Alexandru Reff, Deloitte Romania: “We are well placed to act as orchestrator of value creation”

“2021 has been a very good year for Deloitte, in which we had double-digit growth and improvement in all our KPIs. More importantly, we have expanded our capabilities, particularly in technology, where we added or enhanced competencies in data analytics, salesforce, cloud, cyber security and others,” Alexandru Reff, Country Managing Partner, Deloitte Romania and Moldova, told The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We see many growth opportunities and wish to accelerate our progress towards a seamlessly integrated, end-to-end, idea-to-implementation multidisciplinary practice in which we can offer clients the highest quality assistance in relation to virtually every need, from traditional services to the technology space.”

COMMITMENT TO PERFORMANCE | BUSINESS EVOLUTION,  PROJECTS, PERFORMANCE, FIGURES  

How would you describe the evolution of your company in 2021? What were your company’s business achievements in 2021?

“While our fiscal year is different than the calendar year and our financial indicators are calculated from June to May, I would say that 2021 has been a very good year for Deloitte, in which we had double-digit growth and improvement in all our KPIs. More importantly, we have expanded our capabilities, particularly in technology, where we added or enhanced competencies in data analytics, salesforce, cloud, cyber security and others. We have new client offerings and internal initiatives around digital transformation, sustainability and EU funds. We have been very active in M&A, as acknowledged in various specialized rankings and have seen impressive growth in practices which support transactions, but also in compliance and risk advisory teams, a reflection of the increased preoccupation for risk management at our clients. I am also very pleased with the progress we made in regional and global cooperation around clients and offerings such that we can truly bring the best of Deloitte worldwide to clients operating in Romania.”

STRATEGY & VISION | RETHINK STRATEGY  & PRIORITIES

What challenges have you faced as a leader during 2021?

“The more distinctive challenges related to the pandemics were rather a feature of 2020: the shock of the lockdown, the adjustment to remote work, the anxiety around an upcoming crisis not so much in our own firm, but for business and society at large, the uncertainty and the need to take some precautions in our own operations, the pace of work cumulated with the psychological toll of the medical crisis for self and others etc. I have personally experienced 2021 as a much more normal year, partly because business was objectively good and partly because I had learned from the humbling experience of 2020 to embrace optimism as a moral, rather than purely rational choice. More specific challenges of 2021 were around the accumulated stress and fatigue in self and others after a long period of adversity and intensity, the relentless pace of hybrid interactions, the complexities around recruitment and retention, the need to rapidly innovate and anticipate/adapt to changes in business environment.”

What priorities and business strategy focus do you have in 2022?

“We see many growth opportunities and wish to accelerate our progress towards a seamlessly integrated, end-to-end, idea-to-implementation multidisciplinary practice in which we can offer clients the highest quality assistance in relation to virtually every need, from traditional services to the technology space. We are well placed to act as orchestrator of value creation, bringing together expertise from diverse areas of practice, from Romania, Central Europe and the global Deloitte network and working within eco-systems which complement and enhance our offerings – which is what the market demands increasingly. Along with diversification of our offerings, by ourselves and through others, we see talent as an absolute priority. We have always been in a business in which people are most critical as we produce impact very directly, through our personal, attributable contributions. Recruiting and retaining the best talent is the only way to prevail in our professions and we have many initiatives through which we pursue this „priority zero“, including DeloitteFlex, our thoughtful, personalized hybrid work model aimed at addressing the needs of our clients, our people, and our firm. Our priority remains growth, which we pursue through scaling existing competencies and building new offerings, particularly around technology, working more collaboratively within our global network and through local eco-systems, enhancing our talent value proposition and streamlining our processes, including through digitalization.”

PEOPLE & COMMUNITY | FOCUS ON SAFETY, SOCIAL APPROACH, LEVERAGE THE POWER OF COMMUNITY

What initiatives & projects did the company run in 2021 in CSR and social projects?

“Deloitte is led by a purpose – to make an impact that matters – that is also reflected in our desire to create positive outcomes for the community we are part of. Thus, in 2021 we have partnered with three NGOs, namely Asociatia pentru Valori in Educatie (AVE), Narada, and United Way, whose common denominator is the focus on education. We believe that the greatest societal impact is made not only when we contribute financially and through the expertise that we provide to our clients and in the business associations in which we are involved, but also when our professionals invest their time and skills in order to improve educational outcomes. Therefore, this year we developed and launched our own internal CSR platform, which encourages and enables our colleagues to get involved in various projects brought forward by our partner organizations. In addition to the internal CSR platform, we teamed up with AVE, Narada and The Romanian Business Leaders Foundation to donate personal computers to children and teachers in rural communities. We have also donated funds to support hospitals and organizations fighting the pandemics.”

DIGITAL DNA  | GRASPING TECH, DIGITAL INNOVATION, CUSTOMER -DRIVEN, BUILDING NEW BRIDGES

Which were the major directions in your company in 2021 where digital & tech made major difference?

“There are several dimensions of our digital and tech agenda. Firstly, Deloitte is the global leader in digital transformation, assisting numerous multinational and entrepreneurial companies to embrace the new technologies and reset their business models, processes and culture for the digital era. We have strategic partnerships with the world’s leading technology companies, doing some of the largest, most complex implementations yet we often act as technology-agnostic consultants, advising companies and public institutions as to what architecture, systems or solutions best fit their needs. We are leaders in cyber security, assisting critical institutions, banks, utility providers and many other company in relation to strategy, red teaming, solutions implementation. We are strategists for digital transformation, from our proprietary methodology to assess a company digital maturity level to end-to-end assistance in setting up a fully digital business, for instance mobile-only digital banks.

Secondly, we create digital assets. Globally, there are thousands of Deloitte digital solutions, many of which can we adapted to local market or specific company needs. In Romania, we have been acknowledged recently as one of the most innovative companies, having created, mostly by ourselves but sometimes in cooperation with others, solutions such as Processo (low-code tool for digitalization of business processes), DTax (VAT compliance tool), SmarTax (corporate tax compliance tool), secuRE (unique legal compliance tool for commercial properties), TaxCube (solution for SAF-T reporting), robots for various legal checks and chatbots for various interactions with support act ass, AI and analytics tools for AML and other compliance topics, contract management solutions and several others.

Thirdly, we have our internal digital transformation which we invest in heavily such that to free up time of our people, particularly client service professionals, remove fewer interesting tasks and create a better user experience for our colleagues in their interaction with the firm and its processes.”

What trends do you anticipate for this year?

“As far as the technology trends are concerned, I will refer to the Deloitte 2022 Tech Trends study, recently launched, which mentions some important directions that are also visible in Romania. Increase of easiness of data sharing is one of them, as many organizations own huge amounts of data, but without capitalizing on them, greater adoption of cloud, and not only for horizontal processes (such as HR, for instance), but also processes that are very specific to a certain industry, blockchain, a technology which has only begun to show its value, automation at scale to reduce repetitive and less productive tasks, greater focus on cyber security, since the remote work has opened new opportunities for cyber criminals, AI based on emotions and speech, and, of course, ambient experience – metaverse -, with the aim of providing a more natural interaction of the user.”

2021 IN 3 KEY WORDS

“Rebound, intensity, transformation”

2022 IN 3 KEY WORDS OR MORE

“Growth, talent focus, collaboration, innovation, hope”