Annual CEE Best Brand in Practice Award 2002
The Best Brand in Practice in CEE for 2002 was awarded this year to the Warsaw practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers (see below). And like last year there were also three runners up who received awards (scroll down for more).
1st place
Judges' comments: “PwC and Gazeta Wyborcza started a not-for-profit competition in 1996 “Grasz o staz†for university students to win paid internships in Polish and International companies. It is the only such initiative in the Polish market. Over 130 companies now participate, many for several years, with 11,000 students applying each year, and over 500 having completed an internship. 70% of students know about the competition, and it has done much to raise the profile of PwC. All participants benefit: companies gain employees; students gain invaluable experience; PwC increases its brand awareness through being seen to be socially responsible on behalf of two of its key markets: students and business. The competition is aligned with PwC's core values of leadership, excellence and teamwork, with the linked website prepared in accordance with the firm's global branding rules. A worthy winner indeed.â€
Winner’s comments: “We are very pleased to have been awarded the Best Brand in Practice Award in the CEE. We believe that our already well-established (and winning!) program “Grasz o staz†(“Your Internship at Stakeâ€) serves its primary purpose which is to enable the best students to gain professional experience through internship programs at various companies in Poland. Beyond this, our program aims to manifest our (and that of our partner in this undertaking, “Gazeta Wyborcza†daily) social engagement and responsibility though enabling motivated, professional and creative young people to find great start in their professional careers. By working with the PM Forum CEE we are showing our support to development of the professional services marketing in Poland and CEE - let's hope the Awards will some day become “Oscars†for this fast growing profession.â€
Przemek Pohrybieniuk
Head of Marketing Communications
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Warsaw
www.pwcglobal.com/pl
1st Runner up
Judges' comments: “Although not located in the capital city, management consultancy Nexus has an impressive story to tell. In a decade, it has provided more than 1,000 projects in marketing, finance and management. A focus on listening to clients has enabled the firm to develop long standing relationships with major institutions. Their brand lies in their delivery.â€
Winner’s comments: “We are extremely pleased with the 1st Runner Up Award in the Best Brand in Practice 2002 Contest. It is a great honor for NEXUS Consultants Ltd. Moreover, success in competing with so many distinguishable companies gives us even more satisfaction. We appreciate the opportunity given by this award because we realize that NEXUS got a real chance to be noticed on the market of professional consulting service in Central and Eastern Europe.â€
Tomasz F. Pelc
Chief Executive Officer
NEXUS Consultants
www.nexus.pl
2nd Runner up
Judges' comments: “The personality of this law firm is one based on a common desire to uphold the firm's integrity, sense of purpose and commitment to the protection of their client's needs. Clear leadership and a focus on values have brought high client satisfaction ratings and much repeat business.â€
Winner’s comments: “This is truly a prestigious award and will certainly help support our future growth. We entered the competition of PM Forum CEE Best Brand in practice for 2002 with a prospect of being objectively awarded for our unceasing effort to render excellent services to both our clients and community and we were! Thank you very much for recognizing the outstanding quality of our work and position on the market of Central and Eastern Europe by awarding us the position of the 2nd Runner Up! This result will encourage us in our future endeavors.â€
Pavla Prikrylova
Partner
Peterka, Leuchterova & Partners
www.cabinet.cz
3rd Runner up
Judges' comments: “An accountancy firm that strives to be friendly and helpful towards its clients through providing management information well beyond the statutory requirements. Regular contact is a key part of a partnership relationship with clients from advisors that want to improve the client's systems.â€
Winner’s comments: “We think that the idea of organizing such a competition is very good. We find the award as a great honor for us and an important marketing achievement, which will enable us to open new markets not only in Central Europe. We also treat the award as confirmation that the approach we use in our work towards our clients is the most important marketing tool for our company. We hope that the winners’ meeting will not be just a single one, but it will be a plane for the exchange of our experience in the future. We encourage other companies to take part in the Best Brand in Practice for 2003.â€
Andrzej Szowa
Vice President
Euro-in & Partners
www.euroin.pl
International recognition for PwC Warsaw
In addition to receiving the awards pictured above, PricewaterhouseCoopers Warsaw was also profiled in the Winter issue of professional marketing, which is the worldwide journal of marketing professional services published by the PM Forum in London.
This marks only the second time, that a professional service firm in Central & Eastern Europe was profiled in this journal. Below is the "practice profile" that appeared in the Winter 2002 edition, reprinted here with permission from professional marketing.
Avoiding red herrings
The Polish arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers was only created in 1990 - but its marketing team could teach many a lesson to far older firms. Przemek Pohrybieniuk, its 31-year old marketing head, talks to Neasa MacErlean about the alumni schemes, the competition that 70 per cent of possible candidates have heard of, bringing 'Corporate Social Responsibility' to Poland and many other issues.
You cannot overstate the importance of personal contact in Poland. In a country where unemployment is 18 per cent, getting a good job depends on ingenuity and capitalising on your acquaintances. These are themes that clearly run behind the marketing strategy of business advisers and accountants PwC in their five offices in Poland.
Much of the firm's marketing effort in the past seven years has gone into a student internship competition (Grasz o staz), run in tandem with Gazeta Wyborcza, one of the leading Polish newspapers. Back in the mid-1990s, PwC decided to redouble its efforts to recruit the best new graduates it could from its national universities. In order to raise its profile, it joined forces with the newspaper and offered students the opportunity to apply for summer interns with the top international and national businesses. The students can only apply through a PwC website and have to submit an analysis of a business case study in their application. Each year, 11,000 students apply - and an estimated 70 per cent of the undergraduate population are aware of the competition. "The concept is brilliant for us," says Przemek Pohrybieniuk, head of the nine-strong Marketing Communications team, based in Warsaw. "We are positioned with the number one newspaper in Poland. We offer companies the best people in the market. It is all self-financing. And we deal with very talented people who show their initiative and do it using the latest technology."
Often when projects go on for several years they get stale - but this one is developing new fringe benefits each year. (It has just won the PM Forum CEE award for the Best Brand in Practice.) PwC puts on training for the businesses involved in how to welcome and manage the interns. And it has also set up receptions where the Human Resources managers of the companies have made very useful contacts - notably the meeting which was attended by the deputy minister for labour.
One of the latest ideas is to set up an alumni scheme for the interns. Many of them end up staying in the companies they go to for the summer. PwC in Poland already has considerable experience of its own alumni scheme - an idea which many Western European firms might want to copy. Now about 1,000 strong in Poland, the firm has about 1,200 former employees. "We are in constant, regular contact with 900 of them," says Pohrybieniuk. "It's very useful. It creates an emotional bond. We got 400 people to the last reunion." Obviously, many of the alumni have done well in their new roles and our now buyers or potential buyers of services from PwC. "We are cutting out a lot of the introductory work," comments Pohrybieniuk, comparing the process of maintaining a link with an alumnus to building up a new contact from scratch. PwC keeps a database of these former staff, segmenting them by industry and function so that it can inform the right people when it, for instance, puts on an industry seminar for them. Alumni also have their own website (www.alumnipwc.pl).
Direct face to face human contact is the central part of another crucial strand of PwC marketing - in the role it is playing in introducing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to Poland. "CSR is well-known in many other countries but in Poland it is still a novelty," says Pohrybieniuk. A vice-president of the non-governmental organisation the Responsible Business Forum, Pohrybieniuk has been active in this field for three years: "We want to establish ourselves as leaders in this field by being an example of how a multi-national, yet Polish, firm can do this. The interest is growing tremendously. We are seen by society, business circles and the media as one of the leaders of CSR." For its own people, PwC has set up a Community Involvement Committee through which the staff can nominate potential projects and define the roles they will play. One current scheme is Fresh Start - a link-up with two Warsaw orphanages where PwC personnel visit and teach English and IT. But PwC is also in continuous contact with clients and potential clients over CSR. It has frequently introduced people from the Responsible Business Forum and other parts of the CSR infrastructure to the business community in Poland. Many multinationals - including BP - which have developed CSR in other territories are keen to engage with the local community in Poland.
Showing a human and caring face is also a theme which underpins PwC's extensive sponsorship activities. It recently sponsored the Last Night of the Proms in Krakow, and has a clear policy of supporting the arts, culture, youth, education and national heritage. But Pohrybieniuk is keen to emphasis that the firm is genuinely involved and not just writing a cheque: "I tend to use the word 'patronage'. 'Sponsorship' is very much a marketing activity, whereas 'patronage' is more about doing good."
The Marketing/Communications team - based in Warsaw but represented in each of the other offices by at least one person - carries out the wide range of activities which most marketing teams handle. So, for example, it handles PR ('crucial to our strategy'), the internet, advertising, corporate hospitality, events and publications. Like most professional firms, it is far keener on PR and media relations than on advertising. "Through the media, we can talk to our clients," says Pohrybieniuk's whose team were preparing to launch a special press extranet as pm went to press. But, although he used to work for an advertising agency before he joined PwC six years ago, Pohrybieniuk is not raising the stakes - like some competitors - on advertising. "We have been playing it pretty low key," he says.
In talking to the firm, it becomes clear how much PwC in Poland has embraced new ideas. For instance, many marketing people and managing partners in western Europe are rather unsure about the benefits which their websites bring them. While they accept that they have to have one, they cannot quite see how it helps them bring in business. But there is no such ambivalence here. There are numerous websites. Even the tax department has its own one - www.taxonline.pl - from which it sends out daily tax updates to clients. The main one - www.pwcglobal.com/pl is in both Polish and English. The alumni one is clearly vital in helping that fraternity stay in contact and retain their bonds. The website at the heart of the student competition is a central part of the whole idea. And the new facility for the press will be a streamlined and easy way for them to get information.
Pohrybieniuk is a self-professed believer in 'holistic communications' and clearly sees the internet as being capable of underpinning a whole range of projects. It might be only 12 years old, but PwC in Poland has, perhaps, found itself some shortcuts by going back to first principles in marketing and avoiding some of the red herrings and other potential traps which have slowed down the development of many older firms.
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