👉 Background: PwC Australia is the Australian arm of the global PwC network. It provides services in audit, consulting, legal, and more. Last year, a former tax partner at PwC was advising the government on tax reforms, and at the same time, advising tech companies on how to avoid these tax reforms.

👉 What happened: As a result, PwC lost nearly all of its work from government clients. And, it was forced to spin-off its consulting government arm—which accounted for more than 20% of the business' revenue. After all that pain, PwC Australia is now restructuring its business by making 329 roles redundant.

👉 What else: This job slashing is on top of the 330 staff that were made redundant in November, and the 1,200 staff that moved to Scyne Advisory, the company created to take over PwC's public sector consulting work. This means nearly 25% of PwC Australia has been turned over in the past 12 months.

What's the key learning?

💡Big scandals often serve as a harsh wake-up call for companies, which can often lead to significant business changes.

💡The PwC scandal damaged their reputation and also caused them to lose a whole lot of business. Firstly, there's the nearly $680 million in revenue lost from the Federal and State government. Also, companies like Westpac ended their 21-year audit relationship with PwC.

💡 But on the positive side, a major crisis can also be used as a catalyst for a big transformation. Remember Volkswagen and their Diesel-gate scandal? They ended up investing billions of dollars to develop their EVs. And now, they have nearly 10% of the electric vehicle market.

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