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Our ongoing commitment to embedding balance in our business continues at pace. The work we do in Audit & Assurance ensures that society can trust in markets and allocate capital accordingly. It is an endeavour that takes on an even greater importance when growth is diminished, and economic turbulence is present.
And core to this work is our people, who build trust in society. FY23 saw significant revenue growth – both scaling Assurance and winning new clients. All in all, revenue increased by 9 per cent compared to last year. Significant growth within Assurance is part of the story here – so, too, has been our ability to retain our crown as the undisputed leader within FSI, despite the demands and challenges of rotation. We have also built up our ESG practice, to meet the tremendous demand in the market.
And we have achieved all of this whilst at the same time working to ease the burden on our people. At the start of FY22, we discontinued engagements with a large number of clients, to free up over 100,000 working hours. Over FY23, we have gone further, and managed to reduce the hourly burden on our people even more with a reduction of close to 100 hours per client server. Not just in words but in demonstrable deeds, we strive to build a better balance for our people within the business. That we have done this while continuing to deliver sterling results shows this strategy is the right one – for our people and our clients.
Building a sustainable work culture
It is a huge honour that we remain #1 in the Universum rankings as the most preferred employer in the audit and advisory industry. We have held this honour for 14 years now – but we won’t be resting on our laurels. In all we do we want to send the clear signal that we are putting our people first. Initiatives we have embarked upon to build a better culture continue to bear fruit – and are having a real impact. The Young Advisory Board we launched in FY22 has had influence on the sustainable people agenda, with members motivated to take part in this journey.
“I am part of YAB to make Deloitte an even better
workplace. We believe psychological safety is key to
creating a #1 employer in the eyes of talents.”
Jens Damgaard Madsen, Private Odense.
Our “audit by year” initiative is helping to spread work across the year, so talents aren’t facing peaks and troughs in workload. And we have begun a campaign – Denmark’s Next Auditor – to change the perception of audit, and what an auditor does: both a branding awareness and a recruitment initiative. FY23 has seen us in execution mode when it comes to putting our people first. Pairing sustainable and sustained growth with a people-first approach and a Nordic-first ambition continues to be our aim.
Leading the way on Nordic integration
Meeting clients’ needs means progressing on Nordic integration – scaling our core service areas and undertaking joint investments, both to move to where the market is heading and to shape its development. Developing our strategy and creating the framework for execution within Audit & Assurance were key milestones – which we achieved. We have also begun initiating some of the processes which will take us to where we need to be, so we can serve the market and respond to the needs of clients. Approaches and technology we have developed in Denmark are already being scaled and implemented by our Nordic neighbours – making an immediate and demonstrable impact. At the same time, we can learn – and are learning – a lot from the increased integration with our Nordic colleagues. This collaboration is mutually beneficial and a sign of things to come.
So, in this context, it makes sense that our training is taking on a Nordic flavour: we had the fantastic experience of gathering all Nordic A&A colleagues working with our largest clients in Copenhagen for joint learning.