KPMG builds out Aussie Salesforce capability amid global push

The Australian arm of consulting giant KPMG has established a new Salesforce capability within its local Technology Implementation Group as part of a broader effort to build out its Salesforce offering across dozens of countries around the world. 

The company began recruiting for fresh Salesforce talent in late 2020 following the appointment of Alex Moreno as KPMG Australia partner and national head of Salesforce capability in August last year, a role he took after more than 18 years with rival consulting firm Accenture.  

Globally, KPMG is in the midst of an 18 month coordinated global build out of its Salesforce capability which, by the end of FY21, is expected to have mobilised more than 20 countries around the world, including five in the Asia Pacific region alone. 

If anyone has the skill and experience to build out KPMG's Salesforce capability in the local market, it would be Moreno, who spent his final eight or so years at Accenture as A/NZ Salesforce Business Group practice development managing director.  

Now, Moreno is responsible for the establishment of the Salesforce capability within the KPMG Australia's Technology Implementation Group.

The role sees Moreno collaborate with the broader KPMG business lines to bring value-led Salesforce offerings to it clients, build a strong alliance partnership with Salesforce and its ecosystem of partners and sustainably grow a team of highly skilled Salesforce experts. 

As of the end of December, KPMG had already recruited a leadership team of at least six senior Salesforce practitioners and the company will continue scaling the local capability under that team over the next 12 months in close coordination with its Global Delivery Network.  

For Moreno, the goals relating to expanding the local Salesforce team revolve more around each recruit's particular set of skills rather than a purely headcount-based capability approach. 

"Our strategy is not to be the largest provider or the fastest growing," Moreno told ARN. "We are prioritising quality over quantity and while yes, we are looking for Salesforce experts, our focus is looking for the right cultural fit, a business first mentality, and an open mindset to how we work, to supplement the strong existing capability we have in customer and marketing strategy." 

This factor is important because, as Moreno details, KPMG is building out its Salesforce capabilities as a way to add value to its broader portfolio of services instead of merely pitching a new, standalone offering to clients. 

This seems to be an important distinction for a company with a history of acquiring local service provider specialists in order to pitch new vendor-specific capabilities at the market.  

"At KPMG we view the build of a Salesforce capability as one component of a broader, more coordinated offering, that is focused on delivering the business outcomes our clients are striving to achieve, using a proven methodology and a set of pre-configured assets we call ‘Powered’," he said.  

"Our clients are typically not asking for Salesforce resources to build a spec, but are asking for a team that can shape and deliver a specific strategy, which may include the need for an enabling technology such as Salesforce.  

"The teams we deploy for this work are experts arranged from a varied set of disciplines within the firm, and all have Salesforce skills suited to the role they are playing. To be able to provide this level of service and quality to our clients, it takes more than acquiring a Salesforce headcount; it requires a mindset shift, a new culture, and a desire to look at the same situation through a different lens utilising all of the skills the firm has access to," Moreno added.  

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According to Moreno, the company is seeing a great deal of interest from potential candidates to join its team from all corners of the ecosystem. 

KPMG's global effort to ramp up its Salesorce activities probably reflect the increasing popularity of the vendor's products and services generally, but it also reveals a core pragmatism in how KPMG, already one of the world's top consulting firms, works to remain relevant.  

"For many years, KPMG has been helping clients achieve their business ambitions, big or small," Moreno said. "As the markets and world around us continue to evolve, so do the needs of our clients. That being the case, we are constantly on the lookout for the right partnerships and enablers to deliver the business results our clients are seeking.  

"In recent years, across many geographies we serve, our clients have been asking for help with their front of house operations, wanting to make them more responsive to changing customer expectations, more effective in how they sell and serve, more resilient, and just smarter," he said.  

In response, KPMG has been building its capabilities in an integrated way to be able to deliver those desired outcomes, and a Salesforce capability is a key part of that integrated build. 

"As a key component in many of our clients’ customer strategies, Salesforce is very much a strategic imperative within our business," Moreno said.