A broad and varied responsibility
KPMG is a leading professional services firm worldwide, and one the of ‘big four’ accountancy and audit operators. It operates in 143 countries and has a global workforce of around 265,000 colleagues, who meet the various needs of businesses, governments, public-sector bodies and not-for-profit organisations.
KPMG’s role goes far beyond financial statements and tax returns. As an advisory business, it also seeks to inspire change and empower clients to maximise their potential in often-turbulent times. Supporting client-facing colleagues to focus on client delivery requires optimised key internal processes and environments, and this is where KPMG Business Services (KBS) steps up.
“Our key goals revolve around making life easier for all our colleagues across KPMG in the UK,” explains Suzanne Shenton, Partner and Head of KPMG Business Services (KBS) & Transformation, KPMG in the UK. “We’re constantly thinking about how we can be more efficient and effective in the services we deliver to support day-to-day operations, the insights we provide to the organisation and the experience we provide to all our internal customers.”
Focusing on the real priorities
For Suzanne, KBS has a simple philosophy: staff who spend less time and effort worrying about the daily practicalities of doing their job can spend more time on more important priorities, such as providing great service to clients.
“Our client-facing colleagues are our unit of production. They are out there every day supporting clients and audited entities,” she explains.
“It’s in our DNA at KBS to make that as efficient as we can, to really allow colleagues to focus all of their time on client delivery work.”
Suzanne realised that there were areas where the process of enabling efficiency could, itself, become more efficient. Old problem-resolution processes involving multiple emails were confusing and clunky, while key tasks such as recruitment and employee onboarding lacked formal structure and workflows. And when the pandemic led KPMG to pivot to hybrid working, basics such as desk allocation, managing building access and ensuring staff wellbeing proved tricky.
“The main challenges people faced when coming to the office were finding a desk and finding their colleagues,” says Guy Stallard, Deputy COO of KPMG Business Services (KBS) and Head of Indirect Supply Chain, KPMG in the UK. “Our old system was hard to navigate and had no mobile functionality. It was just not user-friendly.”
What KPMG needed was a comprehensive platform that would deliver improved and accelerated levels of control and ease of use. The solution turned out to be closer than expected.
As easy as can be
KPMG had already successfully used ServiceNow IT Service Management internally to handle IT support ticketing, as well as implementing ServiceNow products for external clients. Colleagues understood the potential of the Now Platform and how ServiceNow could provide the foundation for three key KBS platforms.
“KPMG UK’s journey with the ServiceNow platform started, as it did with most organisations, with the IT Service Management elements of the platform; about eight or nine years ago, that was what ServiceNow was known for,” recalls Kate Atkinson, ServiceNow Director, Consulting, KPMG in the UK. “Obviously, now the platform is used for so much more and in quite a large-scale way in the organisation.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were able to quickly build some custom functionality, to manage our employees returning to the office, and now we are using ServiceNow Workplace Service Delivery to replace our old return-to-office custom solution.”
ServiceNow Workplace Service Delivery (WSD) underpins the KBS Office Concierge solution, designed to help staff find a desk, and one close to colleagues if needed, on days when they come into an office.
“Office Concierge is a mobile and desktop-enabled system that allows KPMG colleagues to book desks, internal and client meeting rooms and refreshments and other services they require when visitors come to our offices,” says Guy. “It includes a daily pass questionnaire which provides confidence that colleagues are healthy, and for ESG reporting purposes it also enables us to capture carbon emissions arising from Partners and staff commuting to our offices.”
Elsewhere, ServiceNow HR Service Delivery (HRSD) and App Engine serve as the foundational technology for the KPMG recruitment and onboarding approach, standardising and automating the end-to-end process from raising a requisition to arranging interviews, generating contracts and completing the onboarding process.
A combination of ServiceNow HRSD, IT Service Management Pro, Integrated Risk Management and KPMG’s Employee Center Pro portal ‘OneContact’ support colleagues and leadership to navigate their day-to-day activities.
“OneContact is so important. We don’t want colleagues to have to go to multiple separate portals to get the information they require,” says Yvonne Tyler, Head of Operational Excellence Hubs at KPMG in the UK. “We want them out with our clients, giving a great service, so this needs to be as easy as we can make it.”
A change of culture
Collectively, the various KBS initiatives based on the Now Platform enable improved visibility for colleagues, accelerated processes, effective reporting and greater strategic insights.
“Office Concierge has changed our culture and is really helping us think about how we use our space,” says Suzanne. “We can track who’s coming into the office and what type of space they are using. That’s really helping to inform our property strategy and ESG agenda.”
The previously disjointed recruitment and onboarding process has seen critical improvements, enabling staff to identify bottlenecks and ensure that processes are completed quickly and effectively. Times to complete tasks, such as issuing contracts, for example, have been cut from over a week to just 24 hours.
“With the Now Platform, we can spot where things are getting stuck, where somebody hasn’t actioned something or where more information may be needed,” explains Suzanne. “We can also improve communications to people who need help to resolve issues.”
Turning to the OneContact initiative, she continues: “What we’ve been able to do with ServiceNow is really join support requests together with the teams needed to resolve them. It’s streamlining that whole experience, and speeding things up in the background too.”
A win-win solution
The Now Platform is now fundamental to a streamlined working experience at KPMG. From the employee experience to ESG commitments, its impact is being felt across the business.
“It’s not just about managing space; it goes much wider than that,” says Suzanne. “ServiceNow is making a huge difference in terms of the information we’re getting and the decisions we make.”
Kate works with external clients on delivering ServiceNow solutions. She is similarly enthusiastic about what the Now Platform delivers to her own business.
“Working with ServiceNow in our own operation as we would with an external client has been transformational,” she notes. “It’s strengthened our ability to deliver for clients and helped us to drive the capability of our people, delivering tangible benefits. It’s a real win-win situation.”