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Time to go further, faster: Transacting to create value and accelerate transformation

If you can’t adapt, you can’t compete. As businesses strive to get ahead in their markets, they can go further and faster by making transactions, in the form of M&A, divestments, joint ventures or refinancing, integral to their transformation strategy.

In a market where competitiveness relies on adaptability, businesses must transform and create value quickly. Research from PwC UK — which draws on several sources including a survey of 300 UK corporate leaders — reveals over half (56%) view transactions as the best way to keep up with market developments. From unlocking new sources of value with technology to accelerating decarbonisation, businesses believe transactions allow them to transform faster than would otherwise be feasible.

But securing value remains challenging. While most say their experience of using transactions to create value has been broadly positive, around one in five say their expectations weren't met. What can businesses do, and what do they need to avoid, to unlock value faster and more reliably through transactions?

Find out how businesses are transacting to transform

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Why businesses are transacting to transform

The stakes are high for many organisations. Our research finds over a third of senior executives believe their business won’t be economically viable if they don’t make significant changes within the next 10 years.

More positively, 63% say they’re planning to make coordinated, strategic change in the near future. That’s up from just over a third (36%) today.

35%

Of senior executives believe their business won’t be economically viable within a decade if they don’t radically transform

56%

See transactions as the best way to keep up with the speed of change in their market

63%

Say they will be conducting coordinated, strategic change in three years

But businesses cannot rely on organic change programmes alone. This approach, which involves assigning in-house teams to transformation initiatives while gradually hiring and upskilling talent, is too slow and patchy in the face of disruptive trends.

Roberta Carter, UK Value Creation Leader at PwC UK, says: "Organic growth loses momentum when set against the deamands of business as usual. As they face the move to Cloud, sustainability requirements, post-Covid changes in ways of working and the rapid expansion of GenAI, executives believe they can use transactions to transform at speed."

Our report draws on these insights, a complementary analysis of total shareholder return, and a series of expert interviews to identify how businesses are using transactions to drive change.

To create value and accelerate transformation in your business, access the report using the form below and explore our key insights and recommendations.