• Balanced growth across EY despite a more challenging business environment due to COVID-19 
• EY NextWave strategy brings greater focus on long-term value creation with plans for investments of US$1.5b in EY people, technology and audits in FY21
• In Q4, introduced 38 new COVID-19-related solutions with 11 alliance organizations to support EY clients, government and communities

The EY NextWave strategy and ambition: building long-term value for all stakeholders

Launched in FY20, the NextWave strategy expands on the EY purpose of building a better working world and has a clear ambition to create long-term value for all stakeholders. The elements of the NextWave strategy will be measured using the EY long-term value framework, which is built on four value dimensions: human/people value; consumer/client value; social value; and financial value.

EY continues to play an active role in supporting the wider move to long-term value creation. In FY20, it contributed to a collaborative effort convened by The World Economic Forum’s International Business Council (IBC), which brought together 120 CEOs of the world’s largest companies, to agree on a core set of metrics to help standardize disclosures around Environmental, Social and Governance factors and long-term value creation. The proposed disclosures consider a company’s impact along four pillars aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs): planet, people, prosperity and principles of governance. Those core metrics are available in the Global Review 2020, published today.

As part of the NextWave strategy and to meet increasing C-suite strategy, transformation and technology needs, EY has introduced two redefined service lines on 1 July: 

►    Strategy and Transactions (formerly Transaction Advisory Services) has an expanded strategy consulting offering, integrating EY-Parthenon with the former Transaction Advisory Services business and strategy capabilities moved from elsewhere in EY. Upon relaunch, EY-Parthenon immediately became the world’s fifth largest strategy organization by revenue, and the new service line will focus on helping EY clients transform and execute their strategy to optimize the value of their organization and realize their potential.  

►    Consulting (formerly Advisory) helps EY clients transform and thrive in a market of accelerating, complex change based on three value drivers: humans at the center, technology at speed and innovation at scale. It counts on a unique ecosystem of solutions, technologies and alliances to help companies realize their transformational needs. As part of this new redefined service line, EY is significantly accelerating the expansion of Technology Consulting services through organic hiring and acquisitions.

To accelerate the digital transformation of the global organization, for FY21 there are plans to invest US$1.5b in audit quality, technology solutions, people and the wider EY ecosystem of strategic alliances. The investments will see further build out of the client technology platform which underpins EY services and enables the global organization to drive client service innovation and deliver projects across EY at scale and speed. This proprietary platform has 1m client users in addition to nearly 300,000 EY people in over 150 countries, with upwards of 500m business transactions processed per day. EY is already a top global user of cloud technology, with 80% of EY business-critical platforms hosted on cloud technology across 160 countries. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects impacted governments and businesses, EY teams reacted quickly to provide vital business continuity and resilience services, including: 

►    Assisting the Government of Chile with the setting up of digital triage tools to screen patients prior to entry in emergency rooms.

►    Helping Australian Government agencies transition employees to remote working quickly during the pandemic while enabling new service delivery. 

►    Supporting the Canadian Government’s supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline services at a time when more than 60 countries halted exports of PPE.

►    Assisting numerous banking clients with loan origination and underwriting surge resources during a period of unprecedented demand.

An outstanding people culture

Overall, headcount increased by 5.3% to 298,965 people globally. Despite the disruption from COVID-19, EY continued its long-standing commitment to internships in FY20, with half of the 15,000 internships taking place on a remote basis.

The EY Global Executive, the most senior body in EY, is one-third women and the 18 leaders are from nine countries, including four based in emerging markets. Demonstrating the ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion, the EY Global Executive signed the EY Global Executive Diversity & Inclusion Statement and established a Global Social Equity Task Force.

EY continues to be recognized on prestigious lists for its outstanding people culture. It remains the world’s most attractive professional services employer in Universum’s annual “World’s Most Attractive Employer” ranking, and second overall behind Google. In the US, EY was recognized in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For®” annual list for a record 21-consecutive years.  

Building a better working world

In FY20, EY set the ambitious goal of positively affecting 1b lives by 2030 through its EY Ripples corporate responsibility program. More than 1m people will be mobilized globally to drive long-term change by working with impact entrepreneurs, supporting the next generation and accelerating environmental sustainability. In FY20 more than 15.5m lives were positively affected, bringing the total to more than 34m to date. 

In FY20, there were investments of a total of US$126m in projects dedicated to strengthening its communities and its people contributed 790k hours of time to a variety of initiatives and value-in-kind projects. EY people have also used their skills and knowledge to help combat COVID-19 challenges via a range of pro bono and voluntary work.

At Davos, EY pledged to become carbon-neutral by the end of calendar year 2020 and appointed Steve Varley to the new position of EY Global Vice Chair — Sustainability, with a focus on helping EY and its clients achieve their sustainability goals. EY is on track to meet its carbon commitment and will continue to take action to create sustainable, inclusive growth for future generations.

David Barker, EY Cyprus Country Managing Partner, commented: “Despite the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, EY has once again achieved substantial growth in FY20 across all services lines, geographies, key industries and markets. We have done this by consistently investing in technology, innovation and human capital. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, while effectively protecting our people by moving swiftly to working remotely, we created a wide range of pandemic-related solutions for clients but also helped governments and communities to cope with the challenges, on the basis of our purpose of helping to build a better working world. We are proud of this accomplishment and are committed to continue supporting our clients through this challenging period.”