How Users at KPMG Collaborate and Audit Efficiently

To help its clients as best as it can, KPMG, one of the world's Big Four auditors, puts a team of people on any one account. But these teams were not collaborating to their full potential. "The earlier version of our audit application only allowed auditors to work independently and later combine their work by assembling different files," says Suresh Kumar, Director-IT, KPMG. "This used to lead to wasted efforts especially when two team-members were not aware when one had completed the work of the other. The old system also created inconsistent reports, which meant more effort in identifying and removing inconsistencies."

It was a problem Kumar was sure other offices had faced before. So he went to KPMG's Global ITS Audit team based at Montvale, US. They offered him an audit application called Vector 2008, which enables employees "to work collaboratively and the ability to work while online and offline," says Kumar.

The application synchronizes changes made by any team member with all other members of a specific workspace. It allows the use of the Microsoft technologies including Word, Excel, Infopath and simplifies the creation and sharing of audit documentation. Using Groove 3, it stores all documentation and audit-related information in a single shared and secure workspace. "It's like an electronic audit binder," says Kumar.

It also assists teams in leveraging old work quickly and easily. The solution has an application that houses knowledge and guidance to help users complete audit documentation efficiently.

But Kumar's problems were not over. He still had to get auditors to accept the new system. "It took many rounds of trainings and some live 'disasters' (when work done by one team member was lost due to mistake of another), for users to effectively use the new application," says Kumar. "But soon users were convinced that the application was beneficial and was a real time-saver."

And save time it did: about 50,000 hours a year or Rs 2.75 crore. More significantly, it helped the company tackle the effects of the slowdown.

The Person Behind It

Suresh Kumar

Director-IT KPMG

“The collaboration tool provides real-time synchronization between auditors, resulting in cost savings.”