Our PwC Austin Speakers Suggest You Become Tech Savvy ASAP

By Melanie Burges

The Women’s Network at the University of Texas has concluded its second meeting!

Thank you so much to all of the women who showed up despite busy schedules and the heinous weather we were having!

The meeting commenced with a recommendation from the TWN advisor, Dr. Murphy, to download a useful networking app. Entitled Meetup, the app provides users with information about events and groups nearby. It serves as a great way to meet recruiters, future employers and make meaningful connections. This app is a great, easy way to expand your network outside of the classroom.

We were fortunate enough to have two very accomplished speakers present during this week’s meeting. Sara Sharpe and Monica Wheelock are both employees at PwC in Austin, one of four major accounting companies in town. Both UT graduates who attained their masters in accounting from Texas State University, Sara and Monica spoke of the importance of technology in the workplace. Companies like PwC are constantly digitally upscaling internally due to demand from clients, partners and the need for efficiency. PwC has utilized its advanced digitalization by offering services and solutions to their clients and using the same tools to make the company run more efficiently.

Although becoming digital helps a company and its clients in the long run, the short run changes can be quite challenging. Challenges may develop with lack of skill, inflexible existing processes, lack of integration and outdated or obsolete technology. Sara and Monica emphasized the “essential eight” technology upgrades that are currently being used in innovation in the workplace. These eight things include augmented reality, drones, virtual reality, 3D printing, IoT, robots, blockchain and artificial intelligence.

“Technology brings us closer, makes us faster, helps us work smarter”

Some of these technologies seem like they could only be found in sci-fi movies, but they are regularly used at PwC to make inventory and accounting faster and more efficient. Drones are able to do inventory; virtual reality can depict scenarios dealing with human resources; robots can run sequences on the computer; artificial intelligence can read through leases and learn their key terms, and blockchain can clean up an audit trail. All of these innovations represent the changes that PwC is looking to make internally and externally. Sara emphasized that the most important part of any project that she works on is taking the time to really understand the process that she's trying to improve. Otherwise, it's impossible to truly make any sort of lasting impact.

Sara and Monica also discussed the three pillars of successful disruption: emerging technologies, disruptive business models and upskilled people. Emerging technologies are those that are capable of changing the status quo; while a disruptive innovation is one that creates a new market and value network, disrupting and displacing established market-leading firms, products and alliances. Some great examples of this are Netflix and Uber. Lastly, upskilled people are tasked with educating others and providing them with the resources and freedom to innovate. Upskilled people play a very important role when it comes to educating those in the company who are set in their ways and reluctant to learn the new technology. Upskilled workers are customarily paired up with fellow employees or partners in the company to teach them how to operate the new technology in a one-on-one setting.

Finally, Monica and Sara emphasized how important it is to develop technology skills as early as possible, when it comes to the workforce. If you are proficient in the use of certain programs, they advised to include it on your resume and communicate with possible employers about your aptitude for those skills.

As always, thanks for coming out! We'll see you all again after the break.