Google Cloud Next '24 | Justin Femmer & Dallas Dolen | PwC US

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Justin Femmer

Data Automation & Governance Leader

PwC

Dallas Dolen

Global Google Cloud Alliance Leader, US Tech, Media & Telecomm Industry Leader, and Board Member

PwC

How PwC’s advanced data tools are transforming business decision-making

Integrating tax and sustainability with advanced data management tools is transforming traditional business practices into strategic front-office functions.Leveraging data is critical, especially in the current highly regulated environment. PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd. is addressing this need by providing sophisticated data management tools to maximize business ROI, according to Justin Femmer (pictured, left), data automation and governance leader at PwC US.“Most companies’ tax functions and sustainability functions are looking to become more strategic,” Femmer said. “They don’t just want to be a back office. They want to move to the front office, so to speak

play_circle_outline The Interplay of Tax, Sustainability, and Data: Unveiling Challenges, Management, and Regulatory Impact

play_circle_outline The ability to use Google Cloud for quick access to data and reporting

play_circle_outline The need for more sophisticated data management tools and analytics

play_circle_outline Success story of helping a company with scope 3 reporting and supply chain improvements

play_circle_outline The Crucial Role of Trust in Sustainable Reporting and Data Management: Google's Partnership with a Regulated Entity

play_circle_outline Simplifying and democratizing tax reporting and making it accessible to all

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Justin Femmer & Dallas Dolen | PwC US

Justin Femmer

Data Automation & Governance Leader PwC

Dallas Dolen

Global Google Cloud Alliance Leader, US Tech, Media & Telecomm Industry Leader, and Board Member PwC

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(bright music)

>> Good afternoon, Cloud community, and a welcome back to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We're midway through day two of three days here at Google Cloud Next. My name's Savannah Peterson, joined by the ineffable and fabulous Rob Strechay. Rob, what a joy to host with you.

>> This is always so much fun. >> I know.

>> I think, again, getting the energy from all the guests that have been on today has been fantastic. And this place is just hopping.

>> It really is. And you know, I thought we were going to have a little bit of a come down 'cause we just came off

the show in Paris. >> Yes.

>> I feel like that energy's good. Of all the shows to go to, if we have to leave France.

>> We come here, but it's similar technology.

It's a lot about cloud. >> Yeah.

>> And I think we get to talk about two really tightly knit topics here,

tax and sustainability. >> Yeah.

>> 'Cause I'm very interested in diving into this 'cause, not usually what I think of. I mean, I had to do my taxes this past weekend, but other than that, it's really very-

>> I'm an extension filer myself. We deal with that in October, hundred percent, I will just admit that. It is busy season for events this time of year. Without further ado, I suppose we should welcome these fabulous gentlemen to our left. Justin and Dallas, thank you so much for being here. Pleasure to have you.

>> Excited.

>> I'm excited. When I was reading the briefing, and it literally said tax, sustainability and data, I thought, okay, this is awesome. Where is this Venn diagram?

>> Yep. Yep.

>> Obviously governance is going to be a theme of what we're talking about, but why don't you explain why these three things go together so lovely.

>> Sure. I'll get started, but we're excited to be with you guys, as well. I don't have adjectives prepared to describe Dallas, (group laughs) but we'll start on these topics. So, it's interesting. Tax has been around forever, right. Death and taxes.

>> Savannah: Right. >> They're certainties in life.

>> Savannah: I was just going to say.

>> So, tax functions have become more mature over time versus sustainability, which is a relatively newer area. But there's a couple things that are happening all at the same time in both of these areas, right? So number one, it all stems around data, okay? The first thing is, both of these functions share attributes that we don't get the right data that we need, we have a lot of manual work spreadsheets

to get the data together. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Which is not in vogue with cost reduction and things that we're seeing in the market, right? When we're asking for more resources to deal with manual work. So, that's the baseline. Both of these areas, there's a bunch of new regulations coming out. So, our friends in tax will talk about Pillar Two regimes and we'll talk about e-invoicing and we can talk more about what those are, you know, after the interview. And on the sustainability side, we've got CSRD that came out in Europe, demanding more disclosure around our carbon emissions. We've had the same thing in the SEC recently

and state of California. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> So these regulations are putting more pressure to have good data, to be transparent around the data and to have quality and reliable proof of, you know, that the data's valid. The last part of this equation though, with the regulations, it's not just about the reporting. Most companies' tax functions and sustainability functions are looking to become more strategic, right? They don't just want to be a back office. They want to move to the front office, so to speak. They want to be involved in decision making. They want to help advise the company on where to go and the ROI and all those things. It's really difficult to do that if I can barely get numbers to do a extension or a tax return.

>> I was going to say, yeah, if you're a little bit last minute.

>> So, companies are looking for more sophistication, which has brought us here because we need more sophisticated data management tools and analytics to be able to move from back office more efficiently and into the front office, which is what gets Dallas and I, you know, out of bed in the morning, so to speak.

>> All right, I love that. Dallas, why do you get out of bed in the morning? Are going to give us as good of a description as that?

>> It's mostly just to make sure that Justin doesn't talk too much.

>> Yeah. (group laughs) I can see why this is a good little dream team between the two of you. So, where are customers off at in the journey when they come talk to you? Dallas, I'll open with you there.

>> Yeah, actually, they're everywhere in the journey, but most of the time on tax, they're nowhere.

>> Savannah: Okay, that's what I was thinking.

>> Dallas: So, there are visionaries.

>> Savannah: Right.

>> But the ability to really progress that vision into something that's practical and applied is very nascent. And that's the interesting part 'cause whenever we come with not just a vision, but actually now with a tool set, the things that we developed over the last couple of, you know, frankly years, but really the last couple of months where we've had the most, you know, synergies take place between PwC and Google and building some of the technology we have in the market now, like, we're able to show them almost instantaneously,

joking aside on extensions- >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> That you can do something within a couple of days to actually take a bunch of different data sets, pull them together, have them immediately accessible even to like the CFO level where they can look at summarized information that is actually, like, meaningful. And the part that happened, I think, in the last couple of years and on the individual automation, you know, a lot of people were playing with other tool sets and they said, "Oh, I'm going to do this little thing here. I'm going to do this little thing here."

There was no standardization. >> Savannah: Right.

>> What we see taking place now, both within PwC, but also with our clients, is them saying, wait a second, we actually need to use the same tool set. And you mentioned this with sustainability reporting, tax reporting, other SEC related matters and the like. You can actually use, in this case, Google Cloud to be the foundational model. The data set all sits there. You can then extract what you need for the various reporting requirements that are from it. But the real key is it's quick access. You're not doing ERP transformation. You're not doing a two year journey to go install and implement, change a whole team of people. It's not that. It's nearly plug and play. The APIs exist, and that's the fun part. I think that's the piece that really will be the most meaningful and the most absorbable from a market point of view.

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> You don't have to change everything. And for us, from a services point of view, we can meet our clients where they are as opposed to telling 'em to come to where we are, right, in terms of either delivering the service or transforming them or what have you.

>> I think that's, go ahead.

>> So is this that you're helping them move the data into Google into one of the services and then you're applying models on an AI that you've helped to tune for these purposes? Or how is it really working?

>> It's both. Yeah, it's both.

It's a great question. >> Rob: Yeah.

>> So, the answer is yes, holistically, like, within our global alliance, we're absolutely take, you know, taking people and doing lift and shifts, whether information's like sitting on-prem, if it's in Teradata, we're going to BigQuery, we're doing those types of large data modernization programs. But even if that's not what's going on, right, from an API point of view, we're actually able to use these tool sets we develop like the tax control center through our connected tax compliance platform. We're able to go in and actually say, hey, I don't care necessarily where it is right now. Let's point, you know, that data into one control plane where we can actually summarize everything that's going on and give the users data sets that they can actually go take and not only do reporting if they want to do it, but also do the internal stakeholder management. So, it's a little bit of both, right? Like, you don't have to come in and say, "I want to move all my data over to BigQuery." Of course our preference would be to do that, but in our little, like, if we're just sitting in our tax bubble, right? Like, here's the tax nest over here. What do we want to do? I just want to get, no joke, like-

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> As a corporation, I just want to get my extensions done. There's a bunch of information I need to go do that, right?

>> Right.

>> I need state apportionment data. I need, you know, global payroll information. You know, the only way to go do that is actually like to go find it and pull it in, and you can do that very easily now with a lot of the tool sets that are out there.

>> I mean, I'm a business owner outside of being this person and running an agency. You're speaking my language so much. I have employees in seven different countries. And just even to get over the line for saying, hey, I need some more time is a huge process.

>> Dallas: Right.

>> I can only imagine as a corporation, quite frankly. So, I can imagine that customer feedback is probably pretty positive when they hear this. Most people would think of a transformation as taking more time than you said like a plug and play sort of option.

>> Yeah, I think speed is is key here.

>> Savannah: Right.

>> Look, and we partnered with the ERP companies, too, and there's massive power in those programs. I think people have come to realize, though, that these cloud-based ERP programs have largely been about business simplification. The back office functions like tax and sustainability have sort of been penalized in a way because in the effort to simplify the business, a lot of the custom analytics and data and processes that were built in are actually maybe shrinking, right?

>> Dallas: Right.

>> So it's not quite the home run for tax and sustainability as we thought to Dallas' point. So now we're coming and saying, all right, we don't need another five to seven year ERP program. Let's take the data as it is, as imperfect as it is structured, unstructured, invoices, feeds from ERP, feeds from vendors and outside parties, and let's start to make some sense out of all the noise. And that's where a lot of these tools have come in place.

>> Yeah, on the sustainability side, are you helping them put together their scope 1 through 3 and do all of that reporting back? Or, 'cause we cover sustainable IT, and I think a big piece of that is, obviously, Europe is light years ahead right now than of the US, but we can see this train coming this direction.

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Is that really where you're?

>> It is. I'll let Justin talk about the specifics of what we built, but if you think about sustainability, it's a gigantic umbrella in which you could work under, right? It's no different than, oh, it's the world of tax. Okay, well, like, every country has a tax. Then you have state and everything else.

>> Savannah: They're all chaotic.

>> Correct. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> On sustainability, I'll just make the plug, right? PwC, sustainability partner of the year, which is super exciting because of some of the things the team has built.

>> Savannah: Give you some shouts for that.

>> What we're doing as a services firm is looking at that saying, hey, you know, where do we want to meet our customers, our clients, in terms of their needs, whether it's strategy, it's reporting, right back to that point. It's somewhere in between. It's ERM, right, which is the interesting space where sustainability and, you know, your footprint, like, just what are you doing from a planning point of view? The cool part with Google Cloud, we've done some of the things on ERM, but on the reporting side, that's where we're really excited, and Justin-

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> If you want to take that a little further.

>> Yeah, yeah. No, and I love the question, right. So the scope 1, 2 and 3, right? Just to click in for a second. So, a lot of companies have already started reporting scope 1 and 2. A lot of, I would say leading companies, right, like Google and several other have committed to report on scope 3, which is their entire supply chain, right?

>> Rob: Right.

>> Because they would argue, or many would argue that that's the indirect impact across their true operations. And so, the tool that Dallas has talked about where we're using Google Cloud and working with, you know, a lot of our clients is really interesting because it might have started in the, I just need to measure.

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> Right, so how do I measure all this information? And that's hard. A lot of the data sits in my supplier's, you know, information walls, so to speak. But as they're getting into it, they're saying, wow, this is giving me new information around my whole supply chain and my supply chain risk. And wow, I didn't realize I was concentrating 50% of my buying from this particular region or market or customer. So, I think the cool part about all this is reporting and regulations are maybe driving the need to get the information, but then they're quickly saying with this data, how do I actually bend the graph as opposed to just, you know, see what the graph looks like. And so, that's where a lot of the exciting, I think, work is really starting to happen with us and our clients.

>> Can you give us any client examples? Some success stories perhaps?

>> Sure. >> Yeah.

>> Well, one of 'em was along the lines of what I just talked about, right? It started with a reporting function. And so, the company had made, and we've seen this in many companies, like, kind of a broad commitment that they want to do scope 3, hadn't really factored in what exactly that meant from a, you know, Dallas talked about getting data integration. I mean, it was a big technology lift.

>> Savannah: I can imagine.

>> You had the IT team saying, "Hey, you should probably consulted us." You had the operations team, you had the procurement teams, you had a lot of teams that were not necessarily organized around what that ambitious statement meant. We help them stand up a SteerCo just to get all the right parties in the room. We use the platform that we were just describing where we basically used GCP. We partnered with a lot of their suppliers to give us information, and we created, again, something to do the initial reporting, but it actually gave us some really good ideas and gave their management some really good insights to make improvements on their supply chain that went far beyond climate, actually got them into, you know, cost reduction, improved the relationship with some of their buyers or suppliers, sorry, who were also trying to set their own, you know, commitments in this area. So, it was a home run in terms of galvanizing supplier, buyer. It was a home run in terms of getting better data to make decisions. And again, it all started with, you know, maybe a pledge that was not well informed, but we quickly were able to galvanize people and then use Google Cloud to bring the data and do what we needed to.

>> So, low key, PwC can save you when you've decided to go fully sustainable but you have absolutely no idea how to do that.

>> Yes.

>> That's a short answer to that, yeah.

>> Yeah, and I think again, we, to your point, obviously, being in this industry, we see a lot of people looking at scope 3 because that, and maybe they're sort of trying to figure out which pieces of scope 3 are actually applicable to them. How does that work when you're trying to get the data from the suppliers? I mean, 'cause again, it can go, there can be multiple levels of that supply chain that you have to go into and getting that all into one place?

>> I'll say this. There's no common model yet to actually go about doing this. And certainly there are some folks who are filling the gaps on the, we're going to go out there and collect, but that's not, you know, necessarily the space we're trying to play in, just to be clear. However, the space that we are playing in is once that's all collected, like, what do you do with it to go get there? I think there will be a common model to go collect that information as these rules that Justin mentioned a second ago actually go into full effect and the reporting has to happen. Someone's going to come in and say, "Hey, we actually want to own all this collection." We're going to do it in the exact same way. And, or you're going to have, like I said, a common like actual cost to every single thing, which there's sort of a little bit of that out there, but the standardization of it, having everybody going down the road and using the exact same data point for any given, you know, input in supply chain, that's really where everything has to like eventually evolve to. It'll probably a mixture of private industry and the regulators, you know, the rule makers coming together and figuring this out. No different than the way the last 150 years of policy on other reporting fronts have evolved. Right, but this one is probably a little bit better informed, candidly, when you stop and think about, you know, the level of complexity that's there. Because I think the technology actually exists right now for people to actually partner on this in a way that they never really did before. You've briefly mentioned it, Justin, but if you think about what the OECD's done in terms of their standardization-

>> Savannah: Yeah. >> Of global tax reporting-

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> What, you know, the globe wants to do in terms of sustainability reporting is actually very, very similar. Different bodies, but very, very similar to what the OECD's done in Pillar One and Pillar Two, standardize and say, "Hey, everyone's going to be on this plane for the amount of tax you're going to play." This, you're going to be on this plane for basis for the tax you're going to pay. Now apply that to sustainability. You're going to be on this plane for exactly how far we want you to go deep within your supply chain. You're going to be on this plane for exactly how you're going to report it and the numbers you're going to go use to do it. I just see that as being like the direction of travel. The cool part of that is there's actually an opportunity for someone to come in on a single platform to go actually sell that as like the thing. I actually don't think it's a bridge too far to say Google is actually really uniquely positioned as a broader company to go do that if you think about just the amount of data that Google has. It might be a bridge too far for right this second.

>> Yeah.

>> But they exist if you go back 25 years to organize the world's information, right?

>> Savannah: Right.

>> So, how is this any different?

>> I mean, I love that analogy, and it gives me hope that our taxes are going to get better across the board, so, I think that's-

>> Probably not lower, though, I'm sorry to say.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> I'm a Californian. Don't remind me.

>> Justin: I got it no. Us, too.

>> Dallas: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. We feel your pain.

>> And half my team is in New Zealand where it's even worse. I just love paying taxes. I hope the government's listening to that statement.

>> Yeah, right. Yes. She pays her taxes.

>> Yeah, yeah. I do pay my taxes-

>> Just to be clear. >> For better or for worse. So you mentioned data. Trusted data has obviously got to be a big part of this, right? You've got a lot of bespoke solutions. You talked about spreadsheets. I mean, I know from my personal business, I won't even throw anyone else under the bus. Things are in a lot of different places and don't always have a central hub. How do you get everyone on the same page of trusted data and what is that even for an organization?

>> Well, I'll say this as it relates to our global alliance with Google, our moniker is founded in trust, right, powered by data, right? So, us as a large, regulated entity, right? We're an audit firm, a tax firm, in addition to what we do in the consulting business. It is fundamentally about trust. It's fundamentally about being in some way, shape or form like a go between, a stakeholder management, if you will, for companies and what they're reporting to the government, what they're saying to their shareholders, what they're saying to the public, what the NGOs want to know, right? All those things. So we are very uniquely positioned to, I think-

>> Savannah: Yeah. >> Answer that question. That's why a lot of the things that we've looked at, and from a vision point of view, a lot of the places that we've been talking to Google and our stakeholders has been around the idea that, hey, if you're going to go with a partner and with a company, right, who knows what, you know, trust is, who has that built into the framework of their existence, like the partnership that we founded is actually, frankly, the right place to start. And I think you start with that point, and then you layer the pure technology play on top of it. It's a great story, but, you know, it also has the practical application 'cause we have the technology capabilities that are there, too, which is, you know-

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Dallas: Basically what Justin's built.

>> To be a little bit self ingratiating, right, I mean-

>> Please. I afforded you the opportunity to do so.

>> We talked about stitching the technology together. That is hard. These tools make it a lot easier, quicker speed to value. But to Dallas' point where we're playing a large role on top of the technology is back to the sustainability or tax point. Things were done locally, very different. My assumptions, my methods on how I pulled it together, very different. In the case of sustainability, I mean, it maybe never was audited before. You look ahead to the future. I'm all of a sudden going to be audited. That's a whole different level of rigor and scrutiny from-

>> Savannah: Everyone's favorite word, the A word, yeah.

>> So, a lot of where this starts is just inventorying all the disclosures we've made, all the assumptions we've made in our data, where our differences are, starting to establish very central governance around all of this. And then, you know, inventorying all the assumptions that we're going to use going forward. So even if my data's not perfect, I have a transparent trail on the methods I'm using, you know, that's consistent, that I can say is reasonable. So even where there's gaps, I'm filling in those gaps with this logic. That's a key stepping stone to then piping in all the data, codifying that logic, and getting something pretty automated, even again, when the data's not perfect, which it will never be perfect. If it is, we might be out of a job. But I think it's a fair bet that source data is never going to be perfect.

>> I just, the notion of data being absolutely flawless is a very Cinderella concept in general.

>> Yeah.

>> But we love it, and hopefully, we're all still employed. Question for you. What's your advice for companies as they're thinking about coming to approach you or they realize this is a process that they could transform?

>> Yeah, I'll say this. I mean, it doesn't matter where you're at on the journey, right? Justin mentioned, I've made a promise and now I have to figure how to keep it. What if I've never mentioned anything about this before in the press? I need to analyze, like an approach to go get there. I need to formulate a strategy around it. The good news is we take all kinds, like come as you are, if you will. We'll-

>> Savannah: All about inclusion.

>> We'll sort it. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> We'll sort it, right? >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> In the best way. We'll sort it as in, hey, maybe you're not ready to make any proclamation of what you're doing. Maybe you're not big enough to go down the road of having to like, you know, create an entire data platform, pull this all together. Maybe you could have two people go do it. You don't have to go that direction. But I think the real key is engage with, you know, some folks and have that conversation. Figure out like, where are you at on the maturity scale, you know? And frankly, we can help with that, too. But like, the idea shouldn't be, I need to wait until I've done something extreme and then it's too late. Or I need to show up. I'm a pre IPO private company. I just got my first round of funding. I should figure out sustainability reporting. It's probably everybody in between, but maybe not necessarily those two, but hey, like, we'll figure it out and figure out like where you land on the map. Again, the fun part about the scalability here is if you are ready to talk, like, what data you're going to put in the cloud, you could probably start having this conversation, right? Like, you start having the conversation 'cause that means you're likely a company. You hope to make a profit. Therefore you might pay taxes, right?

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> And depending on what you do-

>> These are logical assumptions.

>> You might have a sustainability reporting obligation. You certainly have a financial reporting obligation. So, you may as well get the ball rolling and have that conversation and figure out what's the best model. It may not be that, but like, start having the conversation, right?

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> And I would just add on in addition to us saying we take all kinds, which we absolutely do, or all levels of maturity, I think it's awesome. My favorite conversation is that not just what's the one single need that's driving you for data right now, but like, let's step back and look five years from now, right? Like, what are all the insights you want to drive? So let's not just let the newest regulation dictate, well, I need these 20 business requirements, or the stuff that we do today for these other 30 business requirements. We've seen a lot of companies fall into that trap. Step back and think about what are the insights I want to be able to give to my C-suite when it comes up. And you work backwards from those to figure out what data you need. And that might be a totally different inventory of data that you haven't thought about, but that where a lot of the ROI might come in from. So, don't make this, as much as we help companies on the regulation management, we need to have the data. We cannot, you know, we want to be able to be compliant. We want to use that data with credibility with our stakeholders, but really thinking about all the insights we want to deliver and then reverse engineering the data we need, again, provides a much bigger, you know, I think, component of return and also really elevates the, you know, the value of the function.

>> I think that's a great point, and I think we're really at a stage even with gen AI where we're rethinking how we ask questions.

>> Justin: Yeah, totally.

>> Rather than having to figure out the solution is, what is it that we're trying to do? What do we want to do? All right, last question for you both. What can't you say today that you hope to be able to say when we have your fabulous selves on the show at the next Google Cloud Next?

>> That's a great question. I'll respond in this way because you just said gen AI. The direction of travel for the type of services that we're talking about is to simplify and actually make accessible to even more users, right? You could say more taxpayers, you could say more clients, you can say more Google Cloud customers. I think the scalability and access point is going to be the most critical feature that comes into play with the latest, you know, iterations of Vertex AI, the Enterprise Suite, and even-

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> The individual user part of it, which is something we've been excited about. I started talking about this with my leadership team probably eight years ago. We said, how do we, like, commoditize the construct of tax reporting and make it so that anybody can actually go and get the absolute best from a big four in this case and what they're trying to do. It doesn't have to be the largest corporations

or, you know- >> Savannah: Right.

>> The most famous people in the world, right? Which I'm sure you fit into the latter category, no doubt about it, and soon to be in the former category. But it is anybody should be able to come to, you know, use us as a service provider. I think that's, like, the democratization, if you will, of that service. I think that's where it's going. I don't know how fast. It may not be at the next Next, but maybe like the next, next, next, next Next. That's, you know.

>> On Next.

>> We'll count how many nexts that is-

>> That's four. >> When we have you on this show again. What about you, Justin?

>> All right, well, I'll go shorter terms since Dallas went a few years out. I'm going to go back to my point about value. I think, and I believe this will happen, that that gen AI specifically, since you asked about it, will raise the IQ and it's going to show us where our gaps are in IQ. So in other words, let me just give you an example. With a lot of historical automation tools, it's been about doing the same thing faster in a more automated way. Gen AI is very different, right? Like, the real sauce is like, what questions are you asking and what so what question? And you can ask the so what question repetitively so many times in such a short period of time that that's where your brain starts to go and train starts of thinking. So I, we've already seen this with the clients that we've been working with. We talk a lot about getting the data together, but then it's like, what can you do with it?

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Whether it's on the tax side and saying, I've got thousands of variances, but let me ask gen AI and use it to channel on which ones actually matter, right, so separating the signal from the noise. Whether it's asking questions like in our ESG solution, which is what's the most cost effective way to hit this decarbonization goal on a year versus two year on three years? It's just getting us thinking in a different way. And I think, you know, it's starting with leadership teams and I think that's going to trickle down to everyone else. So, that's what I'm looking forward to. And I think it's starting to happen already.

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Well, we hope both of those things happen much sooner rather than later. Thank you both for being on the show with us today. Justin, Dallas, always great to have another city name on the show.

>> Absolutely.

>> Happy we're representing the south today, candidly. Rob, you're just a gem.

>> Thanks.

>> I don't even have to say anything else nice to you. I've said enough nice things to you today, and thank all of you from tuning in wherever you happen to be on planet Earth or in outer space today here. We're in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching "theCUBE," the leading source for enterprise tech news. (bright music)

Justin Femmer & Dallas Dolen | PwC US

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>> Good afternoon, Cloud community, and a welcome back to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We're midway through day two of three days here at Google Cloud Next. My name's Savannah Peterson, joined by the ineffable and fabulous Rob Strechay. Rob, what a joy to host with you.

>> This is always so much fun. >> I know.

>> I think, again, getting the energy from all the guests that have been on today has been fantastic. And this place is just hopping.

>> It really is. And you know, I thought we were going to have a little bit of a come down 'cause we just came off

the show in Paris. >> Yes.

>> I feel like that energy's good. Of all the shows to go to, if we have to leave France.

>> We come here, but it's similar technology.

It's a lot about cloud. >> Yeah.

>> And I think we get to talk about two really tightly knit topics here,

tax and sustainability. >> Yeah.

>> 'Cause I'm very interested in diving into this 'cause, not usually what I think of. I mean, I had to do my taxes this past weekend, but other than that, it's really very-

>> I'm an extension filer myself. We deal with that in October, hundred percent, I will just admit that. It is busy season for events this time of year. Without further ado, I suppose we should welcome these fabulous gentlemen to our left. Justin and Dallas, thank you so much for being here. Pleasure to have you.

>> Excited.

>> I'm excited. When I was reading the briefing, and it literally said tax, sustainability and data, I thought, okay, this is awesome. Where is this Venn diagram?

>> Yep. Yep.

>> Obviously governance is going to be a theme of what we're talking about, but why don't you explain why these three things go together so lovely.

>> Sure. I'll get started, but we're excited to be with you guys, as well. I don't have adjectives prepared to describe Dallas, (group laughs) but we'll start on these topics. So, it's interesting. Tax has been around forever, right. Death and taxes.

>> Savannah: Right. >> They're certainties in life.

>> Savannah: I was just going to say.

>> So, tax functions have become more mature over time versus sustainability, which is a relatively newer area. But there's a couple things that are happening all at the same time in both of these areas, right? So number one, it all stems around data, okay? The first thing is, both of these functions share attributes that we don't get the right data that we need, we have a lot of manual work spreadsheets

to get the data together. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Which is not in vogue with cost reduction and things that we're seeing in the market, right? When we're asking for more resources to deal with manual work. So, that's the baseline. Both of these areas, there's a bunch of new regulations coming out. So, our friends in tax will talk about Pillar Two regimes and we'll talk about e-invoicing and we can talk more about what those are, you know, after the interview. And on the sustainability side, we've got CSRD that came out in Europe, demanding more disclosure around our carbon emissions. We've had the same thing in the SEC recently

and state of California. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> So these regulations are putting more pressure to have good data, to be transparent around the data and to have quality and reliable proof of, you know, that the data's valid. The last part of this equation though, with the regulations, it's not just about the reporting. Most companies' tax functions and sustainability functions are looking to become more strategic, right? They don't just want to be a back office. They want to move to the front office, so to speak. They want to be involved in decision making. They want to help advise the company on where to go and the ROI and all those things. It's really difficult to do that if I can barely get numbers to do a extension or a tax return.

>> I was going to say, yeah, if you're a little bit last minute.

>> So, companies are looking for more sophistication, which has brought us here because we need more sophisticated data management tools and analytics to be able to move from back office more efficiently and into the front office, which is what gets Dallas and I, you know, out of bed in the morning, so to speak.

>> All right, I love that. Dallas, why do you get out of bed in the morning? Are going to give us as good of a description as that?

>> It's mostly just to make sure that Justin doesn't talk too much.

>> Yeah. (group laughs) I can see why this is a good little dream team between the two of you. So, where are customers off at in the journey when they come talk to you? Dallas, I'll open with you there.

>> Yeah, actually, they're everywhere in the journey, but most of the time on tax, they're nowhere.

>> Savannah: Okay, that's what I was thinking.

>> Dallas: So, there are visionaries.

>> Savannah: Right.

>> But the ability to really progress that vision into something that's practical and applied is very nascent. And that's the interesting part 'cause whenever we come with not just a vision, but actually now with a tool set, the things that we developed over the last couple of, you know, frankly years, but really the last couple of months where we've had the most, you know, synergies take place between PwC and Google and building some of the technology we have in the market now, like, we're able to show them almost instantaneously,

joking aside on extensions- >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> That you can do something within a couple of days to actually take a bunch of different data sets, pull them together, have them immediately accessible even to like the CFO level where they can look at summarized information that is actually, like, meaningful. And the part that happened, I think, in the last couple of years and on the individual automation, you know, a lot of people were playing with other tool sets and they said, "Oh, I'm going to do this little thing here. I'm going to do this little thing here."

There was no standardization. >> Savannah: Right.

>> What we see taking place now, both within PwC, but also with our clients, is them saying, wait a second, we actually need to use the same tool set. And you mentioned this with sustainability reporting, tax reporting, other SEC related matters and the like. You can actually use, in this case, Google Cloud to be the foundational model. The data set all sits there. You can then extract what you need for the various reporting requirements that are from it. But the real key is it's quick access. You're not doing ERP transformation. You're not doing a two year journey to go install and implement, change a whole team of people. It's not that. It's nearly plug and play. The APIs exist, and that's the fun part. I think that's the piece that really will be the most meaningful and the most absorbable from a market point of view.

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> You don't have to change everything. And for us, from a services point of view, we can meet our clients where they are as opposed to telling 'em to come to where we are, right, in terms of either delivering the service or transforming them or what have you.

>> I think that's, go ahead.

>> So is this that you're helping them move the data into Google into one of the services and then you're applying models on an AI that you've helped to tune for these purposes? Or how is it really working?

>> It's both. Yeah, it's both.

It's a great question. >> Rob: Yeah.

>> So, the answer is yes, holistically, like, within our global alliance, we're absolutely take, you know, taking people and doing lift and shifts, whether information's like sitting on-prem, if it's in Teradata, we're going to BigQuery, we're doing those types of large data modernization programs. But even if that's not what's going on, right, from an API point of view, we're actually able to use these tool sets we develop like the tax control center through our connected tax compliance platform. We're able to go in and actually say, hey, I don't care necessarily where it is right now. Let's point, you know, that data into one control plane where we can actually summarize everything that's going on and give the users data sets that they can actually go take and not only do reporting if they want to do it, but also do the internal stakeholder management. So, it's a little bit of both, right? Like, you don't have to come in and say, "I want to move all my data over to BigQuery." Of course our preference would be to do that, but in our little, like, if we're just sitting in our tax bubble, right? Like, here's the tax nest over here. What do we want to do? I just want to get, no joke, like-

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> As a corporation, I just want to get my extensions done. There's a bunch of information I need to go do that, right?

>> Right.

>> I need state apportionment data. I need, you know, global payroll information. You know, the only way to go do that is actually like to go find it and pull it in, and you can do that very easily now with a lot of the tool sets that are out there.

>> I mean, I'm a business owner outside of being this person and running an agency. You're speaking my language so much. I have employees in seven different countries. And just even to get over the line for saying, hey, I need some more time is a huge process.

>> Dallas: Right.

>> I can only imagine as a corporation, quite frankly. So, I can imagine that customer feedback is probably pretty positive when they hear this. Most people would think of a transformation as taking more time than you said like a plug and play sort of option.

>> Yeah, I think speed is is key here.

>> Savannah: Right.

>> Look, and we partnered with the ERP companies, too, and there's massive power in those programs. I think people have come to realize, though, that these cloud-based ERP programs have largely been about business simplification. The back office functions like tax and sustainability have sort of been penalized in a way because in the effort to simplify the business, a lot of the custom analytics and data and processes that were built in are actually maybe shrinking, right?

>> Dallas: Right.

>> So it's not quite the home run for tax and sustainability as we thought to Dallas' point. So now we're coming and saying, all right, we don't need another five to seven year ERP program. Let's take the data as it is, as imperfect as it is structured, unstructured, invoices, feeds from ERP, feeds from vendors and outside parties, and let's start to make some sense out of all the noise. And that's where a lot of these tools have come in place.

>> Yeah, on the sustainability side, are you helping them put together their scope 1 through 3 and do all of that reporting back? Or, 'cause we cover sustainable IT, and I think a big piece of that is, obviously, Europe is light years ahead right now than of the US, but we can see this train coming this direction.

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Is that really where you're?

>> It is. I'll let Justin talk about the specifics of what we built, but if you think about sustainability, it's a gigantic umbrella in which you could work under, right? It's no different than, oh, it's the world of tax. Okay, well, like, every country has a tax. Then you have state and everything else.

>> Savannah: They're all chaotic.

>> Correct. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> On sustainability, I'll just make the plug, right? PwC, sustainability partner of the year, which is super exciting because of some of the things the team has built.

>> Savannah: Give you some shouts for that.

>> What we're doing as a services firm is looking at that saying, hey, you know, where do we want to meet our customers, our clients, in terms of their needs, whether it's strategy, it's reporting, right back to that point. It's somewhere in between. It's ERM, right, which is the interesting space where sustainability and, you know, your footprint, like, just what are you doing from a planning point of view? The cool part with Google Cloud, we've done some of the things on ERM, but on the reporting side, that's where we're really excited, and Justin-

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> If you want to take that a little further.

>> Yeah, yeah. No, and I love the question, right. So the scope 1, 2 and 3, right? Just to click in for a second. So, a lot of companies have already started reporting scope 1 and 2. A lot of, I would say leading companies, right, like Google and several other have committed to report on scope 3, which is their entire supply chain, right?

>> Rob: Right.

>> Because they would argue, or many would argue that that's the indirect impact across their true operations. And so, the tool that Dallas has talked about where we're using Google Cloud and working with, you know, a lot of our clients is really interesting because it might have started in the, I just need to measure.

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> Right, so how do I measure all this information? And that's hard. A lot of the data sits in my supplier's, you know, information walls, so to speak. But as they're getting into it, they're saying, wow, this is giving me new information around my whole supply chain and my supply chain risk. And wow, I didn't realize I was concentrating 50% of my buying from this particular region or market or customer. So, I think the cool part about all this is reporting and regulations are maybe driving the need to get the information, but then they're quickly saying with this data, how do I actually bend the graph as opposed to just, you know, see what the graph looks like. And so, that's where a lot of the exciting, I think, work is really starting to happen with us and our clients.

>> Can you give us any client examples? Some success stories perhaps?

>> Sure. >> Yeah.

>> Well, one of 'em was along the lines of what I just talked about, right? It started with a reporting function. And so, the company had made, and we've seen this in many companies, like, kind of a broad commitment that they want to do scope 3, hadn't really factored in what exactly that meant from a, you know, Dallas talked about getting data integration. I mean, it was a big technology lift.

>> Savannah: I can imagine.

>> You had the IT team saying, "Hey, you should probably consulted us." You had the operations team, you had the procurement teams, you had a lot of teams that were not necessarily organized around what that ambitious statement meant. We help them stand up a SteerCo just to get all the right parties in the room. We use the platform that we were just describing where we basically used GCP. We partnered with a lot of their suppliers to give us information, and we created, again, something to do the initial reporting, but it actually gave us some really good ideas and gave their management some really good insights to make improvements on their supply chain that went far beyond climate, actually got them into, you know, cost reduction, improved the relationship with some of their buyers or suppliers, sorry, who were also trying to set their own, you know, commitments in this area. So, it was a home run in terms of galvanizing supplier, buyer. It was a home run in terms of getting better data to make decisions. And again, it all started with, you know, maybe a pledge that was not well informed, but we quickly were able to galvanize people and then use Google Cloud to bring the data and do what we needed to.

>> So, low key, PwC can save you when you've decided to go fully sustainable but you have absolutely no idea how to do that.

>> Yes.

>> That's a short answer to that, yeah.

>> Yeah, and I think again, we, to your point, obviously, being in this industry, we see a lot of people looking at scope 3 because that, and maybe they're sort of trying to figure out which pieces of scope 3 are actually applicable to them. How does that work when you're trying to get the data from the suppliers? I mean, 'cause again, it can go, there can be multiple levels of that supply chain that you have to go into and getting that all into one place?

>> I'll say this. There's no common model yet to actually go about doing this. And certainly there are some folks who are filling the gaps on the, we're going to go out there and collect, but that's not, you know, necessarily the space we're trying to play in, just to be clear. However, the space that we are playing in is once that's all collected, like, what do you do with it to go get there? I think there will be a common model to go collect that information as these rules that Justin mentioned a second ago actually go into full effect and the reporting has to happen. Someone's going to come in and say, "Hey, we actually want to own all this collection." We're going to do it in the exact same way. And, or you're going to have, like I said, a common like actual cost to every single thing, which there's sort of a little bit of that out there, but the standardization of it, having everybody going down the road and using the exact same data point for any given, you know, input in supply chain, that's really where everything has to like eventually evolve to. It'll probably a mixture of private industry and the regulators, you know, the rule makers coming together and figuring this out. No different than the way the last 150 years of policy on other reporting fronts have evolved. Right, but this one is probably a little bit better informed, candidly, when you stop and think about, you know, the level of complexity that's there. Because I think the technology actually exists right now for people to actually partner on this in a way that they never really did before. You've briefly mentioned it, Justin, but if you think about what the OECD's done in terms of their standardization-

>> Savannah: Yeah. >> Of global tax reporting-

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> What, you know, the globe wants to do in terms of sustainability reporting is actually very, very similar. Different bodies, but very, very similar to what the OECD's done in Pillar One and Pillar Two, standardize and say, "Hey, everyone's going to be on this plane for the amount of tax you're going to play." This, you're going to be on this plane for basis for the tax you're going to pay. Now apply that to sustainability. You're going to be on this plane for exactly how far we want you to go deep within your supply chain. You're going to be on this plane for exactly how you're going to report it and the numbers you're going to go use to do it. I just see that as being like the direction of travel. The cool part of that is there's actually an opportunity for someone to come in on a single platform to go actually sell that as like the thing. I actually don't think it's a bridge too far to say Google is actually really uniquely positioned as a broader company to go do that if you think about just the amount of data that Google has. It might be a bridge too far for right this second.

>> Yeah.

>> But they exist if you go back 25 years to organize the world's information, right?

>> Savannah: Right.

>> So, how is this any different?

>> I mean, I love that analogy, and it gives me hope that our taxes are going to get better across the board, so, I think that's-

>> Probably not lower, though, I'm sorry to say.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> I'm a Californian. Don't remind me.

>> Justin: I got it no. Us, too.

>> Dallas: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. We feel your pain.

>> And half my team is in New Zealand where it's even worse. I just love paying taxes. I hope the government's listening to that statement.

>> Yeah, right. Yes. She pays her taxes.

>> Yeah, yeah. I do pay my taxes-

>> Just to be clear. >> For better or for worse. So you mentioned data. Trusted data has obviously got to be a big part of this, right? You've got a lot of bespoke solutions. You talked about spreadsheets. I mean, I know from my personal business, I won't even throw anyone else under the bus. Things are in a lot of different places and don't always have a central hub. How do you get everyone on the same page of trusted data and what is that even for an organization?

>> Well, I'll say this as it relates to our global alliance with Google, our moniker is founded in trust, right, powered by data, right? So, us as a large, regulated entity, right? We're an audit firm, a tax firm, in addition to what we do in the consulting business. It is fundamentally about trust. It's fundamentally about being in some way, shape or form like a go between, a stakeholder management, if you will, for companies and what they're reporting to the government, what they're saying to their shareholders, what they're saying to the public, what the NGOs want to know, right? All those things. So we are very uniquely positioned to, I think-

>> Savannah: Yeah. >> Answer that question. That's why a lot of the things that we've looked at, and from a vision point of view, a lot of the places that we've been talking to Google and our stakeholders has been around the idea that, hey, if you're going to go with a partner and with a company, right, who knows what, you know, trust is, who has that built into the framework of their existence, like the partnership that we founded is actually, frankly, the right place to start. And I think you start with that point, and then you layer the pure technology play on top of it. It's a great story, but, you know, it also has the practical application 'cause we have the technology capabilities that are there, too, which is, you know-

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Dallas: Basically what Justin's built.

>> To be a little bit self ingratiating, right, I mean-

>> Please. I afforded you the opportunity to do so.

>> We talked about stitching the technology together. That is hard. These tools make it a lot easier, quicker speed to value. But to Dallas' point where we're playing a large role on top of the technology is back to the sustainability or tax point. Things were done locally, very different. My assumptions, my methods on how I pulled it together, very different. In the case of sustainability, I mean, it maybe never was audited before. You look ahead to the future. I'm all of a sudden going to be audited. That's a whole different level of rigor and scrutiny from-

>> Savannah: Everyone's favorite word, the A word, yeah.

>> So, a lot of where this starts is just inventorying all the disclosures we've made, all the assumptions we've made in our data, where our differences are, starting to establish very central governance around all of this. And then, you know, inventorying all the assumptions that we're going to use going forward. So even if my data's not perfect, I have a transparent trail on the methods I'm using, you know, that's consistent, that I can say is reasonable. So even where there's gaps, I'm filling in those gaps with this logic. That's a key stepping stone to then piping in all the data, codifying that logic, and getting something pretty automated, even again, when the data's not perfect, which it will never be perfect. If it is, we might be out of a job. But I think it's a fair bet that source data is never going to be perfect.

>> I just, the notion of data being absolutely flawless is a very Cinderella concept in general.

>> Yeah.

>> But we love it, and hopefully, we're all still employed. Question for you. What's your advice for companies as they're thinking about coming to approach you or they realize this is a process that they could transform?

>> Yeah, I'll say this. I mean, it doesn't matter where you're at on the journey, right? Justin mentioned, I've made a promise and now I have to figure how to keep it. What if I've never mentioned anything about this before in the press? I need to analyze, like an approach to go get there. I need to formulate a strategy around it. The good news is we take all kinds, like come as you are, if you will. We'll-

>> Savannah: All about inclusion.

>> We'll sort it. >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> We'll sort it, right? >> Savannah: Yeah.

>> In the best way. We'll sort it as in, hey, maybe you're not ready to make any proclamation of what you're doing. Maybe you're not big enough to go down the road of having to like, you know, create an entire data platform, pull this all together. Maybe you could have two people go do it. You don't have to go that direction. But I think the real key is engage with, you know, some folks and have that conversation. Figure out like, where are you at on the maturity scale, you know? And frankly, we can help with that, too. But like, the idea shouldn't be, I need to wait until I've done something extreme and then it's too late. Or I need to show up. I'm a pre IPO private company. I just got my first round of funding. I should figure out sustainability reporting. It's probably everybody in between, but maybe not necessarily those two, but hey, like, we'll figure it out and figure out like where you land on the map. Again, the fun part about the scalability here is if you are ready to talk, like, what data you're going to put in the cloud, you could probably start having this conversation, right? Like, you start having the conversation 'cause that means you're likely a company. You hope to make a profit. Therefore you might pay taxes, right?

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> And depending on what you do-

>> These are logical assumptions.

>> You might have a sustainability reporting obligation. You certainly have a financial reporting obligation. So, you may as well get the ball rolling and have that conversation and figure out what's the best model. It may not be that, but like, start having the conversation, right?

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> And I would just add on in addition to us saying we take all kinds, which we absolutely do, or all levels of maturity, I think it's awesome. My favorite conversation is that not just what's the one single need that's driving you for data right now, but like, let's step back and look five years from now, right? Like, what are all the insights you want to drive? So let's not just let the newest regulation dictate, well, I need these 20 business requirements, or the stuff that we do today for these other 30 business requirements. We've seen a lot of companies fall into that trap. Step back and think about what are the insights I want to be able to give to my C-suite when it comes up. And you work backwards from those to figure out what data you need. And that might be a totally different inventory of data that you haven't thought about, but that where a lot of the ROI might come in from. So, don't make this, as much as we help companies on the regulation management, we need to have the data. We cannot, you know, we want to be able to be compliant. We want to use that data with credibility with our stakeholders, but really thinking about all the insights we want to deliver and then reverse engineering the data we need, again, provides a much bigger, you know, I think, component of return and also really elevates the, you know, the value of the function.

>> I think that's a great point, and I think we're really at a stage even with gen AI where we're rethinking how we ask questions.

>> Justin: Yeah, totally.

>> Rather than having to figure out the solution is, what is it that we're trying to do? What do we want to do? All right, last question for you both. What can't you say today that you hope to be able to say when we have your fabulous selves on the show at the next Google Cloud Next?

>> That's a great question. I'll respond in this way because you just said gen AI. The direction of travel for the type of services that we're talking about is to simplify and actually make accessible to even more users, right? You could say more taxpayers, you could say more clients, you can say more Google Cloud customers. I think the scalability and access point is going to be the most critical feature that comes into play with the latest, you know, iterations of Vertex AI, the Enterprise Suite, and even-

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> The individual user part of it, which is something we've been excited about. I started talking about this with my leadership team probably eight years ago. We said, how do we, like, commoditize the construct of tax reporting and make it so that anybody can actually go and get the absolute best from a big four in this case and what they're trying to do. It doesn't have to be the largest corporations

or, you know- >> Savannah: Right.

>> The most famous people in the world, right? Which I'm sure you fit into the latter category, no doubt about it, and soon to be in the former category. But it is anybody should be able to come to, you know, use us as a service provider. I think that's, like, the democratization, if you will, of that service. I think that's where it's going. I don't know how fast. It may not be at the next Next, but maybe like the next, next, next, next Next. That's, you know.

>> On Next.

>> We'll count how many nexts that is-

>> That's four. >> When we have you on this show again. What about you, Justin?

>> All right, well, I'll go shorter terms since Dallas went a few years out. I'm going to go back to my point about value. I think, and I believe this will happen, that that gen AI specifically, since you asked about it, will raise the IQ and it's going to show us where our gaps are in IQ. So in other words, let me just give you an example. With a lot of historical automation tools, it's been about doing the same thing faster in a more automated way. Gen AI is very different, right? Like, the real sauce is like, what questions are you asking and what so what question? And you can ask the so what question repetitively so many times in such a short period of time that that's where your brain starts to go and train starts of thinking. So I, we've already seen this with the clients that we've been working with. We talk a lot about getting the data together, but then it's like, what can you do with it?

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Whether it's on the tax side and saying, I've got thousands of variances, but let me ask gen AI and use it to channel on which ones actually matter, right, so separating the signal from the noise. Whether it's asking questions like in our ESG solution, which is what's the most cost effective way to hit this decarbonization goal on a year versus two year on three years? It's just getting us thinking in a different way. And I think, you know, it's starting with leadership teams and I think that's going to trickle down to everyone else. So, that's what I'm looking forward to. And I think it's starting to happen already.

>> Dallas: Yeah.

>> Well, we hope both of those things happen much sooner rather than later. Thank you both for being on the show with us today. Justin, Dallas, always great to have another city name on the show.

>> Absolutely.

>> Happy we're representing the south today, candidly. Rob, you're just a gem.

>> Thanks.

>> I don't even have to say anything else nice to you. I've said enough nice things to you today, and thank all of you from tuning in wherever you happen to be on planet Earth or in outer space today here. We're in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching "theCUBE," the leading source for enterprise tech news. (bright music)