Pwc_Written_Part_of_Application

My ideal client would be GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as it is one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, developing and supplying medicines to improve patients’ quality of life. It makes prescription medicine, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, oral care and nutritional healthcare products. GSK has a strong relationship with the NHS being its largest supplier of medicines and vaccines as well as advising the NHS on new treatments for major diseases. It employs 96,500 people in over 100 countries and around 13,000 people work in research teams to discover new medicines and in 2010, GSK delivered 1.4 billion vaccine doses to 179 countries. As such, the services PWC could provide to such a huge organisation would be vast and diverse. To begin with, as assurance and advice are at the heart of what GSK do, PWC could provide services such as audit, financial reporting and risk management advice as these would give GSK the stability they need to manage and achieve their goals. PWC could help ensure GSK are aware of their business risks and help them manage them efficiently by ensuring robust systems and controls were in place and that they made sense financially. Being such a huge organisation GSK could end up spending huge amounts of valuable time in business issues such as legislation, HR and IT and as such PWC could provide GSK with a business support service performing administrative functions hence giving them more time and freedom to get back to running and growing their business. Business growth often calls for additional finance and PWC could provide solutions tailored to GSK’s needs whether it is an acquisition, floatation or overseas expansion. By being involved at the outset of a transaction PWC can provide comprehensive advice to minimise the tax exposure, considering all the corporate tax, VAT, international and employee issues as appropriate. Understanding GSK’s mission and strategy i.e. what GSK wants to achieve and how their business works would be very important to PWC as the nature of GSK’s business, the financial and human capital it utilises, the sector in which it operates and the assets it owns and utilises would all contribute to the tax costs it faces. PWC could in turn develop practical tax-efficient business structures to keep costs under control whilst maintaining maximum flexibility for business growth. When providing GSK with advice PWC would need to be aware that they are dealing with an organisation where the only constant is change and as such PWC would need to be forward thinking and have the agility and vision to adapt quickly and accurately in order to provide the best possible solution. GSK are one of the industry leaders with an estimated 7% of the world’s pharmaceutical market. But being a leader brings responsibility. This means that GSK care about the impact they have on people and the world. As such when PWC provides advice to GSK a high degree of professional integrity must be adhered to, to ensure GSK have confidence in PWCs’ services.