Seeds of growth

The global executive team of a multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company turned to KPMG LLP to help them take financial reporting to the next level. The company was using multiple, disparate systems that could not provide a single point of view for enormous amounts of data related to different products, product lines, regions, functions, and other areas. It also lacked the ability to “slice and dice” this data to gain new insights that could translate into business value.

Equally significant, company executives needed the assistance of analysts to prepare reports for regular meetings and financial closings. Oftentimes, the results from initial reports led to other questions, so the analysts had to repeat the process of gathering, scrubbing, and analyzing new data. Preparing multiple iterations of different reports usually took hours if not days, and the reports were still unable to provide executives with the in-depth, holistic understanding they needed for effective financial decision making. 

The KPMG financial reporting platform supports strategic decision making with feature-rich, easy-to-use dashboards that provide:

• a clear business picture based on information gathered from HR, sales, customer relationship management, and many other key functions
• in-depth comparisons between business units, products, and product categories 
• trusted and timely information based on accurate, complete, and consistent data from multiple sources 
• detailed KPI displays, including data sources, timelines of data updates, and contact person for each KPI
• enhanced communications for system users, including interactive, Facebook-like user interfaces and regular information updates
• increased efficiency with dramatic reductions in the time and effort required to prepare reports.

KPMG developed a unique reporting platform that supports enhanced, strategic decision making, greater data transparency, dramatic reductions in the time and effort required to prepare reports, smooth integration with metrics from different sources, and added flexibility to view data in multiple ways for improved insight.

After a careful analysis of the client’s needs and objectives, the KPMG team began the design and development of a unique, enterprise-level financial reporting platform. The first step was to conduct a series of interviews with the global executives, leveraging KPMG Journey Mapping tools to understand their specific information needs, data touchpoints, and objectives across the decision-making cycle.

KPMG professionals also took advantage of design thinking, a people-oriented approach to creative problem solving that helped them to deepen their knowledge of how the executives used data in specific business contexts. Based on what they learned, the KPMG team developed a single-page application supported by an on-premise Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.

Dashboards designed for business users can be used to access, integrate, and analyze data in multiple ways. Users can also use the platform to create, revise, and combine a range of financial reports for different needs, audiences, and requirements. 

Collaboration, context, and facts are critical 

FP&A analysts make better decisions and deliver considerably more accurate forecasts when you provide them with a purpose-built dashboard that helps them build consensus, easily obtain contextual insights, and develop forecasts on fact-based insights instead of individual biases.