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Finding a clear way forward in the wake of a major acquisition

Financial operations integration gave a consumer packaged goods company needed visibility in today’s market

Client

Global CPG company

Sector

Consumer & Retail – Food & Drink

Primary goal

Integrate financial operations after a major acquisition

Share

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When an acquisition doubles your revenue in your largest market, there are some big numbers at play—especially when you’re a $48 billion CPG company. And the bigger the numbers, the bigger the impact of every strategic and tactical decision you make. You can’t afford to have your visibility clouded and your decision-making hampered by having two disparate financial operations functions each with its own systems, software, and people. So, when a global CPG company found itself in this situation, it called on KPMG to drive fast, smooth, cost-efficient integration of financial operations.

Key outcomes

1

Increased engagement 

and global alignment between cross-functional teams

2

Greater visibility

 into consolidated spend driving meaningful insights and more proactive decisions

3

Days shaved off

the monthly close cycle

4

More accurate

revenue and sales forecasting

When an acquisition doubles your revenue in your largest market, there are some big numbers at play—especially when you’re a $48 billion CPG company. And the bigger the numbers, the bigger the impact of every strategic and tactical decision you make. You can’t afford to have your visibility clouded and your decision-making hampered by having two disparate financial operations functions each with its own systems, software, and people. So, when a global CPG company found itself in this situation, it called on KPMG to drive fast, smooth, cost-efficient integration of financial operations.

Key outcomes

01
Increased engagement

and global alignment between cross-functional teams

02
Greater visibility

into consolidated spend driving meaningful insights and more proactive decisions

03
Days shaved off

the monthly close cycle

04
More accurate

revenue and sales forecasting

Client transformation journey

Click on each part of the journey to learn more about our client’s transformation.

Client transformation journey

Before

Poor visibility threatened business objectives.

Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.

After

Unified financial operations support global success.

While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.

Future

A strong foundation that can keep pace with continued growth.

There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.

Before

Poor visibility threatened business objectives.

Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.

After

Unified financial operations support global success.

While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.

Future

A strong foundation that can keep pace with continued growth.

There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.

Client transformation journey

  • Before

    Poor visibility threatened business objectives.

    Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.The preconfigured assets and technology accelerators delivered by KPMG Powered Enterprise let ambitious leadership teams take advantage of embedded leading practices to speed up the decision-making process while instilling confidence.

  • After

    Unified financial operations support global success.

    While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.

  • Future

    A strong foundation that can keep pace with continued growth.

    There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.

Successful integration of financial operations inspired new transformation goals and produced a powerful ripple effect across the enterprise

Fast, cost-effective integration through a five-phased approach

Click on a phase to scroll down to its description.
1

Vision phase

Developing a high-level strategy for integration and performance

2

Validation phase

Collaborating with our client to envision a future state

3

Construction phase

Putting the structures in place to support a single, efficient financial operations function

4

Delivery phase

Driving socialization and adoption across the globe

5

Evolution phase

Continued support of ongoing transformation

Vision phase

Developing a high-level strategy for integration and performance

KPMG deployed a highly experienced team of senior finance professionals from the U.S. and Europe. The team’s industry experience ran deep in food as well as other sectors, helping ensure a multidimensional perspective on key financial operations issues. We assessed our client’s requirements and integration concerns and developed a nuanced understanding of the two separate financial operations functions.

Two key opportunities emerged early on:

  • Shift the business away from time-consuming efforts associated with manipulating data offline and direct efforts to analyzing data online in real time to drive meaningful insights
  • Promote a proactive approach to monitoring market trends by analyzing on-demand data and circulating timely reports

Combining our finance and industry experience with a deep dive into the client’s situation helped us envision a high-level integration strategy that would leave financial operations not only unified—but also stronger and more agile.

1

Vision phase

Developing a high-level strategy for integration and performance

KPMG deployed a highly experienced team of senior finance professionals from the U.S. and Europe. The team’s industry experience ran deep in food as well as other sectors, helping ensure a multidimensional perspective on key financial operations issues. We assessed our client’s requirements and integration concerns and developed a nuanced understanding of the two separate financial operations functions.

Two key opportunities emerged early on:

  • Shift the business away from time-consuming efforts associated with manipulating data offline and direct efforts to analyzing data online in real time to drive meaningful insights
  • Promote a proactive approach to monitoring market trends by analyzing on-demand data and circulating timely reports

Combining our finance and industry experience with a deep dive into the client’s situation helped us envision a high-level integration strategy that would leave financial operations not only unified—but also stronger and more agile.

2

Validation phase

Collaborating with our client to envision a future state

After gaining a clear picture of our client’s current state, we set to work defining a future one. This involved collaboration in several forms:

  • Meeting with stakeholders across the enterprise to better understand how financial operations served various functions and to identify opportunities for strengthening its role
  • Conducting sessions with company leadership to understand the broader business objectives that required financial operations support
  • Helping our client identify opportunities to streamline operational processes, accelerate the development of key insights, and provide more accurate predictions
  • Working directly with the client’s supply chain finance team to evaluate and harmonize the array of methodologies and business requirements that were in place at both companies prior to the acquisition
  • Reviewing current-state Enterprise Capital, Plant, and Procurement reporting to identify differences across key processes

We used the insights we gained to provide a holistic perspective on enterprise-wide operations as well as to define the key performance indicators (KPIs) that would help guide how we designed data models, streamlined processes and reporting procedures, and defined roles and responsibilities. Along the way, we also uncovered a number of opportunities to optimize the legacy close process.

3

Construction phase

Putting the structures in place to support a single, efficient financial operations function

Using a practical, results-driven approach, KPMG created and implemented needed structures, policies, and processes to help ensure a smooth, successful financial operations integration.

  • Developed a structured, streamlined approach to managing key integration activities, governance, and status tracking and reporting
  • Implemented a communications strategy that improved integration visibility and transparency, and reduced the number of change requests submitted to the integration project management office
  • Established standard, formal roles and responsibilities across financial operations
  • Defined business requirements, dependencies, and information availability during the close cycle
  • Redesigned the forecast and monthly close process
  • Developed a single set of standard operating processes for use across the integrated finance function
  • Integrated and centralized processes to enhance cross-functional collaboration
  • Developed and prioritized 50+ recommendations for accelerating the close cycle
  • Supported development of an enhanced data model that fit the new organizational structure, improved overall visibility, and helped drive adoption of new financial processes aligned to future-state objectives
  • Supported development of a management reporting application that consolidated enterprise spend reporting and implemented a new, centralized Oracle selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expense application
  • Implemented recommendations that helped align enterprise reporting and optimize the monthly “rolling forecast” process
  • Documented supply chain finance reporting methodologies and business requirements
  • Provided future-state recommendations for more accurate enterprise-wide supply chain reporting and monthly rolling forecasts

4

Delivery phase

Driving socialization and adoption across the globe

Integration would not have been successful without the support of teams in the U.S. and throughout Europe. To help increase understanding and adoption of new roles and responsibilities as well as processes and tools, KPMG developed a robust change-management training initiative and documentation. We also created a detailed communication strategy that kept all employees informed of what the changes where, when they were coming, and what needed to be accomplished.  

5

Evolution phase

Continued support of ongoing transformation

KPMG teams in the U.S. and Europe worked together to monitor the success of the new integrated finance function, addressing cross-border issues, helping ensure that regional silos had been fully decommissioned, and continuously supporting more standardized, unified, and efficient ways of working.

As a result of the successful integration, KPMG was invited to present at the client’s global conference and to lead a “Future of Finance” workshop with the global CFO and global finance team. This led to the launch of a broader, strategic, integrated business services program with the goal of digitally transforming global operations.

Turning insights into opportunity

Why financial integration is key to value capture

Everyone knows that the food sector has become more saturated and volatile and that a sound M&A strategy can fuel performance and growth. Having worked with so many leading CPG companies, we have insights into what drives value and what threatens it.

When data silos, manual processes, and fragmented reporting capabilities are left in place, you sacrifice speed and agility. And when you rely only on internal data, instead of leveraging third-party sources, you reduce your insight into shifting consumer demands and market opportunities. Rapidly integrating financial operations, establishing healthy data ecosystems, and optimizing reporting environments are all key to the kind of insight-driven decision-making that helps capture optimal value from every deal.

At KPMG, we know financial operations and data and analytics. We know the CPG industry. And we’ll get to know you. Then we can work together on transforming your business.

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