’s Vinod Mahanta, Griggs and PwC India CEO Sanjeev Krishan talk about the rationale for the JV, its strategic importance to PwC’s global consulting business and how it could be a game changer for PwC India. Edited excerpts:

The India delivery model was a well-established model over the last 15 years. Now I think PwC is taking it forward. Why go down the JV route?

Paul Griggs: Yeah, I completely agree. Separate businesses are one thing, but connecting them in a way that enables full delivery and the full complement of the resource stack, alongside AI, and combining the power of two very well-established markets, the U.S. and India, is a massive unlock for us.


It’s not only for local businesses in each of those territories, but, importantly, for global capability centres and for the work that we do to support the network at large. So, we see this as a tremendous opportunity, not only for our two firms, but certainly for our clients across the world and the network at large.

So, Paul, could you explain the rationale for the JV from the US side, and Sanjeev, could you take us through the rationale from the Indian side?

Paul Griggs: Yeah, happy to go first. From the US perspective, what’s most important for us is having the talent across a suite of capabilities that we bring to the table, ready for our clients, no matter where they are. And when I say talent, I don’t mean simply the bottom of the leverage pyramid. I mean the full complement of capabilities that sit inside our firm, being readily accessible and available inside the same team construct. That just changes the velocity of what we do.

And in the age of AI, where AI, by definition, is changing the velocity of what we do across the board and the value that we contribute, this becomes even more important.

So, from the US vantage point, we see a massive unlock in terms of what we think we can do through the combined business in India in the domestic market, using and leveraging the resources, relationships and expertise that come out of the US business alongside our PwC India partners here locally.

We see a massive opportunity to, in a combined way, deliver for multinational clients who have global capability centres in India. We also see a massive opportunity to accelerate what we are now finding more and more of, which is firms increasingly wanting PwC to operate elements of their enterprise in an agentically led way.

So, we have put these firms together. We have a great number of people, but more importantly, you take that technology talent, that AI talent, that engineering talent that now sits across each location, and this truly enables the operate business for us to accelerate, which is highly in demand across the marketplace — not just in the US, but certainly broader than the US.

And therefore, for us, it is 100% a growth strategy. Every element of what I’ve outlined, we see as an opportunity for us to grow the business in a significant way and increase the value that we are delivering to the client set in the US, but also around the globe.

Sanjeev Krishan: If I were to just add to that, I think Paul actually alluded to quite a few of those things.

From the India market standpoint, we launched our domestic market programme in 2023, three years back now. Our clients tell us that they’re happy with what they see from us, but they also tell us that they want to see the best of PwC’s global capabilities come in to solve their problems because they’re in a state of disruption and are looking for the best of PwC’s global capabilities.

By doing this, we are now able to bring the best of PwC’s global capabilities to our most important clients in India. I think that’s the most important and pivotal point from our standpoint. The network also realises that the India market is growing, Indian clients are maturing very fast, and these clients are turning global. Today, a lot of Indian businesses have significant operations overseas, but even for their Indian operations, they want the best of global competence.

So, I think that’s the first and foremost thing. We want to move away from just doing execution work for our biggest clients and also get into more strategic conversations with them. With so much value in motion, I think it’s a great opportunity, and we might actually be leaving some money on the table by not getting to a higher level of discussion with them.

Then, if you look at my client segments, GCCs have been a tremendous client segment for me over the last many years, and we have made tremendous progress. I do believe that the opportunity there is possibly four times our current ambition.

There is a huge opportunity for more and more work to actually come to India for our clients. As that happens, I think we can grow four times if we can combine the capability of the Indian GCC leaders and the US group relationship partners, or the local relationship partners and client relationship partners that are there.

We want to remove any kind of friction, or even the thought of friction. By doing this, when we know that we are tied to the hip at some level, there should be less friction over a period of time. We expect that we will be more compelling to our clients and talk about value, as opposed to necessarily saying, “Okay, I can also do this, they can also do this.”

So, we want to take the “us and them” away. We want to create a “we” from a GCC client segment standpoint. I think that’s very, very important.

And then, finally, if I were to talk about the work that we do with our global clients, I think the fact that there isn’t anywhere else with such a wide pool of talent, technology talent and, I dare say, even AI talent in times to come as India is a huge opportunity.

If we can actually enable a lot of our network growth and growth for our global clients to come through India, it would be a matter of huge pride for us in PwC India that PwC India is actually causing the growth of our network and our network clients. I think that’s a huge opportunity that is left untapped at the moment.

Those are the three big pillars for us. And just as Paul said, I completely agree. Some of those things will mean more people exchanges, more people-to-people connections and making some of these relationships more institutional. I think that’s the perfect case for PwC India to be able to do this.

And, you know, let me just say the last thing, which Paul and I have discussed, and I think it’s a matter of huge pride for us. It distinguishes us from any other Big Four.

To the first question that you asked, which Big Four firm today can say that we are one firm? PwC India is, in some ways, going to be one integrated firm.

And, you know, that, to me, is a matter of huge pride, and we are the only ones to have created that so far.

Paul, why India, and why now? Has anything changed in the global consulting business that made this structure necessary?

Paul Griggs: Why here? Why now? Despite whatever geopolitical noise may be out there, our clients continue to be global and expect seamless execution in a way that delivers the value and outcomes that they are seeking.

And in the age of AI, where we need highly talented teams that are inclusive — yes, of accountants and consultants, but also of technologists, engineers, data scientists and machine learning experts — we need to tap into talent wherever that talent is domiciled.

And frankly, if you look across our own firm, you can’t look much further in the first instance than these two territories to realise that we’re staring into it ourselves. The capability and the capacity exists. We just need to ensure that it operates in a much more seamless way.

So, in the first instance, the “why now” is that the client value proposition depends on being global. And the “why India” is that the most mature and developed consulting expertise inside our firm sits across these two territories. Alongside the massive talent pools that come out of this region, we feel that it positions us in a very unique way to accelerate and meet the needs of those growing clients, not just between these two territories, but across our network.

We believe building a more globally connected business is a real value opportunity for us. What that means inside PwC — and what this union enables — is that it doesn’t matter where the client sits. What we need to ensure is that the very best of PwC is always there, showing up to meet the needs of that client.

Again, this union combines a significant degree of the capability and capacity that sits across our various solutions in a way that we can, with velocity, deliver the very best of PwC — whether we’re talking about a client in the US, India, Japan, the Middle East, continental Europe, the UK or elsewhere.

And that’s going to be a real accelerant of the things that we can do as firms, but, more importantly, of the outcomes that we drive for our clients.

So, PwC India will have 49.9% equity but operating control. How will that work in practice, and where does the US firm retain decision-making authority?

Paul Griggs: So, this is a business that will be led and operated out of India, and Sanjeev, as CEO of this business, is critically important. So, you are exactly right that the leadership and operating responsibility of this business rests in India. But importantly, this is a joint venture. This is not a passive investment into a business; it’s an active investment into a business.

By active investment, I mean that Sanjeev will be leading a significant portion of our global consulting business, and therefore, importantly, my input and influence on the strategic decisions that we make will be very relevant.

Sanjeev and I, as joint venture partners, will be very actively engaged in that decision-making. So, for the core strategic decisions for the business, we will align around those, and Sanjeev will then execute.

Those are decisions that, frankly, I believe will position us broadly, not just between these two territories, but for the network at large.

At the network level, I have responsibility for the US firm. But as a member of our network leadership team, I also have responsibility for the commercial execution of our strategy across territories.

So, that again is very important here, because what Sanjeev and I will do in India isn’t an isolated strategic programme. Instead, this is very connected and symmetrical relative to where we see the market needs across the globe and how we want to support, develop and create solutions for those market needs for our clients.

So, is this fundamentally a cost and scale play, or is it a strategic way in which PwC’s global consulting business is being built and delivered? Is this part of the future PwC delivery model?

Paul Griggs: The latter, for sure. This is not a cost exercise. This is a very intentional decision made between two territory firms that we see benefiting both individual firms, but also massively accretive to the opportunities and the growth prospects for the network at large. And so, this is very intentionally connected to our global ambition and the market opportunities that we see, the demands that we see across territories, industries and sectors, to enable the solutioning capacity that sits inside these firms to then be made available more seamlessly to our clients globally. So this is a union driven by what we see as the growth opportunity for the firm in response to clients around the world.

Sanjeev Krishan: Increasingly, our clients are wanting to make sure that they get more and more of the domain and context that we bring. They value us not just for the execution that we do, but for the domain that we have.

We are so deep in many sectors, and our relationships are the ones that clients care about. Those relationships take years and years to build, and they are what really embed us with our clients today.

With technology changing so many things, it is really the domain and the context, and the combined strength of the network, that matters. That means catering both to the local market — and, as Paul completely agrees, the local market is very, very important. We want to bring the depth and breadth of global context and global domain to our local clients. That’s very, very important.

And then we want to make sure that the leverage of India is also available for our global clients.

If it was a pure leverage play, it could have been achieved in other ways. But we didn’t want to do that. We wanted both of us to be invested in each other.

And I think that is what this is all about — making sure that we are actually expanding our markets beyond what we see today.

For instance, I’ve been saying, and Paul completely agrees, that our joint aspiration in Vision 2030 was to achieve 3x growth in five years. Now we have turned it around to say, can we actually go five times in three years? So, not 3x in five years, but 5x in three years.

So, it is that mindset that has got us there. We wanted to be invested in each other, and that’s how this has come about.

Will more of PwC’s global consulting work be routed through India as a result of the joint venture?

Paul Griggs: No, no question about it. If you go back to the globally integrated business that we are responsible for across the world, we look at our consulting business and the solution sets that we provide. Think of it as one consulting business, with a number of offerings and solutions — our products and services that meet the demands of the marketplace across strategy and transformation, large technology delivery, cloud, engineering, data and analytics, risk, controls, governance and cyber.

So, we have a collection of offerings. When you look at the capacity, capability and expertise — to Sanjeev’s point, where do we have functional expertise, domain expertise and industry expertise? — the union of these two businesses puts a significant amount of our talent pool right here in India.

And if you go back to the intentions of the global model that we operate, serving that talent pool up to our clients, no matter where they are, is the name of the game.

So, yes, as we’ve now put these businesses together, we will have much more of our global consulting activity delivered through our India talent — not solely at the bottom of the pyramid, but across the full stack: partner to director to senior manager, manager and associate — serving the needs of our clients across the world.

So, Sanjeev, how will this change the partnership or ownership structure of the Indian firm?

Sanjeev Krishan: So, it actually doesn’t change. I mean, the Indian partners remain Indian partners. I think the operational perimeter continues to expand.

One, their equity partnership in the Indian firm remains, and hopefully this creates more strength for the Indian partnership because, as I said, today they have the ability — not that they didn’t have it yesterday — but because we are now a little bit more tied at the hip and we are invested in each other, we can call upon the best of our global resources to help our local clients.

So, if we can create value out of that, you can imagine that the value for the Indian partners goes up.

It also, in some ways, makes sure that we create what I call two plus two equals five. When we take away the friction, which I was mentioning to you earlier, whether it’s some of our GCC clients or others, we want to make sure that we are able to embed local and global capability, and that the global relationships and the local relationships take away the friction and help us win big.

There are times when we could have been slow in responding to certain client opportunities, or we could have had a dispersed mindset in responding to a client opportunity. Today, that goes away because we are all together. We are one firm at one level.

So, I think if we can monetise that well, it will certainly raise the value for the Indian partnership.

I do want to say this is a joint venture. This is a coming together of two businesses. It is not as if the Indian partnership has relinquished anything.

So, how will PwC India operate now? Will there be two different balance sheets? What will be the role of Indian partners and US partners? Any details?

Paul Griggs: Think about it this way: we each run a number of businesses, whether we’re talking consulting, deals, tax or assurance, and ultimately the economics of those businesses roll up to a single result, which gets distributed to our partners at the end of the year.

What we are doing in this example is contributing two businesses into a joint venture. That business will then have its production shared back into our respective firms in commensurate ways, which will follow the same and usual distribution process that ultimately enables the operating profit of the business to be distributed to our partners.

So, yes, there will be a joint venture balance sheet and a joint venture P&L. That P&L will then be distributed based on our equity interests that sit inside the vehicle.

Sanjeev will be running that joint venture as our consulting business right here in India, with the results of that business then being distributed back into each of our two territories.

And how will the investments happen? Will the Indian partnership also invest, and the same with the US partnership?

Paul Griggs: So, you’re right: the India consulting business gets contributed into the vehicle, and the US advisory acceleration business that sits here in India gets contributed into the vehicle. And now we are one family operating the consulting business here in India for our two territories and the rest of the world.

Sanjeev Krishan: So, Vinod, I think all I would add is that, from a consulting business standpoint, the combined business — as you know, from an Indian regulatory standpoint, the regulated part is separate — means the entire non-regulated part of the Indian business is now together, and it is a massive P&L.

My estimate is that, on day one, without doing anything, we will be almost a $2 billion business. So, you can well imagine, with normal margins — and you know the margin, so let me not say anything — what kind of investment capacity that creates for us.

And let me say that on day one, when I say we haven’t baked in any synergies, we haven’t achieved any synergies. Of course, we need to work towards those synergies. But just imagine that if we do the normal profitability, which I’m sure you know, on a $2 billion business, and we can build some synergies over a period of time, what kind of investment capacity we are creating for AI, upskilling our people, and so on and so forth.

I think it’s just tremendous, and at scale. I mean, a $2 billion business is not small. It will be a privilege for me to be able to run that business.

I think we’re creating massive scale and opportunity, and we’re creating one unified structure for the non-regulated business. That is the key message.

Paul Griggs: I think that’s an important point there. The businesses that we are contributing into this vehicle are both highly successful, high-growth businesses. So, we’re taking two high-growth businesses that have continued to accelerate over the last few years and putting them into a single vehicle.

It puts very stable growth revenues alongside very opportunistic revenues that follow growing markets, including the market right here domestically. That is going to create significant investment capacity in technology, resources, people, learning assets and the solutions that we provide, with a strong balance sheet that enables us to invest alongside our clients in the outcomes that we deliver.

So, one question PwC partners are really interested in is: how will the incentive structure work in the new JV? Will partners be rewarded for originating business that is delivered from India as part of global mandates? How will the economics of these mandates be shared?

Paul Griggs: The short answer is both. A partner is an owner in the business and also an operator in the business. As owners in the business, partners generate business because they know their markets, they know their industries, they know their domains, they know their functions, and our clients need that help — particularly in a world where AI is fundamentally changing the value equation.

We call that the demand-generation side. But our partners also have the responsibility to execute on the strategic programmes or mandates that we ultimately obtain from our clients.

So, our partners are evaluated both on the opportunities they create and the results they deliver. Sales and execution are part and parcel of what we would expect from each of our partners.

Sanjeev Krishan: Let me say this because it is important: if this is going to be successful, the success will be jointly owned by the people and the partners.

The reason I am so sanguine about the opportunity is simply because, on that expanded scale, with greater investment capability, with the transaction and the expansion of the partners’ perimeter, there is so much opportunity now.

As I mentioned, take away the friction from the GCC market, and we can grow that. We can double that business. In the network, we can become more and more visible. My partners can become more and more visible, and in the domestic market, they can upsell.

So, just looking at the opportunity and where we currently are, I think the opportunity for our partnership and our people is immense.

Paul: Yes, if I’m an individual inside this firm, whether I’m the newest associate or the most senior partner, we’ve just created a massive market-expansion opportunity led by the talent that sits within this business, and we’ve created an opportunity to generate highly profitable work at the same time. So, this is a market-expansion strategy that is going to create real opportunities for upward mobility across the board.

Do you think India will become a very important part of the global delivery system for consulting, or even for the larger Big Four firms? If you want to win globally, do you need to have that India advantage?

Paul Griggs: Certainly. We believe so inside PwC. And to your point, if you believe in the model, which we do — build highly capable teams with real, differentiated industry, functional and domain expertise; build those teams in an efficient way that enables the cost of delivery to be consumable by our clients; and then serve up that talent across the world, no matter where those clients reside — well, then you better have a very strong business right here in India.

The model that we are architecting has a real dependence on the combined PwC India business. And frankly, I think for both of us, I like the words that Sanjeev used earlier: massive responsibility and, therefore, massive trust that the PwC network is placing in this combined joint venture. We’re going to deliver into it.

And if anything, we start this business today with nearly 40,000 people. But frankly, if you look at the market needs that we see across the globe, this is a growing business.

Yes, people alongside technology. Sanjeev and I always say that, in the AI world, AI raises the floor, but people raise the ceiling. And we look forward to doing that for clients domestically here in India, for clients domestically in the US and, frankly, for clients all the way around the world.

When will the JV be operational? And Sanjeev, what changes for PwC India partners when it operationalises?

Sanjeev Krishan: So, of course, it has to go through some customary regulatory approvals. The Competition Commission of India has to approve it, and I would expect that as soon as the Competition Commission of India has approved it, we will be ready to go.

We will use this time — as you can imagine, on something which is as scaled as this, there are multiple things that we need to be mindful of — to make sure that we are getting ready for day one.

Our focus is to get the Day 1 plans ready in the interim. So, whether it is a plan for the network, for the GCC clients or domestic clients, we will be getting that ready. We will be getting our people integration thought process ready, as well as other areas, including hard infrastructure and other enabling functions.