An Alliance for Tech Impact: Ulrich Störk

Businesses that fail to embrace emerging technologies will go the way of the dinosaur, says Dr Ulrich Störk, Partner, PwC Germany, who is a member of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) executive team for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and Head of its Alliance Impact Center.

Preventing this type of wipeout is precisely the service Störk and his team offer by connecting clients with the technologies they need, whether they come from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Guidewire, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Workday or Adobe, to transform their finances, operations, cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure.

"We connect our clients with tech partners that will allow them to do business in a more efficient and a more strategic way, which ultimately makes them more successful," Störk tells The CEO Magazine.

But Störk, as well as PwC as a whole, has come a long way since its early days focusing mainly on tax, auditing and accounting to become a large and trusted provider of integrated tech solutions, paired with PwC’s cross-functional and industry expertise.

Having joined PwC’s Frankfurt office in 1994, back when reports were compiled with glue and filed on paper, Störk campaigned for staff to have access to laptops. Exposing himself as a technophile set him apart from others in the business, but his enthusiasm for software and algorithms ultimately put him on an advantageous trajectory.

"I was asking myself, what do we need to change within our organization, the way we’re doing consulting, to connect with the tech partners and participate in their growth?"

After two decades as a partner at the Frankfurt office, he was elected as a senior partner and as Chairman of the management board in 2018. During that time, he watched as tech companies grew consistently by double digits year on year, and wondered whether PwC was missing an opportunity.

"I was asking myself, what do we need to change within our organization, the way we’re doing consulting, to connect with the tech partners and participate in their growth?" he says. "We were already working with some of these tech companies, and had clients who were looking for transformation and business model reinvention by using the latest and newest technology. I thought that there must be some way to align all of these needs."

Thus, in 2022, he was offered the opportunity to lead PwC’s technology alliances in EMEA and set up an Impact Center to focus on turning his vision into a reality, and to transfer some of the lessons learned through tech alliances in Germany across the EMEA region.

"We have the capabilities and possibilities to deliver the newest and greatest technology at scale for our clients," Störk says. "This goes beyond implementation, such as lift and shift of technology, to rather focus on integrating technology into the business of our clients to make it end user focused and drive real outcomes with added value. This is super exciting."

Unifying the Territories

Störk’s leadership of the Alliance Impact Center gives him an opportunity to present a unified message on behalf of PwC to tech companies and clients across EMEA.

"Previously, the message to the tech partners was slightly different in every territory," he recalls. "The message was not always aligned; there was no joint investment plan."

As a solution, Störk set up groups within the Alliance Impact Center to mirror each of their tech partners, like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Guidewire, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Workday and Adobe, forging closer relationships to those partners so they were better able to recommend their services to clients across the region.

"The CEO of a big firm wants to understand how we work together with our technology partners, how we bring in our industry expertise and curation of ecosystems to add value and deliver value most efficiently and in a uniform way across EMEA and often globally," he says.

"Being able to do this has given us a lot of confidence that we now have the right structure to actually deliver against our ambition."

Under the Center’s guidance, PwC’s leaders are not only educated and empowered but also inspired to foster meaningful investments in its relationships with alliance partnerships, paving the way for transformative growth and innovation.

"Continuous education really allows them to understand the disruptive power of technology – not just on the clients’ business but also on our business, and how these are all connected," Störk says.

Investment into Expertise

In the past, PwC’s success depended on its ability to sell the time and expertise of its staff to clients. But in selling technology, Störk says, the incentives and benchmarks for success are different.

"It’s not just about selling smart people – it’s selling smart people who understand how to use technology now in a way that was not possible 10 months ago," he says. "We also have to educate our partners and our clients, because change is never easy."

There have even been times when Störk’s team have recommended technologies to clients that research showed would afford them a 20–40 percent increase in efficiency, but the client was too skeptical and hesitant about making too many changes in their operations.

"For someone who is in the tech sector, this can be really exhausting," he says. "Technology is changing rapidly. There are instances where if you’re using a technology that is six months old, you’re not making it through the front door."

"Pure tech people try to sell their technology based on where they expect to get the highest reselling commission. We come from a different point of view – asking clients what their specific goals are."

This is why Störk emphasizes the importance of boosting investment into his team’s education and expertise.

"Clients expect us to be technological leaders with exceptional industry knowledge," he says. "We have super deep industry know-how."

This investment also gives PwC an advantage over tech companies’ own salesforces.

"Pure tech people might try to sell their technology based on where they expect to get the highest reselling commission," Störk says. "We come from a different point of view – asking clients what their specific goals are and then being agnostic about which tech offers the best solution. Tech, after all, is just an enabler. We are happy to recommend SAP if it’s the right case, and Oracle for cases where it is the best option.

"We want to be known as the company that is driving value for the client."

Fostering Teamwork

When a company has about 364,000 employees around the world, it can be hard to keep everyone aligned to the same vision. This also poses a challenge within Störk’s much smaller team at the Alliance Impact Center, but it is one he faces head on.

"It is a permanent management exercise to make sure your people are not ending up in silos – making sure you constantly collaborate," he says. "This is one of the biggest challenges for our top leadership team."

"It is a permanent management exercise to make sure your people are not ending up in silos – making sure you constantly collaborate."

Consistent growth seen by PwC means that new people are joining the team all the time from previous roles where the culture was different. Störk, who has been at the same company for three decades, is the outlier. But it is his responsibility to ensure that when new staff join, they are valued for the diverse perspectives they bring from their previous work, and that they nonetheless embrace the PwC culture.

"It’s like football: you won’t be successful if the client sees a bunch of individuals sitting across from them. They need to see a team," he says.