Would anyone be able to provide some insight on PWC's UK strategy practice?e.g clients / culture / brand perception (obviously not equal to MBB, but any thoughts ?)Also, I recently heard that the practice has merged with the valuations division. Anyone aware of the reasoning behind this?Thanks in advance.

Anyone?

Positioning and competition-wise, it sits level with the other Big 4 (accounting firms).The practice used to be part of V&S, before adopting some independent branding for a few years. It didn't really work out, with the "Strategy" partners getting a bit sick of their pseudo-independent status. The practice mostly got used as spare resource for V&S so was dominated by corporate finance accountants and struggled to recruit and hold onto strategy consultants.P&L-wise, it didn't manage to get off the ground before the crunch hit, so the decision was made to split Strategy, with the bulk of staff going back to V&S and the remaining career consultants moved into PIC.The reorganisation does make some sense as it allows PwC to compete on a more even footing with the other Big 4. The new structure and capabilities-range is more consistent across the firms.

Part of my specialism is studying the unique cultures of firms and one of the firms I have studied is PWC. I believe it has quite an organic, and evolutionary culture that has grown and adapted and is now very intrinsic to the firm and all of its employees.I am sure you will have a great time there :-)

Well yes, of course... goes without saying... everybody loves working for firms that have organic and evolutionary cultures that have grown and adapted and are very intrinsic to the firm and all of its employees.

Thanks for the responses.I take it that most of the work in V&S has an M&A focus and PIC is operational consulting.Does this mean that PWC no longer engages in "blue sky" strategy work?

V&S does some due diligence work for mergers, acquisitions and divestitures (or did when there was a market for M&A advisory). Mainly, it focuses on valuations to support tax and transfer pricing opinions. M&A CDD is driven by what support Transaction Services needs, which over the next few years will be low since the market has declined and the group's got plenty of its own spare resource. Tax tends to remain hot and lots of companies will be looking at cutting their tax bill/seeking rebates/sellling up so valuations of that ilk will be in demand.PIC is mainly operational consulting at the moment. I expect that PwC will try to move into the broader "strategy and operations" space as the group grows. The ex-Strategy guys who've moved to PIC seem to be plugging ODD as their new niche. The overall aim seems to be to have a similar footprint to Deloitte. It would be fair to say that PwC was never in the "blue sky" strategy space, so there's nothing to lose.

Thanks hf, you've been really helpful.I am quite surprised with the misleading recruitment marketing for the valuations division. It pitches it as mainly M&A work!