Tōmua

Tōmua is KPMG’s economic and social development approach. It encompasses a range of tools co-designed with global and Māori knowledge to support social transformation here in Aotearoa.

Built through a process of deep learning and wānanga, Tōmua embeds learnings from social movements of the past to develop tools that assist organisations to:

• Design services and systems that better meet the needs of diverse communities of Aotearoa;
• Embed approaches that enable and support Tiriti o Waitangi partnerships;
• Operationalise and embed processes that serve to deliver a more equitable Aotearoa;
• Assist organisations in the change and transformation process, in a way that puts people, whānau and communities at the heart.

In a period of active social and economic reform, it is more important than ever that we improve the quality of our interventions by including those most affected in the design of new services, bringing a systems thinking basis to our work and valuing Te Ao Māori highly in our approach.

In tandem, designing measurement methods that offer transparency around the impact of interventions is also critical in improving accountability.

A critical component of our journey has been to seek the advice and guidance of others. We developed an advisory panel to challenge our thinking, guide us, and to support our KPMG team in the weaving our new methodologies.

This panel, Te Ranga Roa, brought together expertise across mātauranga Māori, indigenous methodology development, research, public sector transformation, and grassroots community impact.

This external panel has challenged our thinking and our approach, helping us embrace new ways of working as we work to transform these methodologies. They have also supported us in developing associated tikanga (protocols) to ensure the integrity of new tools and that our people have sufficient cultural competence to work on ESD engagements.

E manahau nei ngā mihi ki a koutou ngā ihorei o Te Ranga Roa. Mei kore ake o koutou  tautoko tēnei o ngā kaupapa nui whakaharahara e tipu, e ngaora ki te ao. E kore rawa ngā kupu whakamiha ki o tātou e ngū, nā ratou tēnei kaupapa i whakarangatira. E kore ngā mihi kia koutou e maroke i te rā.

Tuarea represents infinite potential and is our Tōmua Operating Model design approach.

The operating model requires organisations to make explicit choices about the best deployment of their capabilities and assets to achieve its strategic ambition and enact its business model. It describes how an organisation operates across people, process, technology, service delivery model, information and governance. The operating model ensures that an organisation can turn strategy into reality by defining how the organisation will operate to meet its strategic ambition.

There are an infinite number of ways that an operating model can be designed. It is through a process of continuous design and review that we ultimately land on the most appropriate and suitable operating model for our clients’ context and needs. There may be various iterations before we land on the right one.

Our approach guides clients to think beyond the typical operating model design approach and to think broadly about how you design for, embed, and deliver outcomes. Developed to specifically help our clients design for delivering on equity, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and community empowerment, Tuarea expands on our traditional approaches to challenge our thinking and help guide us through the infinite possibilities before us.

Te Huringa is a Māori way of conceptualising transformation and represents our people and change approach. 

It is a values-based approach to organisational change that embeds the importance of nurturing people as individuals and as members of a whānau or collective through the change process. Representing its dual-whakapapa or origins it aims to bring together both the structural or procedural requirements of change, alongside a human-centred approach.

Anchored by a reminder to gaze and inquire across the breadth and depth of the organisations whakapapa to understand the context for change, Te Huringa also embeds the approach:

Kia titiro whakamuri kia anga whakamua – We must look back, in order to move forward.

Hinepikorua is our personification of the ‘pikorua’, a Māori design which represents infinity. Cheeky, infinite, and constantly evolving – Hinepikorua is our service design methodology which is an approach that we’ve developed to support our clients to co-design solutions with communities, customers, clients and other stakeholders.

Co-designing with end-users is not new. The difference that Hinepikorua brings is a range of tools that help expand and challenge our thinking and assumptions. Whether you are the service developer or end-user, Hinepikorua encourages us to think broadly about our context, be brave and bold in our choices, and constantly challenge ourselves to improve.