Corporate Strategies of KPMG by Subject Academy

1. Introduction

In this era of globalization, almost all the organizations in the world are facing dynamic challenges. The organizations are required to think strategically with the use of effective corporate strategies to be competitive in the world’s market (Lamb, Butler, & Roundy, 2017). Corporate strategy refers to decisions and commitments of the organizations towards the achievement of strategic competitiveness. This report is a detailed analyses of corporate level strategies adopted by KPMG which is a multinational professional services network, and one of the big four accounting organizations, along with Deloitte, Ernst & Young(EY), and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) (Goldman, Schlumpf, & Scott, 2017). The report has explained in detail about the corporate level strategies of KPMG, suitability of the current strategies of the organization and recommended strategic alternative initiatives that the organization should pursue to improve its effectiveness.

2. Corporate level strategies of KPMG

The strategy followed by KPMG works with various organizations of private, public and non-profit sector. Every organization decides its corporate strategy on the basis of direction and scope of the organization in long term. The corporate strategy of KPMG is based on where the business of the organization is trying to get in the long term (Palumbo & Manna, 2018). The organization is mainly focusing on the agile strategies which are too essential to focus on in this dynamic global environment. In other words, the corporate strategy of KPMG is based on scope of the organization to meet with the expectations of stakeholders. Investors play an important role in affecting the corporate strategy of the business. Thus the organization makes strategic decision making on the basis of the views of the investors (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2018).

The main components of corporate strategy of KPMG are resource allocation, design of organization, portfolio management and strategic tradeoffs. People and capital are the two main factors related to resource allocation. The company decides the allocation of resources by considering these two key factors to maximize the value of the firm. This process includes well distribution of people in all over the firm, movement of leaders from one department to another and appropriate supply of workers. The company also focuses on analyses of external opportunities to make proper allocation of capital for external and internal opportunities (Kryger, 2019). Through organizational design, the company focuses on determining the level of autonomy to the business units, analyses of different type of strategies on the business units. Organizational structure of the company determines how commitments and initiatives of the company can be divided into small projects. It helps the organization to merge the business units and functions. The organization separates the responsibilities of all business units to maintain a balance between risks and return (Pehrsson, 2016). Corporate strategy of KPMG related to portfolio management is related to the actual requirements of the business units. The company focuses on managing risk through the process of diversification. The strategic options created by the company leads to new opportunities in the market (Rumbles & Rees, 2013). The corporate strategy of the company balances the tradeoffs between risk and return which is the most challenging aspect of every firm.

3. Suitability of current strategies of KPMG

The corporate level strategies of KPMG are based on the identification and implementation of growth platform to make the clients able to achieve their desired targets. KPMG has followed this distinctive approach to provide benefits to the clients by focusing on future opportunities, collaboration and efficiencies (KPMG, 2019). The organization create one opportunity after the other for its clients because it has identified that there is need to increase the level of value to provide more benefits to the clients. The clients of the company always value for its industrial insight, experience of growth, entering new markets, for creation of new business plans and models and financial challenges (Schoenberg, Collier, & Bowman, 2013). The current strategies of KPMG are suitable for its competitiveness in the market and for its growth in future. These strategies help the organization focuses on the attractive ways to improve its revenue and margin, to create new business models to generate quick values and to analyses the alignment of operating model and cost structure with its strategy.

4. Recommendation for strategic initiatives

Every organization works according to the basic agenda for growth. Most of the company’s focus on aggressive growth strategies to meet with the problems caused by structural shifts including change in technology, varying regulations, changing needs of the customers. But it is a challenging task to estimate the growth and to project the growth in the future. The corporate level strategy of KPMG is also based on the growth strategies (Wadstrom, 2019). The literature depicts that most of the organizations remain unsuccessful in obtaining their growth objectives. Thus on the basis of the analyses of the current corporate level strategy of KPMG, we have recommended the following strategy initiatives.

KPMG should focus on realistic objectives for growth.

The company can set realistic objectives through proper analyses of new and unmet revenue pools. The distinctive approach followed by the company to provide maximum benefits to the clients can be helpful in the fulfillment of this strategic initiative (Wang, Noble, Dahl, & Park, 2019).

It should increase its ability to innovate to response to changing requirements of the market as well as the customers.

The company should set short time frame to enter into new markets after understanding the requirements of the market. New and innovative products can help the company to attract more and more customers. New opportunities, internal collaboration and efficiencies of the company should be inter-related with each other (Sinha, 2019). This type of realistic strategic initiatives can make the corporate level strategy of the company more effective.

5. Conclusion

To conclude, the corporate level strategy of KPMG is based on the identification and implementation of growth platform to make the clients able to achieve their desired targets. For this corporate level strategy, the company mainly focuses on organizational structure, resource allocation, portfolio management and strategic trade-offs. Although the current strategies followed by KPMG are suitable with the corporate environment, yet the organization needs to work on refinement of these strategies. As per the analyses of current strategies of the organization, we have recommended that KPMG should focus on the realistic objectives of growth and should increase its ability to innovate to response to changing requirements. These strategic initiatives will help in making the corporate level strategy of the organization more effective.

6. References

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Goldman, E. F., Schlumpf, K. S., & Scott, A. R. (2017). Combining practice and theory to assess strategic thinking. Journal of Strategic Management , 10 (4), 488-504. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-02-2017-0012

KPMG. (2019). Corporate strategy and mergers & acquisitions. Retrieved from advisory.kpmg.us: https://advisory.kpmg.us/services/corporate-strategy-mergers-acquisitions.html

Kryger, A. (2019). Iterative prototyping of strategy implementation workshop design. Journal of Strategy and Management , 11 (2), 166-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-07-2017-0051

Lamb, N. H., Butler, F., & Roundy, P. (2017). Family firms and corporate social responsibility: exploring “concerns”. Journal of Strategy and Management , 10 (4), 469-487. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-02-2016-0010

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Pehrsson, A. (2016). Firm’s strategic orientation, market context, and performance. European Business Review , 28 (4), 378-404. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-11-2015-0142

Rumbles, S., & Rees, G. (2013). Continuous changes, organizational burnout and the implications for HRD. Industrial and Commercial Training , 45 (4), 236-242. https://cquprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1rb43gr/TN_emerald_s10.1108/00197851311323538

Schoenberg, R., Collier, N., & Bowman, C. (2013). Strategies for business turnaround and recovery: a review and synthesis. European Business Review , 25 (3), 243-262. https://doi- org.ezproxy.cqu.edu.au/10.1108/09555341311314799

Sinha, S. (2019). The emergent-strategy process of initiating organizational ambidexterity. Journal of Strategy and Management , 12 (3), 382-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-12-2018-0140

Wadstrom, P. (2019). Aligning corporate and business strategy: managing the balance. Journal of Business Strtaegy , 40 (4), 44-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-06-2018-0099

Wang, H. S., Noble, C. H., Dahl, D. W., & Park, S. (2019). Successfully Communicating Cocreated Innovation. Journal of marketing , 83 (4), 38-57. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022242919841039