PwC bolsters digital consulting practice in Austria with acquisition

PwC has beefed up its digital consulting capabilities in Austria with the acquisition of point of origin, a Vienna-based digital advisory firm with a 16-strong team.

The deal sees the founders of point of origin, Nicole Prieller and Andreas Hladky, take along their full team of digital consultants to PwC, while being appointed partners themselves. On the rationale behind the tie-up, Prieller said: “PwC’s international network and their diverse customer and project base will open up new and exciting challenges for us.” 

Prieller and Hladky co-founded point of origin in 2008 as a specialist in digital transformation consulting, with a focus on digital marketing and analytics. The firm has a particularly strong track record in topics including customer journey consulting, user experience and user interface design, marketing automation and data analytics. In more recent years, the consultancy extended its footprint to also support clients with digital transformation, business intelligence and change management. 

Meanwhile, since 2013 point of origin served as the official and exclusive representative firm of Forrester Research in Austria, enabling it to provide its clients with deep market insights and benchmark data into their IT and technology performance. 

For PwC, which has around 1,200 employees in Austria across offices in Vienna, Graz, Klagenfurt, Linz and Salzburg, the deal beefs up its digital consulting capacity – one of the firm’s fastest growing service lines in Europe and globally. 

The newly acquired team will work closely with PwC’s existing practices within its digital unit. Leaders of this unit include Agatha Kalandra (Digital Finance and HR), Gerald Dipplinger (Tax Technology), Dieter Harreither (SAP), Barbara Redlein (Risk Assurance), Georg Beham (Cybersecurity & Privacy) and Georg Ogrinz (Salesforce). 

Roland Schöbel, the boss of PwC Advisory in Austria, said: “point of origin is an excellent fit with our own digital consulting team. This addition expands our suite of services and consolidates our position as a leading digital consultancy in the market.”

The acquisition comes shortly after PwC closed two other deals in the German speaking region (DACH). In May, PwC bought a stake in a Berlin-based business school for digital skills, while three months before that, also in Germany, the Big Four firm purchased product design and innovation agency IXDS.