PricewaterhouseCoopers China is forging ahead with a major revamp of company culture with programmes in place to recruit and develop the best Chinese talent locally and from overseas.
The new China Sourcing Initiative (CSI), aimed at recruiting overseas Chinese who have international experience, is in addition to an extensive localisation strategy that recruits more than 2,800 Chinese each year. There is also a new Performance, Coaching and Development (PCD) programme.
'We have put a lot of money into identifying talent gaps, and into coaching and development to create a culture to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace,' said Dave McCann, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
'If we get it right, the firm will look and feel very different soon. We expect our rivals in China will copy us but the truth is that culture can't be copied, and we're determined to make ours distinctive.'
Mr McCann went to Beijing from Britain 11 years ago to develop the localisation strategy at his firm. At present, 94 per cent of staff in mainland China offices are Chinese.
The CSI programme has seen managers sent from the mainland to the London, New York and Sydney offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, tasked with recruiting new graduates and experienced people who have valuable local Chinese knowledge and language skills for mainland and Hong Kong firms.