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“Drones provide data, a lot of it, and quickly. For Joanne Murray, PwC’s UK drones assurance lead, this means a new way to collect data during audits. ‘I’m an external auditor by background and if you’d asked me even two years ago would I be working with drones in PwC, I wouldn’t have dreamt it.

It’s a big change in direction for a lot of us accountants, but if you take a step back you could say that drones are an extension of the way auditors are already working – it’s all about

gathering data. Using aerial data is revolutionary, but it doesn’t actually change the nature of what we’re doing and the insight we need to gather.’

A big part of an auditor’s job is data collection and evaluation, which can be very manual.

‘Drones can get to hard to reach places and capture huge volumes of data in very short periods of

time, which compared with manual methods – for example, going out to a construction site in a

different country – it’s hoped drone usage is driving real efficiencies in the way we’re delivering

our audits,’ says Murray.

Murray expects a greater roll out of drone usage across PwC’s business units, especially with

more benefits to be found in external audit: ‘The obvious one is the inventory count, assessing the

volume and number, as well as verifying assets. Some of our clients have assets in remote

locations and it would be tricky logistically to get an audit team member there.’

Asset impairment is another area for external audit in which Murray would like to see drones

deployed: ‘This is a risky area in the financial statement audit; if you can have drone captured

data produce a digital twin – a 3D representation of an asset – so anybody in the world can

inspect it remotely, that would be a real benefit for the audit team to get deep insight into some of

those assets.’

Big Four firms also recognize that their clients are going to be disrupted by this technology and

they want to be able to advise them on how best to put in place the systems that can exploit such

data. This is having a major impact on consulting and advisory units.

For many of PwC’s clients the advantages in using drones are to inspect assets, particularly if they are dispersed or large in size – such as oil rigs or real estate.

‘Using a drone to collect insight into the condition of assets is faster, cheaper, safer and more

accurate than traditional methods,’ says Elaine Whyte, PwC’s UK drone lead.”