Key Points
- The new joint venture will have about 40,000 employees, making it one of PwC’s largest units.
- PwC India Chair Sanjeev Krishan will become chief executive of the new entity, while PwC US will retain majority voting rights.
- The restructuring is designed to integrate consulting, technology, engineering and AI
ISLAMABAD: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s largest professional services firms, is shaking up its Indian operations by merging PwC’s consulting business into the offshore centres of its US firm in a joint venture of about 40,000 people.
The restructuring will bring PwC US’s Acceleration Centres together with PwC’s consulting arm, creating a substantially larger operation under a single management structure. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
PwC Chair Sanjeev Krishan will become chief executive of the new entity, while PwC US will hold majority voting rights.
The arrangement is intended to make it easier for the firm to combine consulting and technology talent with its global client operations.
The Acceleration Centres have traditionally provided specialist and technology services to PwC offices worldwide.
PwC has expanded the centres as India has become a major global source of skilled professionals in technology, engineering, analytics and consulting.
PwC describes its Indian Acceleration Centres as global talent hubs providing scale, skills and innovation to its network.
The latest move will significantly alter how that work is organised.
PwC US Chief Executive Paul Griggs said the restructuring would bring together capabilities that had previously operated separately and give clients more integrated access to the firm’s expertise.
“The firms that win will be the ones that stop thinking about markets, capabilities, and delivery as separate pieces,” Griggs said, according to an internal communication reported by the Financial Times.
He said the objective was to provide clients with a more seamless experience and access to the “best of PwC”.
The change also reflects a fundamental shift taking place in the professional services industry as artificial intelligence changes the economics of consulting and outsourcing.
For years, firms have used large offshore operations to perform technology, analytical and other specialist work at lower cost.
Threat to Indian labour-intensive market
The rapid adoption of AI is now posing an existential threat to the labour-intensive model by allowing some tasks to be completed faster with fewer people.
PwC is therefore seeking to move its operations further up the value chain by combining consulting expertise with AI, engineering and technology capabilities.
Griggs has described the emerging model as “Managed Services 2.0”, in which AI and automation play a larger role in delivering business services. PwC’s own managed-services strategy says the new model combines AI, automation and domain expertise to deliver measurable outcomes at scale.
“Whether it was the tech resources earlier and now AI resources, where else in the world but here will you get those resources?” Krishan said, according to the Financial Times.
READ ALSO: Why Climate Change Poses Grave Danger to Indian Economy?
PwC has already been pursuing a technology-led expansion. In its 2030 strategy, the firm said it planned to increase investment in technology and AI-led delivery while expanding its workforce to 50,000.
It currently has about 30,000 professionals in India, according to the firm’s 2025 announcement.
The move is also significant because the Big Four professional services networks — PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG — operate through separate national member firms. That structure can create barriers when businesses in different countries need to coordinate international assignments and compete for the same work.
PwC’s restructuring seeks to reduce some of those barriers by bringing its US offshore operation and Indian consulting business together.
