Living our values and nurturing our culture
Deloitte is in a very good place. We have maintained our position as the strongest and most valuable commercial services brand. We are one of the most attractive workplaces in Denmark and the #1 in our industry as validated by Universum. And we live our purpose by making an impact for our clients, our people and our society every day.
A strong position is a privilege which brings a great responsibility to uphold the highest quality standards and ethical behaviours. We play an important role in the Danish society. We do that by helping our clients transform their businesses, in our work assuring public trust as auditors and in setting new standards for people development and lifelong learning.
Deloitte is defined by our people and our culture. And we must work continuously to protect and nurture our culture. We have a responsibility to create a psychologically safe work environment with an equal playing field and a playground for lifelong learning. This is our foundation.
Christian Jensby, CEO & Partner
This has been my first year as CEO. Together with the Executive team, we have launched new initiatives; our new Elevate strategy to be the #1 for clients and talents; a new culture programme to ensure continued focus on listening to and learning from our people and nurturing our culture; and 360 Develop - our commitment to lifelong learning, which will positively impact all of us at Deloitte. We have also designed our new global storefront representing four business units instead of five to reduce complexity and mirror our clients’ demands and the world that we live in today. The new storefront will go live from October 2024.
Investing in generative AI and sustainability
It has been another year of geopolitical and economic uncertainty with headwinds affecting us and our clients. But it has also been a year of new opportunities like generative AI, which is transforming the way we work as a firm and the business models of our clients. Not surprisingly, generative AI has become a significant investment area for Deloitte, and we are committed to leading this megatrend with innovation, collaboration, trust, and people at the heart of what we do.
Many client conversations have indeed been about generative AI and how that integrates with broader tech transformation projects. How can we help clients create value with generative AI?
How can we help clients innovate with generative AI? We address these challenges, as we work alongside our strong ecosystem of alliance partners to develop innovative and sustainable solutions. Organisations rely on us for the scale, services, and expertise needed to help them manage the complexities brought about by these significant changes.
As climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time, sustainability continues to be an important focus area for us and our clients. It is clear that we need to work together as businesses, governments, nations and individuals to take action. Our clients are searching for paths towards a lower-carbon footprint, and for ways to meet increased compliance requirements whilst creating innovative solutions that will help change the world.
This year, we have moved the needle in becoming the preferred partner for driving sustainability change, helping our clients succeed and use sustainability to accelerate their own businesses.
Externally, ESG is still an area that needs to mature, as we help our clients move the agenda from a predominantly compliance-oriented focus to an integrated part of their overarching business strategy to drive value creation.
Internally, ESG is an area that we continue to invest in, from integrating it into our service areas to the way we deliver to our clients. ESG has become a key to help set the standards to uphold the public trust in companies.
Reflecting on these growth drivers and the importance of sustainability and technology transformations, we continue to invest, and we have elevated the agendas to have top priority at a leadership level. As a natural result, Anne Kathrine Wennergren-Holm, who leads sustainability, and Maria Hald, leading technology, have joined the Executive team. We have also strengthened our teams to help accelerate these areas.
Performing while transforming
The past year has been both challenging and exciting for us. We have moved from double-digit growth to moderate growth in a market characterised by high inflation, high interest rates, and more headwind in the market compared with FY23 and FY22. At the same time, we have continued to transform and reshape our business. In FY24, we have divested part of our business in Esbjerg and our healthcare-related businesses. It is never easy to say goodbye to good colleagues, but sometimes it is necessary to ensure that we are always future fit.
I am so proud that we – despite a year with external challenges and internal changes – managed to surpass our previous results in terms of revenue. Financially, we ended the year with 4% growth, resulting in revenue of DKK 5,168 million. This result reflects a changing market as well as strategic choices in our firm.
While growth is important, the numbers only reflect part of the picture. We continue to serve global companies by helping them solve some of their biggest challenges. We also support a wide range of small and medium-sized enterprises with the transformations they go through. And we continue to be recognised as the leading professional services firm across industries and sectors.
This year, we welcomed 663 new talents, and we are proud to have 3,393 talented employees in total, which means we are Denmark's largest professional services firm. Our people make our success and results, often cooperating with colleagues around the world. Globally, approximately 460,000 people around the network and our multidisciplinary businesses have secured revenue of US$67.2 billion marking a 3.1 per cent growth.
Preparing for a new global storefront
We mirror the world as our clients see it to offer the best solutions. Our clients' strategic agendas are changing, and they increasingly demand seamless, consistent, and global audit and advisory services from teams with the most comprehensive and deepest competencies. And just like we help our clients reshape their businesses to be fit for the future, we also need to look at our own structures to reduce complexity. As a result, globally, we have prepared to change to being organised into four business units: Audit & Assurance, Tax & Legal, Strategy, Risk & Transactions Advisory, and Technology & Transformation. This will be effective from October 2024.
The alignment with our global organisation is an important step towards regional integrations. Beginning in 2016 with the integration of the Nordic countries, this integration as one Nordic member firm has accelerated over the past year, where we work closer together as one. At a global level, we are part of a member firm combination of 28 countries across Europe and the Middle East, and in the coming years, we are now looking ahead at closer integration with the rest of Europe.
Reshaping our learning lives
To be the best, we need to be able to attract and retain talented people and to be world-class in developing people. And to attract and retain talented people, we need to be the best place to work.
During the year, I was happy to see Deloitte move into the top 3 best places to work, according to business students in Universum’s Best place to work survey. To have climbed two spots in just a year - and standing alongside other iconic Danish brands - is truly remarkable. We remain the #1 place to work in audit and accounting, a testament to our unwavering dedication to quality, integrity and to creating exciting career paths. We were also recognised as the top choice for business law students.
The results reflect our commitment to precisely this: being the best place to work. And to top it all: The results show that both male and female business students find us equally attractive, underscoring our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
While we want to be the best place to work, we also want our people to grow professionally and personally. We spend much of our lives at the workplace. The idea of studying for five years at university and then working 40 years in the labour market with very little upskilling needs to be revised. As the largest professional services firm in Denmark, we want to develop a blueprint for continuous learning that can help our people upskill and grow and ultimately create value for our society. During this past year, we have taken the first steps to elevate our learning experience through which we can both nourish the individual and fortify our business by launching 360 Develop – our platform for lifelong learning.
Creating a level playing field for all
With talents from across the world, our success is deeply rooted in our commitment to diversity and inclusion. Our offices in Denmark are home to talents from 56 nationalities, exemplifying our global reach with local roots.
Diversity and inclusion, as well as a psychologically safe work environment, are essential. For us, diversity is broader than gender. It is much more, and we invest a lot of time and energy into creating an environment where all our people, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or social upbringing, can be themselves and succeed in the workplace.
During the past year, we have spent a lot of time listening to our talents, and we realised that although an inclusive workplace with psychological safety is high on our agenda, we still have a way to go.
We received feedback for lack of diversity, inappropriate behaviour, and unequal treatment. As we began listening to the voices speaking up, we realised that underneath the concerns, there was a genuine wish to improve Deloitte Denmark. This propelled us to initiate several significant changes to improve our culture, talent management, and leadership.
We have thoroughly reviewed our culture and have established a group of cultural ambassadors to advise our Executive team. We have also looked into how we can ensure fair treatment of all, and we have adjusted our whistleblower scheme. This is all work in progress, but we have come a long way. And we have a strong culture and have had so for decades. But culture needs to be nurtured, and that has become very clear this past year.
As we onboard more talents than ever before, we continue to focus on making Deloitte Denmark the best place to work and grow. Above all, we are a purpose-driven firm that wants to drive progress with purpose and be guardians of the public trust. I want to express my sincere gratitude to all our clients for the trust you show us and to our talents for your unwavering dedication and invaluable contributions during a time of transformation.
