Sabrina N. Gordon, Business Reporter
Everton McDonald, managing partner of Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Jamaica, is chair of the six-month-old C8 network. - File
The eight Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) country firms operational in the Caribbean have formed an alliance, the C8, that allows them to call on the talent of the group when hunting consultancy and audit jobs.
But it also provides the country firms access to a network of pooled expertise or specialists to service the needs of the firm's existing clientele.
That move comes as more companies within the region look to expand their businesses, looking to their neighbours for markets.
Managing partner of the PwC Jamaica, Everton McDonald, the founding chairman of C8, notes that intraregional investments continue to sprout offering opportunities to advisory firms like PwC.
"We feel that by having a greater level of collaboration, we can build on existing strengths while serving our clients in the region better and also strengthen connection with the global network," said McDonald.
"The objective of C8 is to collaborate so as to take advantage of market opportunities within the region and also to strengthen the PwC brand," he told the Financial Gleaner.
Billion-dollar growth
PricewaterhouseCoopers this year rose to a US$25 billion firm by revenues - up from US$22 billion at year-end June 2006 - with its North American/Caribbean geographic segment contributing US$9 billion to the total, up 8.0 per cent year-on-year to June 2007.
The C8 alliance covers Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Eastern Caribbean - comprising Barbados, Antigua, St. Lucia, Grenada and St. Kitts.
It has been operational now for six months.
C8 is run by a board of directors comprising senior partners from the eight firms, from which the chairman is elected.
The alliance has the wider backing of PwC's global operation. A representative from Canada and PwC's global office also attends the C8 board meetings to give support to the network.
Quarterly board meetings
The board meets on a quarterly basis with periodic conference calls among directors.
Regional leadership groups, covering areas such as assurance or audit, advisory services, tax and risk assessment, report to the board.
While the secretariat for the C8 is based in Kingston, the venue for the board meeting is rotated among the territories. The first two meetings were held in Kingston and Bahamas capital Nassau, respectively.
McDonald said the regional network is geared towards sharing both resources and best practices.
"Sharing resources is very important," he said. "By pooling resources there are opportunities that we can take advantage of that we would not be able to as individual firms."
From a practical standpoint, the firm in Basseterre, for example, could tap the services of experts in the Kingston office, if they have greater competence in the job to be executed, and could sell their service to clients on the basis of expertise within the network, making it easier to qualify for consultancy jobs.
"More companies are now investing throughout the region, and even touching South and Central America, and we feel that the strength of this network will allow us to give a better-coordinated service to these regional companies," said McDonald.
sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com
