PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)'s recent announcement of a digital experience center in Beijing that adds to the big accountancy firm's global network of centers envisaged to beef up its advisory capacity in the digital era might be particularly fitting into the Chinese market, as the nation is pushing for integration of Internet technologies with traditional businesses as part of efforts to build a genuinely innovative economy.

The center allows for usually intangible ideas, for example, plans to remodel a lackluster hotel, to be described in a tangible manner with the help of newest virtual reality hamlets.

That will also mean a lot for the likes of PwC having strived for years to pull off the goal of taking on industry heavyweights such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Bain & Company which are all aiming high in the increasingly Internet-savvy Chinese economy.

Over the past few years, PwC and its rival Big Four accounting firm Deloitte, in particular, have been making a strategic push for prominence in the strategic consulting field that has long been dominated by the aforementioned big three strategy firms. To make that happen, the big accountancy firms have come across as ambitious buyers of smaller consultancy firms so as to build their presence in the management consulting sector.

Nonetheless, it is not that easy for the accountancy firms to truly crack the prime end of the management consulting arena, and they are essentially seen as being betwixt and between. However, being a mid-tier player tends to tighten up a business owners' nerves in the face of the global economic downturn, which means ceaseless demand for novel yet more affordable solutions to address various challenges.

The Chinese market in which a multitude of businesses are hoping to embrace the economy's new normal with a greater focus on quality rather than quantity offers unique opportunities for management consulting firms to play their part in facilitating the transition of business models that currently prevail especially in traditional industries. 

That's where the likes of PwC have sensed the opportunity, drawing on the experience of notably Apple, the iPhone maker that has over years continued expansion in mortal-and-brick experience centers, to reach out to their clients who have previously been served with more brainwork than something that they would be able to truly have hands-on experience. The use of virtual reality hamlets, in the case of PwC's digital center in Beijing, is likely to make the accountancy firm more appealing to various businesses in pursuit of smarter yet more apprehensible solutions as the entire tech sector is moving toward the next big trend.

While the newest tech gadgets might not necessarily help the accountancy firms knock out their more established rivals in a round, they are seen as reshaping the management consulting sector, as they're doing to a variety of other sectors as well.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn