Description:

In July 1999, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) signed a $200 million BPO deal with Equifax, a world leader in information, transaction processing, and customer relationship management. Under the 10-year agreement, PwC assumed management of certain portions of Equifax's human resources administration and finance and accounting functions.

The Equifax deal was a market breakthrough for PwC's fast-growing BPO practice, and its genesis came from a simple search on the World Wide Web. "Equifax called us up," recalls Joe Vales, managing director of global BPO market development at PwC, "and they said, 'We've searched the Web for BPO information and you are everywhere. We want to talk with you.'"PwC's Equifax deal has since been dwarfed by even larger BPO contracts, including a $625 million agreement with Nortel Networks and a $1.1 billion agreement with BP Amoco (now BP). In these mega-deals, too, the Web has played an important role. Indeed, as PwC has built its industry-leading BPO practice, the firm's aggressive and creative use of the Web has demonstrated convincingly that online marketing is fundamental to the future of selling even the most complex, high-value professional services.

This Best Practice Case Study examines PwC's innovative, Web-based marketing program. By delving into the strategy and tactics of the BPO marketing team, this case details how PwC has used the basic tools of online marketing to build a pervasive presence on the Web, to develop substantial thought leadership in the BPO arena, and to use that leadership to win a series of enormous, long-term contracts.