Growing Together 2020 Strategic plan Together 2020 full strategic plan… · Growing Together 2020: Strategic plan Our Growing Together strategy ‘Growing Together 2020’ sets out

Growing Together 2020Strategic plan January 2016

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Growing Together 2020: Strategic plan

ContentsPage 3 Welcome from Ed Nusbaum Page 4 Growing Together 2020: the Why, the What, the HowPage 6 Building on Ambition 2015Page 7 Our growth opportunitiesPage 9 Seizing the opportunitiesPage 10 Our strategic plan in summaryPage 11 Our strategic plan in detailPage 12 Growing Together with our peoplePage 14 Growing Together with our clientsPage 16 Growing Together with our markets and communitiesPage 19 Growing Together across our organisationPage 21 Tracking our progressPage 22 ConclusionPage 23 Appendix

This document was originally prepared for the Board of Governors (BoG) in June 2015 and sets out the recommended strategy for the next five years. The use of “we” throughout the document refers to our global organisation not Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL), reflective of the shared responsibility taken by the BoG and GTIL in developing our future strategic direction.

The respective roles and responsibilities of member firms and GTIL in executing this strategy is not addressed in detail in this document but will form an important part of the implementation planning process following the formal launch of the strategy at the global conference in Athens in October.

The funding of the strategic initiatives will be addressed separately through the normal budget cycle.

This document, and many other strategy related materials about Growing Together 2020, can be found at GTInet>Leadership, strategy & M&A>Global strategy.

January 2016

process, most recently during the gallery walk at the global conference in Athens and the Yammer strategy jams that followed. Hundreds of people have been able to contribute. The GLT and I are hugely grateful for the time, energy and commitment you and your teams have invested. Now the hard work really starts!

We call this strategy ‘Growing Together’ because its success depends on each individual, in every service line and function, working with colleagues at home and across borders to achieve the ambitious goals we have set ourselves. It will only be successful if you and your leadership teams believe it will benefit our clients, our people, our reputation and our profitability. It is important that we move forward and execute it together, with honest appraisals of progress along our journey and how we can help each other to be more successful.

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WelcomeI am delighted to present to you our new strategy, ‘Growing Together 2020’. I believe this will be transformational for Grant Thornton. When we are successful in executing our strategy over the next five years, we will be the most exciting place to work in our industry.

In a world which is changing constantly, I am confident that this strategy is both directional and adaptive.

Directional, because we strongly believe our two top priorities must be the creation of an exceptional experience for our people that empowers them to deliver an exceptional experience for our clients. This strategy sets out the case for investment for both and the specific initiatives that will take us there. We must win the war for talent and cultivate transformational leaders who can enable our people to make the right decisions on the ground, in real-time.

Adaptive, because all the evidence suggests that our domestic clients today will be international businesses tomorrow so we must all look outside our own borders, think further ahead, act faster, and have the courage to seize opportunities. This agility will need to extend to new ways of collectively combining our resources to achieve our strategic goals – new approaches to the way we fund our technology, people and culture, for example, and building common infrastructures and processes that will benefit the whole organisation.

As I meet our people around the world, I am constantly reminded that it is how much we have in common that truly makes us unique. I notice (and more importantly our people and our clients notice) our shared values, the fact that our people everywhere share a desire to connect and work together to find better solutions and a commitment to conduct ourselves in a way that supports the business and social communities in which we work.

One of the objectives of this strategy for Grant Thornton is to grow by building our capabilities from country to country. This will enable us to focus on the needs of our clients and seize the opportunities in the market, responding to the demand for growth services, and the increasing internationalisation of our client base.

We began thinking about our future strategy with the Global Jam. This gave us enormous insight from thousands of our people. We developed our top priorities in a combined effort with the Global Leadership Team (GLT) and Strategy Committee, and followed-up with input from the Board of Governors and leaders from all over the world. We sought feedback throughout the

Ed NusbaumGlobal CEO Grant Thornton

I believe this will be transformational for Grant Thornton and we will be the most exciting place to work in our industry.

Collaboration | Leadership | Excellence | Agility | Respect | Responsibility

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Growing Together 2020Why: Our raison d’êtreWe care about the work we do for clients, the impact we have in society and the way we treat people.

And, as dedicated professionals, our work and influence builds trust and integrity in the markets we work in.

We help create the commercial and social environments that enable long-term success and growth for businesses and where people flourish.

Because we are committed to shaping a vibrant economy.

What: Our visionBy 2020 we will be the leading business adviser to dynamic organisations.

How: Our brand promiseBy unlocking the potential for growth in our people, our clients and our communities.

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Our Growing Together strategy ‘Growing Together 2020’ sets out how we will achieve this vision and identifies the actions we will take together. To be successful, we need to attract and retain motivated people who are absolutely focused on delivering an exceptional client experience. To achieve this we need transformational leadership to create an experience for our people that is empowering. Exceptional people and client experiences will enable us to fulfil our brand promise to unlock the potential for growth wherever we operate, to establish a superior competitive position in our chosen markets and to achieve our vision.

People and clients – a simple relationship

Peopleexperience

Clientexperience

Transformationalleadership

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Building on Ambition 2015With Ambition 2015 we developed a global strategy that was consistently executed around the world. As a result, we began operating as a global business.

• We grew from $3.7bn in 2010 to $4.7bn in 2014, $500m of those new revenues coming from 100+ Merger & Acquisition deals

• We strengthened our capability in major developing markets like Brazil, China and Russia and in many other countries through 100+ international secondments

• The rapid development of our global Advisory practice helped to make us the world’s fastest growing global accountancy organisation over successive years

Although we did not reach all of our aggressive targets we extended our footprint to over 130 countries and 40,000 people, making us the truly global organisation we are today and giving us the ideal platform on which to build our business for the future. We used our collaborative strength to win more international clients and to improve our services to them, and we focused on developing our people and our culture. There were many standout achievements:

And we launched our distinctive brand promise. On 19 February 2012, overnight and across the world, we began to go to market with a brand promise that helps to express what makes us distinctive and that links us to a compelling attribute – ‘Growth’. Following the example of those countries who immediately embraced the brand promise, we have grown in confidence in our ability to position ourselves as global advisers to dynamic growing businesses. As significantly, we have recognised that our distinctive culture, in combination with our brand promise, lies at the heart of our competitive advantage.

• We began to create a new generation of leaders with 80 of our most senior leaders and 250 senior managers benefiting from the Oxford Senior Leadership programme and Advanced Manager Programme

• We saw a dramatic increase in our People and Culture (P&C) capability with 65 P&C leaders now in place from less than 10 at the start of Ambition 2015

• We grew from just two firms having a Business Development (BD) leader in 2010 to almost every firm having a lead partner for BD supported by a dedicated global proposal centre (theHUB)

• Our global industry programme now supports eight sectors with many countries finding success by taking an industry route to market

• Our highly successful global key account programme continues to grow, alongside local key account programmes that now run in over 20 countries, reflecting our higher quality and increasingly international client base.

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Our growth opportunitiesThe world is changing under our feet and we should not underestimate the pace of change.

In January 2015, we commissioned McKinsey & Company to undertake an analysis of market trends and the competitive environment in which we operate. Many of the challenges they identified are already affecting our business and are shared here. Growing Together focuses on seizing the opportunities that will deliver the greatest returns for our business: the market demand for growth services and the increasing internationalisation of our client base.

Globalisation

Continuing war for talent

• We must expand our cross border capabilities to even continue serving our existing client base

• We must work across service lines to offer more international solutions to our clients’ complex challenges eg:

- develop a pipeline of forward thinking growth services

- combine our expertise in Tax and Advisory to support M&A deals

- develop our global Key Account Management programme.

• We need to equip our leadership teams to be truly inspirational and drive a step-change in performance

• We need a highly compelling People experience that attracts, develops and retains the best people

• We need our 40,000 people to be true brand advocates who understand, believe and know how to deliver the Grant Thornton experience inside and outside our organisation.

• Companies of all sizes are getting bigger and more global which is increasing their volume of complex and cross border activities

• Global flows of goods, services and finance in 2012 reached $26 trillion (36% of global GDP). If the spread of digital technologies and rising prosperity in emerging economies continues, global flows could nearly triple by 2025.

• High-skilled people will become a scarce resource:

- technology advancements will skew the mix of profiles required towards high-skilled employees

- the education system will not be able to provide enough of the right talent in this or the next decade

- millennials demand more meaning in their work, more autonomy and more flexibility.

Description Growth opportunities

Emerging markets will predominate by 2025

In developed markets, economic outlook and quantitative easing are inducing prolonged low interest rates and lower growth.

• We need to build a meaningful presence in emerging markets to benefit from the increased demand for professional services

• By positioning ourselves as genuine advisers on growth we can leverage these shifts to the benefit of the whole organisation.

Shift in global economic power

Global trends affecting Grant Thornton

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Growing Together: Strategic plan

• Companies are increasingly relocating or outsourcing low added-value parts of their value chain.

• Cybersecurity is increasingly appearing on CxO agendas as companies worry about the potential impact of cyber attacks on their business.

• Procurement in medium and large companies is shifting from being relationship and service driven to transactional and price driven.

• We have an opportunity to meet the increased demand for highly efficient and value added outsourcing services, e.g., for financial, accounting or business processes across all company sizes, to allow our clients to focus on their core business.

• Substantial growth in demand for Assurance and Advisory services in cybersecurity across our client base offers us a significant growth opportunity if we can build our capability in this area.

• Increased price competition on services involving a large element of routine tasks (e.g. certain audits) means we must develop lean, low-cost operations.

Outsourcing

Cybersecurity

Procurement

Digitalisation

Increased regulatory and fiscal pressure

Automation of knowledge work and commoditisation of parts of the Audit value chain

• We must build our own agile, innovation- ready technology platform to provide seamless international services in the future (Project Pathfinder)

• Emerging opportunity to:

- advise and lead clients along their digital transformation

- advise clients on how to leverage data analytics to extract insights from their data.

• We must leverage the opportunity regulatory change offers us to win market share in Audit

• We must be permanently alert to opportunities to develop Tax and Advisory services that will meet the anticipated increase in client demand

• We must be at the table of government, policy makers and regulators to shape the future business environment and speak out on issues affecting our clients and society at large.

• We must turn commoditisation to our advantage by reinventing the audit experience to offer clients technology-enabled services and experienced professional judgement e.g.

- the Project LEAP platform will release time for our people to conduct more exhaustive checks and benchmarking, run advanced analytics and offer more forward-looking advice. It will capture client data for risk management, client service and thought leadership and can host other service delivery and data analysis applications.

• Digitalisation is transforming the way products and services are delivered to clients requiring us to rethink the way we approach clients and how we are internally organised to deliver our services.

• Regulatory pressure is increasing in almost all geographies and industries

• Regulatory and market changes in Audit (e.g. mandatory rotation) will put pressure on companies to seek new providers

• Budget deficits puts pressure on governments to increase revenue by increasing tax enforcement.

• Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are automating many knowledge worker tasks that were previously impossible or impractical for machines to perform

• This is already affecting our Audit and Tax practices and creates both risk and opportunity. It is changing the way our clients work, and the way we work to serve them.

Description Growth opportunities

McKinsey & Company. Market trends and Competitive landscape report, 2015

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Seizing the opportunitiesOver the next five years, one thing is clear – we will only win by carving out a more distinctive position for ourselves in the marketplace, not by following our larger or smaller competitors. We still need to build critical mass to win the clients we want, but growing in size cannot be our sole objective.

Success rests with our people. As a relationship business it is our people who give us our competitive edge. The more they can match the dynamism of our clients, the more successful we will be. It is a virtuous circle: satisfied, inspired, engaged and empowered people are motivated to go beyond what is expected to deliver outstanding levels of client service. The satisfaction and advocacy of our people and clients in turn generates long-term sustainable advantage and profitability for our business.

Success requires a step-change in our attitude and approach. We need to look further ahead, act faster, seize opportunities and have the courage to make them happen. Truly delivering on our brand promise has implications for every existing service line and every function. We want to restore our auditors to a position of valued professionals and re-invent the audit experience for our clients and people so that it becomes a genuinely valuable business experience and not simply an annual obligation. We know we have a golden opportunity to win

Our competitors can talk about ‘growth’ but we can and will claim the territory.

market share in Audit1. We need a strong Tax2 practice because we can win multimillion dollar assignments by leading with tax and we cannot optimise the rest of our business without winning a greater share of the global tax market. Tax is the glue that holds together many aspects of our business and is proven to open doors to high quality clients. Many of our people, not just in Advisory, position themselves as business advisors to our clients but this strategy will require all our people to step confidently outside their own service line or function on a daily basis and collaborate with their colleagues at home and abroad. We need to collaborate like this in order to build a continuous pipeline of new growth services based on client needs over the next five years.

The dynamic organisations we want as clients are becoming increasingly more international and expect a consistent and highly distinctive ‘Grant Thornton experience’ wherever they need us. Our ability to deliver this for every

client, on every engagement, will ensure their loyalty, encourage them to buy multiple services and give them reasons to recommend us to others. In doing so, they drive sustained uplift in our own revenues, increase our market share and reinforce our unique reputation and influence. These are opportunities we must not miss.

1 Assurance strategy, August 2015 2 Standing out from the crowd: Building a tax practice for the future, June 2015

Focus – seize the opportunity in Assurance

Grow – build growth services and additional capabilities McKinsey & Company, March 2015

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Our strategic plan in summary

Unlock the potential for growth

Sustain our long term growth & profitability*

Our raison d´être

We will create an exceptional 'Grant Thornton people experience'

in every country and invest in the development of transformational leaders

We will create an exceptional 'Grant Thornton client experience'

for our clients in every part of the world

We will identify and seize growth opportunities in our markets that support our strategy; and build our future client base. We will raise awareness of the Grant Thornton brand and

position ourselves as the voice of dynamic organisations in our business and social communities.

Growing Together with our markets and communities

Growing Togetherwith our people

Growing Togetherwith our clients

We will build technology and processes that enable us to provide our exceptional client

service efficiently, seamlessly and

securely at home and across borders

We will empower our people by providing them with access to knowledge, tools and methodologies; and

connect them with each other and with our

clients to leverage our collective capability

We will equip our people with the business

skills and confidence they need

We will strategically develop the high

quality capabilities and relationships we need to serve our clients – wherever they operate

Growing Together across our organisation

* Revenue targets for 2016-2018 will be set by member firms, with regional agreement on whether targets are ambitious enough to deliver a growth rate faster than domestic GDP and an increase in market share. We will also measure profitability (using a new profitability index).

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Our strategic plan in detail

We intuitively sense a commonality within the Grant Thornton community around the world. Indeed, the Saïd Business School in Oxford – which works with many major consulting firms and our competitors – could see a difference in behaviour among our people when meeting them during the Oxford Leadership Programme they run on our behalf. They saw people who are really interested in people and show they care. This culture is something unique. We should celebrate it.

By addressing the question of our higher purpose, our raison d’être, and articulating it, we start to codify the difference in our motivation and approach. We will be able to align to this common, deep-rooted goal. It has consistently been shown that businesses that are confident in why they exist are more successful in

We will develop a purpose statement that captures the spirit of why Grant Thornton exists. Our brand promise is a strong message about what we do and how we do it; our purpose will strengthen this by adding our intent, beyond financial return, beyond exceptional service delivery.

We encourage businesses to define and operate to a purpose that serves society and respects the dignity of peopleBlueprint for Better Business 2014

Objective

Fulfil our raison d’être

3 Blueprint for Better Business. Higher purpose principles, 2014

attracting more loyal and aligned people and also have a deeper relationship with clients, customers and our communities, based on trust3. It takes a strong brand and makes it resonate more deeply. By clearly articulating and openly discussing our raison d’être, by 2020 we will have achieved two distinct advantages:• Our people are increasingly

and intrinsically motivated to support the firm because they know that we are all aligned in our intention

• Having an agreed test to any decision we encounter: if it supports the direction of our purpose, we follow a direction, if it is in conflict with our purpose, we do not.

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How will we distinguish ourselves as a workplace that encourages disruptive thinking, and attracts and retains the right kind of people to deliver our exceptional client experience?

Why is this important?Attracting enough of the right talent continues to be a major barrier to growth in many countries where we operate. We need to leverage the full weight of our global organisation to attract more people who share our purpose and values, enjoy our collaborative culture and are energised to commit their time and effort to deliver our distinctive client experience. Highly capable people look to their employer for opportunity, challenge and freedom to make choices about their work.

Moreover, this ambitious new generation knows their market value and will move elsewhere if their needs are not met. We need

We will create an exceptional ‘Grant Thornton people experience’ in every country and invest in the development of transformational leaders In short, we want our people to love working at Grant Thornton.

Objective

Create an exceptional people experience

to fight sophisticated competitor offers by standing out in the market on our own terms.

As clients increasingly demand bespoke solutions, we need free-thinking, self-motivated and self-leading people to create them. We also need people who thrive in an environment of change and challenge and who feel empowered to deliver the level of disruptive thinking (creativity, imagination and insight) and innovation our clients need.

In return for their engagement, we must give our people greater autonomy – the freedom and flexibility to do the right thing for our clients, in their own way.

Around this, we must make their work meaningful and recognise their achievements (a Global Jam promise). We need to help them to build great relationships – internally and externally – and then challenge them to learn, develop and master deep skills and capabilities in their chosen specialisms4.

Through strategic secondments within Grant Thornton, with clients or with others; stretching assignments; and challenge, we will offer people experiences that help them develop c-suite and entrepreneurial mindsets that will equip them to deliver extraordinary results for their clients.

4 Ryan, R. and Deci, E. Self-determination Theory. American Psychologist, 2000.

Growing Together with our people

WE AREBETTER TOGETHER

MY GROWTH ISCONTINUOUS

I AM FREE TO BE AUTHENTIC

I AM INSPIRED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE









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What will we do?• Develop and roll out a world-class

global approach to Transformational Leadership based on a coaching culture, beginning with all our partners

How will we measure success?We will measure how well we are delivering our promises to our people using established industry KPIs: by asking them if they would recommend us to others (employee Net Promoter Score - eNPS) and by measuring how well we are delivering on our four promises (employee satisfaction scores).

Note: eNPS will be one of the iconic KPIs measuring the success of ‘Growing Together 2020’ and will be rolled-out across all member firms

We will have a relentless passion for people excellence everywhere in the world CEO, BoG member

Creating this exceptional people experience, this high-performance culture, requires transformational leaders at all levels of our organisation – leaders who are flexible in their leadership style and who can adapt to the new and fast-changing world, restless in their pursuit of new ideas and disruptive in their thinking, to aid innovation they will act courageously, clearly and purposefully, remain curious, empower others and perform the role of an energising and effective coach.

• Define a common approach to every stage of the employee life cycle so that all our people have a consistent experience of our culture. This will include a new warehouse of global assets (toolkits and templates to bring quality and consistency to our people experience)

• Build our organisation’s People and Culture capability – coaching and mentoring firms to attain consistent delivery of world-class people practices

• Enable greater mobility to ensure we have the right people, in the right places, in the right jobs

• Roll out a global orientation and induction experience (see Build our brand)

• Drive a step-change in equipping our people with the technical and non-technical skills, capabilities and confidence they need (the Grant Thornton Academies, see Ensure Capability).

Transformational leadership

We will develop multi-dimensional leaders, who are:• steered by clarity of purpose• display strong business acumen• bring curiosity and empathy to their interactions• driven to achieve exceptional and

sustainable outcomes.

Every leader will be given the opportunity to develop their strengths and recognise where they need support. A development path will guide partners through their careers. And this framework will also be used to identify and develop future leaders.

LEADERSHIPGRANT THORNTON

DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACHCOMMUNITY-BASED EXPERIENCE

CONNECTING PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PURPOSE

WHY? PURPOSEFUL

My purpose • What I bring in my life/work • System perspective

DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACHPARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL

CLIENT DELIVERY GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS

HANDS-ON EXPERIENCES WITH ENTREPRENEURS

WHAT? DISRUPTIVE

Outside in • Creative • Curious • Growth strategies

DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACHDISRUPTIVE PROJECT – DESIGN AND

IMPLEMENTATION (INNOVATION)GLOBAL PROJECT INVOLVEMENT

PARTICIPATION IN COMPLEX PROJECTS

BOLD OUTCOMES

Business benefits • Predictive measures • Excellence • Accountable • 100% responsible

Collaborative • Co-design • Lives the values

DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACHADVANCED COACHING

360 FEEDBACK

HOW? LIBERATOR

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Client projects involving offices in several countries are significantly more lucrative than single- office engagements Harvard Business Review, March 2015

Growing Together with our clientsHow will we distinguish ourselves in the marketplace?

Why is this important?If we want to be known as the number one global advisers on growth to the world’s most dynamic organisations, our clients must love working with us and want to tell the world. Academic research5,6 and our own client satisfaction data shows that being distinctive and delivering outstanding service creates loyal clients who buy a broader range of services, generating higher revenues and more profitable engagements.

Having 40,000 people in over 130 countries, deep technical capabilities and industry expertise or even the right pricing structure will not give us the advantage – what sets us apart is

We will create an exceptional ‘Grant Thornton client experience’ for our clients in every part of the worldIn short, we want our clients to love working with Grant Thornton.

Objective

Create an exceptional client experience

how we work with clients – the ‘Grant Thornton experience’, one that connects us with our clients both professionally and emotionally. We know why our clients choose us. We discover what’s important to them, and make it important to us. We bring pragmatic solutions that help clients improve and grow. We offer an agile and responsive service. We create diverse collaborative teams with a different mindset and the right skills and capabilities to solve the problem and look beyond it (these four promises are our Client Value Proposition – CVP). When we are at our best, we already do many of

these things. This strategy will help us to raise the bar and deliver what our clients need in every country on every assignment, so that ‘at our best’ becomes our normal routine.

PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONSTO HELP YOU IMPROVE

AND GROW

WE DISCOVER WHAT’S IMPORTANTTO YOU AND MAKE IT

IMPORTANT TO US

COLLABORATIVE TEAMSWITH A DIFFERENT MINDSET

AGILE ANDRESPONSIVE

5 Heidi K. Gardner. When Senior Managers Won’t Collaborate. Harvard Business Review, March 2015 6 Heskett, J. et al: Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work. Harvard Business Review, 2008

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PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONSTO HELP YOU IMPROVE

AND GROW

WE DISCOVER WHAT’S IMPORTANTTO YOU AND MAKE IT

IMPORTANT TO US

COLLABORATIVE TEAMSWITH A DIFFERENT MINDSET

AGILE ANDRESPONSIVE

What will we do?• Promote understanding across

Grant Thornton of what our clients want, why they choose us and how we can engage with them in a distinctive way (our CVP)7

• Drive a step-change in equipping our people with the technical and non-technical skills, capabilities and confidence they need to deliver our exceptional client experience on every engagement (the Grant Thornton Academies, see Ensure capability).

How will we measure success?We will measure how well we are delivering on our promises to our clients using established industry KPIs8: by asking them if they would recommend us to others (Net Promoter Score - NPS) and by measuring how well we are delivering on our four promises which we know will create an exceptional client experience (client satisfaction scores).

Note: NPS will be one of the iconic KPIs measuring the success of ‘Growing Together 2020’ and will be rolled-out across all member firms.

7 Millward Brown. Client value proposition, November 2014 8 Growing Together 2020. Benefits of measuring client satisfaction KPIs

The bottom line

What sets us apart is how we work with clients

Our culture is built on a genuine interest in our clients – their challenges, growth ambitions and wider commercial context. You get the attention you deserve from approachable, senior professionals who ask the right questions, listen and provide real insight and a clear point of view.

We discover what’s important to you and make it important to us

A relationship-led approach with more time and attention from partners and senior advisers.

A deeper understanding of your business for more meaningful advice and recommendations.

The bottom line

Our size and structure create advantages for you. We adopt a flatter structure, with shorter decision making chains, empowered teams and no complex chains of command. We have all the necessary processes and controls but they’re streamlined and efficient. Our teams are more responsive.

Agile and responsive service

A faster response when you need quick answers and clarity

Anticipating the answers you’llneed before you ask

The bottom line

Put simply, our teams add value. We like to bring ideas to the table, going beyond the technical issues to recommend ways to make your business better. Whether your goals include cross-border expansion, improving operational efficiency or building investor confidence, we balance a desire to do what’s best for you in the future with an experienced sense of what’s going to help you now.

Pragmatic solutions to help you improve and grow

Helping you think ahead and think more broadly

Proactively identifying opportunities for improvement and growth

The bottom line

Our people are open, accessible and easy to work with. We work through the issues alongside you, always with an independent perspective and challenging where necessary. Our collaborative style also enables us to assemble teams with a broader perspective – working across service lines, industry teams and geographies to tailor our capabilities for you.

Collaborative teams with a different mindset

Teams and solutions built around your needs not our structures

A better working relationship with youand your team

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Growing Together 2020: Strategic plan Growing Together 2020: Strategic plan


We will identify and seize growth opportunities in our markets that support our strategy; and build our future client base.

Objective

In 2013, the estimated size of the global advisory market accessible to Grant Thornton was over $80bn. With our share at approximately 2%, there is significant opportunity for us everywhere we operate. At the same time, our compliance services are under threat from traditional competitors and new entrants. We must think innovatively, act fast and expand our offer to leverage the

Seize growth opportunities today

Achieve Sustainable

Growth

Manage Talent For

Growth

Protect & Enhance Owner Value

Manage Risk &

Regulation

Finance Growth

Optimise Operations

Creating An Environment for Growth

Creating

An Environment for Growth

Dynamic Organisations

C-suite

How will we seize opportunities offered by the global trends affecting our business? How will we respond to the increasing internationalisation of our client base?

link to ‘Growth’ that our brand promise gives us. Our new growth solutions approach will support our exceptional client experience, enabling us to hold wider business conversations with clients, package our existing services around ‘growth’, shape new, client-specific, growth-related solutions and position us as THE adviser to organisations that want to grow.

Increasing our market share requires a client-led approach to service innovation. We will be able to quickly mobilise capabilities and expertise to wherever they are needed to capture and deliver international growth opportunities.

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While recognising that the breadth and depth of our organisation means there will always be a role for opportunistic business, our global strategy addresses, for the first time, what market focus means for Grant Thornton. The strategy is built around a belief that having a deliberate market focus will allow member firms to collaborate more, win more international clients and build stronger client relationships. All these lead to higher revenues, greater client loyalty and thus increased profitability (proven by the analytics from our client satisfaction measurement). Our focus globally continues to be on dynamic organisations, which may vary in size, but are:• Growing or have the potential

to grow• Operating internationally or are

planning cross border expansion

Build our client base of tomorrowHaving a market focus means making deliberate decisions about which clients we are collectively passionate about winning and then intentionally going out to win them. We need more international clients if we want a sustainable, successful and profitable business in 2020.

• Dealing with complex events (e.g. transactions, restructuring, multijurisdictional tax planning) or operating in a heavily regulated industry.

New market focus guidelines have been developed to equip countries to make a deliberate decision on their market focus, helping them to construct their aspirational client base of the future. This will enable each country to build a clear plan to target the dynamic organisations they identify through two channels:• Industry sectors that present the

greatest opportunity for growth, working towards being recognised as a top 3 firm by reputation in their market in at least one (our global focus will be on Financial Services)

• A clearly articulated strategy for our three market segments (Privately Held Businesses, Public Interest Entities and Government) working towards being recognised as a top three firm by reputation in at least one.

26% of our clients have international operations

Of the clients that make up 75% of member firm revenue, 55% only receive one service Annual member firm survey, 2014

What will we do?• Build client-centric solutions by

collaborating across service lines, industries and geographies to help our clients unlock their potential for growth at every stage in their development (6-box model); leverage member firm collaboration to identify and validate signature services/tools for each of the

six boxes • Re-focus on Audit to capitalise on

regulatory and market opportunities

How will we measure success?• a pipeline of client-centric solutions• increased # of service line solutions

provided to individual clients• increased proportion of

international clients in each country• increased % of international clients

served by multiple countries.

• Grow Tax and Advisory solutions through both recurring and new consulting opportunities

• Drive innovation efforts at global and local levels to maintain the momentum of our growth solutions approach and create a continuous pipeline of new and emerging services that will help clients at different stages of development.

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Why is this important?We are still not famous enough - with the result that we remain the world’s best-kept secret in professional services. Everyone at Grant Thornton must be able to tell the story about who we are and what we stand for, and believe that it is true. Our growth depends on the attitudes of the decision makers at our target clients. If they do not know who we are, they cannot consider using us. If they do not use us, they will not recommend us to others. Strong brand awareness will open doors to new opportunities and attract more of the right people and clients, adding to revenues and profitability.

What will we do?• Roll out a global orientation and

induction experience that creates a common understanding of our brand promise, explains the role of each of our 40,000 people in delivering it and gives them the confidence to explain it to others

• Develop a global brand-building campaign and ask countries to have a ‘brand plan’ showing how they will build and strengthen the Grant Thornton brand in their market

• Become the voice of dynamic organisations by leveraging Grant Thornton’s convening power to build a ‘growth ecosystem’ that positions us around the key growth issues affecting our clients in business and social communities

• Collaborating with business, expert third parties, regulators, public policy makers and society at large the growth ecosystem will use global and local content and communities to offer insights and thought leadership

• Align and extend our existing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities through global guiding principles and best practice; build a community of CSR Ambassadors; and establish an annual CSR day (a Global Jam promise).

How will we measure success?• Increase in brand reputation

(external global survey)• 10,000 CSR Ambassadors by 2020.

Only 55% of our clients and targets describe us as a well-known global brand Millward Brown

Build our brand

How will we increase our influence and reputation? How can we leverage the link to ‘Growth’ that our brand promise gives us?

We will raise awareness of the Grant Thornton brand and position ourselves as the voice of dynamic organisations in our business and social communities.

Objective

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Growing Together across our organisationHow do we become an innovative and truly connected organisation able to deliver exceptional people and client experiences wherever they are needed? How will we connect our people and clients with the knowledge and relationships they need to grow?

Why is this important?Our technology and other infrastructure must be more cohesive if we want to leverage the enormous, combined strength of our organisation. There is an appetite for greater responsiveness and standardisation of our client facing systems and processes, a desire for greater integration of our people and culture strategies and an understanding that collective investment in technology is the key driver to providing truly international, seamless services in the future.

What will we do?• Project Pathfinder: our largest firms

are aligning and combining their IT strategies and resources to meet our technology needs for the future and in the process will benefit the whole global organisation. This innovative collaborative approach - the first time member firms have made such a major joint investment - will significantly increase our technological competitiveness in the market and create an architecture that will make us innovation-ready

• Project LEAP: the long-term fundamental re-engineering and re-energising of our global audit approach. With Microsoft providing the technology platform and our client experience behaviours embedded within the new methodology, LEAP will empower auditors to be better business advisers, improve quality and efficiency and enable other service lines and functions to leverage the valuable data gathered during the process.

We will build technology and processes that enable us to provide our exceptional client service efficiently, seamlessly and securely at home and across borders. We will empower our people by providing them with access to knowledge, tools and methodologies; and connect them with each other and with our clients to leverage our collective capability.

Connect – strengthen the Grant Thornton operating model McKinsey & Company, March 2015

Objective

Improve global connectivity, collaboration and effectiveness

• Global collaborative solutions: GTIL will drive the development of new systems and mechanisms that allow us to share knowledge and information seamlessly across the organisation including global Customer Relationship Management (CRM), expansion of theHUB, our global research centre (GRC) and social and digital platforms.

How will we measure success?• All firms are IT secure• Successful Pathfinder technology

platform• Improved quality scores• Increased use of collaborative

solutions across the business.

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We will equip our people with the business skills and confidence they need. We will strategically develop the high quality capabilities and relationships we need to serve our clients - wherever they operate.

Objective

Why is this important?Our people must be ready and able to meet clients’ needs, offering the same high quality services and the same distinctive experience wherever our clients work with us. If we invest in the development of our people, they will invest in the development of our clients. The expansion of the Grant Thornton Academies will not only create a stimulating learning environment but will enable the knowledge and insights gained by our people through their client experiences to be shared so that we continuously capture, enrich and disseminate best practice.

Many of our target clients work across borders already or have plans to expand. Our own market review reveals untapped potential in many countries where we operate. There are also places where we lack the critical mass we need to compete effectively for the best clients.

This strategy takes a highly targeted and deliberate approach to building our capabilities in strategically important markets. We will continue to use organic and inorganic options as appropriate but will place greater emphasis, and urgency, on collaborative models between members (larger teams supporting smaller and stronger supporting weaker), where there is mutual benefit to all.

What will we do?• Drive a step-change in equipping

our people with the technical and non-technical skills, capabilities and confidence they need by expanding the Grant Thornton Academies, offering new e-learning and face-to-face programmes plus best practice content already created by our member firms

• Develop the strategically important economies (cross-border, inbound and outbound) that offer our business significant growth potential through collaboratively built development plans that use organic growth, regional collaboration models, strategic M&A, secondments from other firms etc as appropriate.

Note: Core capability gaps in a small number of strategically important markets (one or two per year) that impact the ability of many other member firms to grow their business and require intensive investment, will be addressed separately, led by the GLT regional leader.

Ensure capabilityHow will we measure success?• take up of the Academies’

approach, feedback from participants and long-term improvement in client and quality scores

• annual analysis of market opportunity/capability in strategically important markets.

Note: The legal and operational structure of our global organisation must be agile and able to support the increased collaboration between member firms this strategy demands, as well as help mitigate legal risk. Project Enable will create three UK based entities for: governance; support services; and intellectual property assets. There will be future opportunities to facilitate other structures for member firm collaboration such as regional ventures and shared service centres.

Note: The funding needs of the global organisation will exceed the current budget set by the BoG and will not deliver the scale of change necessary to execute this strategy. A significant change in our funding model is required as our current model (membership fees based on a percentage of member firm revenue) is not seen as a long term viable option. A project is underway at GTIL to identify alternative funding models which can complement the current model.

How will we build our capability to consistently deliver our exceptional client experience?

21


Tracking our progressThere is appetite to identify a few strategic global KPIs that will track our progress against our goals and drive the necessary behavioural change to deliver the strategy.

Two iconic KPIs, measuring the likelihood of both our people and our clients to recommend us to others, will be rolled out across every country. Supported by other global KPIs, individual project metrics and a new profitability index (measuring trends rather than absolutes) we will measure how successfully we are executing our strategy through a balanced scorecard approach.

Internal & external surveys

Internal & external surveys

Methodology

Growing Together with our people

Growing Together with our clients

Growing Together across our organisation


Likelihood our clients recommendGrant Thornton to others as a great adviser

People engagement and satisfaction

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Client satisfaction index

Client experience index

External surveyIncrease brand awareness Brand recognition

Internal annual member firm surveyIncrease revenue Net fees

Goal KPI

Increase profitability Profitability index Internal survey

Improve quality Quality scores External & internal quality reviews

Successful global Academies Comprehension scores/new skills developed Feedback

10,000 CSR Ambassadors by 2020 # CSR Ambassadors Internal survey

Likelihood our people recommend Grant Thornton to others as a great place to work

People Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

Increase client solutions provided # service line solutions provided to individual clients Internal annual member firm survey

Proportion of international clients by country% of revenues from shared international clients

Internal annual member firm surveyIncrease revenues from international clients

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This is an ambitious strategy. While it is designed to be evolutionary in principle (a continuation of many initiatives and much learning from Ambition 2015), it is revolutionary in terms of global commitment to execution. We will only achieve our goals by Growing Together – with our people, our clients, the markets and communities we serve and as a global organisation.

“I see a bright future for us to grow together. This is our time”.

Conclusion

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Appendix

Internal Beyond 2015 Developing our strategy Pennyhill Park, Sept 2014

Beyond 2015 Emerging themes from Pennyhill Park, Sept 2014

Global Jam 2014 report, Oct 2014

Beyond 2015 Emerging themes from Montreal, Oct 2014

Beyond 2015 London BoG strategy session notes, Dec 2014

Strategic Driver Execution Team (SDET): strategy feedback, Feb 2015

Beyond 2015 Chicago BoG KPI session notes, March 2015

Growing Together 2020 Benefits of measuring client satisfaction KPIs

McKinsey & Company. Market trends and Competitive landscape report, 2015

Mediacom. Background to brand investment, March 2015

Millward Brown. Client value proposition, Nov 2014

Assurance Strategy, Aug 2015

Standing out from the crowd: Building a tax practice for the future, June 2015

Supporting documents for Project LEAP and Project Pathfinder are also available on request

External Ryan, R. and Deci, E. Self-determination Theory. American Psychologist, 2000

Blueprint for Better Business. Higher purpose principles, 2014

Heskett, J., Jones, T., Loveman, G., Sasser Jr., E. and Schlesinger, L. Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work. Harvard Business Review, 2008

Heidi K. Gardner. When Senior Managers Won’t Collaborate. Harvard Business Review, March 2015

Documents

The Global Leadership Team (GLT) began the strategy development process with a two day retreat in September 2014 together with the eight Strategy Committee firms. The Global Jam provided insight from over 8,000 thousand people in 127 countries. External consultants, including McKinsey & Company, the Center for Intentional Leadership and Dr. Robert Davies of Saïd Business School have provided research and advice. Input was invited and feedback sought at each stage of the process: at the global conference in Montreal, at Board of Governors’ meetings, from the Strategic Development Execution Teams, at global service line conferences and the regional meetings. Growing Together 2020 was formally launched at the global conference, Athens, in October 2015. Hundreds of people have contributed to the creation of the strategy, and this document and many other Growing Together 2020 strategy related materials can be found at: GTInet>Leadership, strategy and M&A>Global strategy

Strategy development methodology

Curious Agency 1510-16

© 2015 Grant Thornton International Ltd.

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