The global agreement was brokered with the intent of developing new services to help clients “lean into the massive disruption transforming all industries”.
“This alliance is a response to the pace of change and volatility businesses are experiencing which is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” PwC Australia chief executive Luke Sayers told the Australian Financial Review.
The new services will include reselling and installing Google’s Apps for Work suite of products, which includes Gmail, Hangouts, Docs, Sheets, Admin and Vault.
PwC and Google also want to create new products and services, and split the spoils derived from intellectual capital, product sales and consulting work accordingly.
The deal will also involve high-level strategy work and research, helping businesses capitalise on technological change rather than just reacting to it.
The news comes at a time of great technological change for the accounting profession, which is increasingly realising the benefits of new digital solutions and cloud computing.
In July, Deloitte Private appointed a leading cloud accounting expert as a new partner, recruited specifically to grow the firm’s cloud-based service offering.
Lisa Stribley joined the firm’s Melbourne office after 21 years at Hansens, one of the very first firms in Australia to migrate its business and client base to the cloud.
“I think we are at the beginning of a substantial digital disruption of the industry,” Smithink founding director David Smith told AccountantsDaily.
“It started at transaction processing,” Mr Smith said.
“I can see a world where you combine artificial intelligence and machine learning to the extent that some advice aspects of accounting will either be automated or simplified because a lot of the machines will do the number crunching for the adviser,” he said.
“Through complex algorithms and machine learning, so machines watching how human beings are doing things and learning from that.”
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