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A new leader reimagines the tax function

KPMG helped an industrial equipment manufacturer map the road to its future-state tax department

Client

A large manufacturing company

Industry

Heavy equipment manufacturing

Primary goal

Align on a one-year and three-year vision for the tax department and discuss how to achieve it as a newly formed team

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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 a longtime tax department leader transitioned into his new role as vice president of tax, he wanted to define a collective vision for the tax team. What would success look like? How would it be measured? And how could his team enhance the value of the department to the company overall?

The KPMG Ignition Executive Program™ helped the executive refine a forward path that described future success for the tax department. The program contributed to his and his team’s success in defining the tax vision statement, identifying areas of focus, and discussing what it means to be a high-performing team.

Key Outcomes

Making a measurable difference

  • A one-year and three-year vision for the tax department
  • Alignment and awareness across the team on the new vision
  • Increased team confidence
  • Greater awareness of the tax department’s value 

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.

I felt strongly about where I wanted to take the tax department. KPMG helped me clearly define and articulate it, and create an actionable plan.  Throughout the process, I found myself appreciating that KPMG has considerable experience with this program and that they were interested in understanding what I am trying to accomplish. I think very highly of the KPMG team and look forward to continuing to work with them.

Anonymous Client

Vice President of Tax at a large manufacturing company

KPMG helped create a unified vision for tax transformation

The KPMG Ignition Executive Program™ is a three-part experience aimed at accelerating change through a facilitated, collaborative approach, customized to the needs of each client. The experience includes three sessions—Discovery Session, Executive Session, and Team Session—with a series of one-on-one interviews with key individuals between sessions one and two. In the Discovery Session, the company met with the client to understand the current landscape and define success for the program. In the Executive Session that followed the interviews, the Ignition team presented its interview findings in ways that challenged some of his going-in assumptions and led to new perspectives on opportunity—summarized in the vision statement he drafted. In the Team Session, an all-day in-person event, the client and his team collectively refined a one-year vision for the department—both credo and action plan—and aligned behind it.  

1. Helping leadership align on the right questions

In the one-hour Discovery Session, the Ignition team sought to elicit and define the issues and challenges important to the client. His concerns were how to serve the company even more effectively. He wanted to raise the bar for the tax department: He wanted to determine how to define and measure success, and how to work more smoothly as a team. He was keenly interested in best practices for leadership and defining the future state of tax.

After the session, KPMG conducted one-on-one interviews with six of the client’s future direct reports. KPMG learned that the tax department was not aligned on customer service standards, and there was a lack of clarity around the tax department’s vision and supporting goals. A reason for this, KPMG discovered, was a feeling that tax was rarely consulted as a strategic partner. Our client wanted to find ways to demonstrate the increased value his company could receive if the tax department were more involved in higher-level decisions. 

2. Helping a leader articulate his vision

During the Executive Session, the Ignition team collaborated with the client to define, confront, and prioritize the tax issues facing the department and the company. Working collaboratively, Ignition and the client drafted vision statements for the department and identified measurable, tangible focus areas to help achieve those goals. The Ignition team offered a variety of viewpoints, parsed data, explored possibilities, and found areas in which challenges could be transformed into opportunities.

A successful session requires a combination of elements: In this case, the KPMG team’s industry background, its sophisticated understanding of the client company’s operations and structure, experience with executives in similar situations, the program’s collaborative approach, and the strong KPMG working relationship with the executive. Moving through a disciplined agenda in a spirit of confident encouragement, KPMG helped the client define success, discuss best practices regarding the board, and engage with the audit committee. Ignition helped pinpoint areas for tax department support and shared feedback received from his peers and leadership.

3. Turning a group into a team

The Team Session, a full-day affair, was designed to carry the decisions and vision the client had defined in the Executive Session to his direct reports. Using advanced technologies, often involving 3D visuals like those in hit movies, Ignition breaks down the walls that inhibit creativity, and allowed the client and his team to find innovative solutions to their issues. 

In this new Ignition environment, freed from common constraints, the team highlighted some disconnects around the customer service standards, identified gaps and ways to address them, and discussed their ways of working. They explored and crafted a vision statement of their own. The client’s draft was then revealed, explained, and discussed. Working together, the team and its new leader synthesized the two versions and aligned in support of its one-year vision for the department. 

The Executive Program is a way for us to engage with our clients through unique experiences during moments of change, like coming into a new role. We focus on creating an experience customized to the client's needs. We suggest that they engage their team as part of the experience, because unless you've got your team supporting your vision, your forward strategy can't be successful. So, the key question is, ‘How do we work most effectively as a team, given new leadership?

Philene Molz

Director, KPMG Ignition Lab

Ignition: The spark that lights the future

Ignition is a new and exciting way to accelerate transformation. Using the audio, visual, and haptic technologies associated with blockbuster movies, Ignition breaks down the walls that inhibit our thinking so that our own creativity can flourish, and we can reimagine challenges as the opportunities they are. Learn more about KPMG Ignition and how it can work for you. 

Meet the team that made the difference for a new VP of Tax.

If you believe your tax department could benefit from fresh perspectives on how to be more efficient, and transparent, and more powerfully demonstrate its value to your company, let’s have a conversation. KPMG. Make the Difference.

Image of Chris Novoa
Chris Novoa
Partner, Tax | Ignition - Systems Integration, KPMG US

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