KPMG eyeing growth in Salesforce consulting and implementation
KPMG Australia has set up a Salesforce division within its Technology Implementation Group – among a string of investments aimed at better serving its clients’ customer relationship management (CRM) needs.
According to outlet ARN, KPMG is rapidly ramping up its Salesforce capacity globally, with plans to engage in 20 countries by the end of 2021. Five of these are in Asia Pacific – a market that the Big Four accounting and advisory firm will serve in part through an expanding outfit in Australia.
Reflecting this strategy, KPMG Australia hired a number of Salesforce specialists towards the end of last year – including a leadership team of at least six experts – with plans to continue this recruitment drive through 2021. Leading the local charge is Alex Moreno – who joined the firm as partner in August 2020, taking charge of a freshly established Salesforce capability.
Moreno joined after spending nearly two decades at digital services giant Accenture – most recently as Managing Director of Practice Development for the firm’s Salesforce Business group. Backed with this experience, his job is now to build KPMG a thriving Salesforce offering in Australia & New Zealand – where Salesforce reported more than $500 million in revenues for the financial year ending 31 January 2020.
Rather than marketing a standalone Salesforce proposition, KPMG is planning to use this expertise to enhance service across verticals. As a result, Moreno’s task is not only to build a strong team of Salesforce experts and establish key partnerships. He’s also charged with coordinating across verticals to deliver full value on Salesforce for KPMG clients.
“At KPMG we view the build of a Salesforce capability as one component of a broader, more coordinated offering, that is focused on delivering the business outcomes our clients are striving to achieve, using a proven methodology and a set of pre-configured assets we call ‘Powered’,” said Moreno, speaking to ARN.
Among KPMG’s enterprise transformation solutions, ‘Powered’ aims to improve performance through a combination of functional expertise, delivery capabilities and cloud technology. Salesforce products such as Customer 360 and MuleSoft are key tools in a consultant’s belt when delivering such a transformation.
For Moreno, this facilitating avatar of Salesforce will take centre stage going forward. “Our clients are typically not asking for Salesforce resources to build a spec, but are asking for a team that can shape and deliver a specific strategy, which may include the need for an enabling technology such as Salesforce.”
Quality over quantity
Drawing on this approach, he stressed that “quality over quantity” is the mantra for the new division – most notably when it comes to onboarding new recruits. “To be able to provide this level of service and quality to our clients, it takes more than acquiring a Salesforce headcount; it requires a mindset shift, a new culture, and a desire to look at the same situation through a different lens utilising all of the skills the firm has access to.”
“Our strategy is not to be the largest provider or the fastest growing. While we are looking for Salesforce experts, our focus is looking for the right cultural fit, a business first mentality, and an open mindset to how we work, to supplement the strong existing capability we have in customer and marketing strategy,” he concluded.
KPMG's bullish approach is fuelled by strong financial performance. Despite Covid-19 wiping out revenues, the firm's Australia outfit clocked 7% growth for the financial year ending August 2020 – nearly touching $2 billion in revenues.
