Consumer and retail

The industry is evolving, and KPMG can help innovate beyond traditional boundaries

Consumers are demanding more product choices, personalized service, faster lead times, full order visibility and “click-and-collect” convenience. Delivering what their customers want—when and where they want it, over their channel of choice—can help consumer and retail organizations stay on top of the market. But this is challenging in an industry faced with rising costs, labour shortages, supply chain disruptions, and economic sensitivity.

Consumer and retail organizations are facing unprecedented pressure to overhaul their supply chain operations to improve visibility and increase overall resilience. Supply chain disruptions are also necessitating a move toward ‘just in case’ models for inventory. At the same time, retailers are tasked with creating a platform for unified commerce and designing ‘phygital’ customer experiences through AR and VR technologies creating immersive shopping environments, while omnichannel integration ensures a seamless transition between online and in-store interactions.

The retail industry is being transformed by AI-driven personalization, enhancing customer experiences through tailored recommendations and dynamic pricing. Leveraging data across all channels can help them make timely decisions and accurate forecasts. The integration of social commerce will further streamline shopping, allowing purchases via social media platforms. Customers are also demanding better product transparency and traceability and want to know if the products they’re buying are ethically made- right down to the suppliers of the brand’s suppliers. Organizations that can understand their customers and meet their needs will have an edge in this highly competitive market.

Consumer and retail

How we can help

Whether you’re a retailer, food and beverage company, producer/distributor of consumer goods, or an agribusiness company, our consumer and retail professionals can help you develop strategic steps for successful business transformations. With our cross-functional capabilities and breadth of services, we can help you focus on digital transformation in response to a more informed, conscious, and connected generation of consumers, while driving effective strategy to help support sustainable business practices and navigate global headwinds.

We have the industry experience, technical skills, and regulatory background to help your organization reach its full potential. By combining our in-depth knowledge of the Canadian industry with the global reach of KPMG International’s member firms, we help our clients address today’s complex issues while maintaining focus on the opportunities of tomorrow through various accounting, tax, and consulting services—all supported by our robust legal capability to help balance your growth objectives with proper risk management and corporate governance. In our KPMG Ignition centres, we can work with consumer and retail organizations to brainstorm innovative ideas.

We collaborate with your tax and supply chain teams to assist in addressing the actual and potential risks associated with global trade and cross-border transactions. This can improve your ability to move goods internationally while mitigating customs risk and reducing duty and tax costs. Our experienced international trade and customs professionals can work with you to develop effective international trade compliance strategies that align with your company’s tax vision to enhance customs and global trade-related compliance, security, and controls.

A unified commerce platform breaks down silos across a business, eliminating the need to use multiple systems and giving retailers a complete view of their entire operation—and of every instance their customers interact with them. We can help you create and implement a unified commerce strategy to improve efficiencies while creating a richer experience for the customer. Our team also offers a suite of customer experience consulting services that can help your organization achieve profitable, sustainable growth through customer-centric thinking.

Our supply chain advisors can help you create supply chains that are transparent, resilient, demand-driven, and sustainable. With more than 1,100 specialists worldwide in supply chain and procurement digital transformation, our team has the skills, knowledge, and industry experience to help you design and manage supply chains here in Canada, and through our international network.

ESG is no longer a siloed concept, but something that should be embedded in your organization’s entire strategy and operations. We can help you understand what ESG means for your business, equipping you with the insights, advice and technologies you need to accelerate your ESG journey. We have the expertise to accelerate decarbonization plans, identify metrics for ESG reporting or develop a social impact investing strategy.

Our cyber security professionals can help to create a resilient and trusted digital world in an age where data is drastically increasing through the rise of ‘phygital’ and omni-channel customer experiences. In addition to assessing your cyber security and aligning it to your business priorities, our team can help create advanced cyber programs, challenge and validate your defensible security posture, and help detect and respond effectively to cyber incidents.

FAQs

KPMG in Canada combines the responsiveness of a small firm with the strategic perspective of a large global network to serve our consumer and retail clients. Our specialists have extensive experience designing excellent customer experiences, drawing on digitally enabled connected capabilities to improve the end-to-end customer journey.

With a proven track record of supporting consumer and retail companies—from small start-ups to multinational operations—we can help with the implementation of growth strategies throughout Canada, the U.S., and globally. With customized, industry-focused services, we offer a full suite of forward-looking audit, tax, and advisory services designed to mitigate risk, boost competitiveness, and drive value.

We’ve been following the retail transformation closely, understanding the drivers of consumption that are shaping consumer purchasing decisions: value, convenience, experience, choice, privacy and security, and purpose. With our expertise in this area, we can help develop and implement innovative, customer-led growth strategies, and tightly aligned business operations.

We have dedicated extensive resources to becoming one of the leading service providers to consumer and retail clients. We have the resources and capabilities—embodied in our experienced professionals—along with well-established processes, industry knowledge, and thought leadership. And our extensive Canadian, U.S., and global network can meet client needs on the local, national, and global levels.