Using Olive for our software evaluation engagements has not only helped us be unbiased and objective in our valuations, but it has also helped us build trust with our clients, where they feel that they’ve made the right decision.
For global enterprises, selecting the right technology—be it an ERP, HCM, or a niche data platform—is a high-stakes decision that shapes their future. That’s where PwC’s Technology Strategy practice comes in. As part of its consulting services, the practice provides strategic advice to CIOs, CTOs, and other C-suite executives to guide them through these complex choices. Leading this effort is Arpit Gandhi, a Director in the Technology Strategy practice who specializes in the firm’s software selection and vendor management offering.
While the practice was the go-to expert for helping clients make objective, data-driven decisions, its own internal processes posed a fundamental challenge: how to scale the delivery of its services without compromising the integrity of its evaluation methodology. With different teams using a patchwork of manual tools, maintaining the firm’s high standards for objectivity and consistency across every engagement was a constant, time-consuming struggle. The firm needed more than just an efficiency boost; it needed a centralized platform that could codify its best practices, ensuring every client evaluation was as rigorous and unbiased as the last, no matter how quickly the practice grew.
Scaling Integrity: A Manual Process Under Pressure
PwC’s strength is its deep bench of technology experts. Historically, this meant a fragmented practice where different teams used their own methods for software evaluation. “There were many different teams, and they had their own ways, methodologies, and frameworks,” explains Arpit Gandhi, a Director in the Technology Strategy practice.
This patchwork of manual tools—primarily Word, Excel, and SharePoint—created a cumbersome workflow. “Over time, we found the process to be very inefficient and not streamlined,” Arpit notes. “We started to look for digital tools that enabled us to execute these engagements better.”
As the practice centralized its software selection offering, the strain of its manual process intensified. Coordinating communications across multiple vendors and large internal teams was a significant operational burden, especially with critical requirements often trapped in difficult-to-search SharePoint sites.
Most importantly, the manual process posed a risk to PwC’s core value proposition: objectivity. With a large network of vendor alliances, maintaining impartiality is paramount. “We found that sometimes there might be inherent biases involved,” Arpit states. “Let’s say if there was an Oracle partner leading a particular engagement, the answer likely could have been Oracle. We wanted to avoid those types of situations.”
The team first attempted to use a custom-built solution on a low-code platform. The internal solution had reached a dead end. Arpit recalls that the internal tool was cost-prohibitive for two main reasons: the development time required to get it right and the licensing costs for each user. “The challenge with our custom-built solution was that it was complex to configure and deploy from one engagement to the other,” Arpit says. “It wasn’t easy for other teams to come in and just spin up this tool.”
A Central Platform for a Complex Process
The search for a dedicated, third-party platform led PwC to Olive. While other tools addressed parts of the problem, Olive stood out as the most comprehensive platform. It provided a single, unified environment that addressed PwC’s core challenges head-on.
“Olive has enabled us to bring internal and client stakeholders, and even vendors, into one single platform to streamline the entire evaluation. Using Olive’s AI capabilities, we can analyze a large set of documents, extract key requirements, and categorize them in a short amount of time, which is immensely powerful.”
— Arpit Gandhi, Director, Technology Strategy at PwC
The solution became a controlled, efficient process that gave PwC’s teams an objective framework for every evaluation. One of the most demanding was for a global nonprofit company seeking new ERP and HCM software. The evaluation involved over 2,000 requirements, numerous client stakeholders, and six different vendors.
“The benefit of using Olive was we could control what each vendor would see from an RFP standpoint,” Arpit explains. “We were able to compartmentalize their responses and have the clients score each vendor’s performance.”
This structured approach delivered three key results:
- Unwavering Objectivity: The platform removed the risk of bias. “Olive really helps us maintain objectivity,” Arpit confirms. “The tool allows us to ensure that each dimension that is critical for the client can get scored, either by us or by the clients themselves, so that we are looking at each dimension objectively and removing any biases for any particular platform.”
- A Foundation of Client Trust: Clients who experience the organized Olive-powered process are confident in their final decision. “Using Olive has not only helped us be unbiased and objective in our valuations, but it has also helped us build trust with our clients,” Arpit states. “This trust has, in many instances, allowed PWC to win additional work, be it implementation services or software evaluations in other areas.”
- Driving Future Growth: The speed and rigor that Olive provides have become a competitive advantage, allowing PwC to pursue new business opportunities they previously couldn’t.
A Scalable Blueprint for Future Evaluations
Beyond individual projects, PwC’s true transformation is in building a long-term asset. Olive has become the platform for compounding their institutional knowledge.
“The other aspect of our vision is to use Olive as a central repository tool,” Arpit explains. “As each software evaluation engagement uses it, we now have a library of use cases and requirements that are very specific to an industry, a sub-industry, or even a particular client. We can tap into that library, which will allow us to accelerate future engagements.”
With this blueprint, PwC’s expertise and objectivity are not just preserved—they’re designed to scale.
