One on One with KPMG's Lynne Doughtie

Building upon recent acquisitions in the technology sector, audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG this month acquired Baltimore-based digital mobility company Cynergy Systems for an undisclosed sum. The firm is looking to leverage Cynergy's capabilities, and some 150 professionals, to help companies transform how they digitally engage with customers, as well as their own workforces. Companies are finding themselves forced to hastily transform their existing processes to keep up with the treadmill of mobile technology. Lynne Doughtie, KPMG's Vice Chair of Advisory, says the acquisition will help KPMG deliver robust digital solutions for clients across a multitude of industries.

Consulting: How does the acquisition fit into KPMG's mobility strategy?

Doughtie: Our clients are definitely looking for us to help them as they transform their business. For example, models to drive growth, gain a competitive advantage, improve operating efficiencies, etc. We look at technology as both a catalyst and enabler of that transformation. Mobility and digital are certainly front and center. From a strategy perspective, I think we're focused on two aspects of that: mobility applications for customer-facing operations as well as the mobile enablement of workforces. So we see Cynergy fitting in really nicely with our strategy to be able to provide our clients with the technology enablement around mobile as they're looking to do integrated transformations across their organization. We're really excited about it because it brings something unique in being able to help across the broad spectrum of strategy through implementation. Analysts have been talking about for some time what the mobile opportunities will be going forward, and we're seeing that demand from our clients now.

Consulting: What else are clients demanding?

Doughtie: How you make the experience of interfacing with their customers one that's the most engaging and in the most efficient way is an area we see the most opportunity for us. Another is around the mobile enablement of the workforce. You talk to any CEO or COO and they're certainly getting those demands from their clients but also from their workforce. It's the consumer, it's the employee, it's the executive; expectations are continuing to rise on how you make the enterprise more efficient with the mobile workforce and also making the digital experience more engaging. Cynergy has done that really well, I think adding that to KPMG's broader operational transformation capabilities as well as the technology enablement that we bring we're able to provide that sort of end-to-end solution where I think alone Cynergy would only be able to take it so far. Adding it to the KPMG platform is really powerful.

Consulting: What made Cynergy stand out as an acquisition target for KPMG?

Doughtie: Cynergy is a leading digital experience company. They specialize in taking it from strategy to design to the actual development across mobile, web and desktop as well. What I really like about it is, a lot of times when we talk about mobility or digital you're just thinking about the technology piece. Cynergy and their team of professionals really focus on the business problem first rather than just the device. What they bring is a strong track record of helping clients effectively implement digital and mobile strategies to solve current and future challenges, so the business problem aspect as opposed to just the technology point solution. That's why the fit is so nice with KPMG.

Consulting: How will it help KPMG serve the client better?

Doughtie: It gives us the opportunity to really provide all aspects of technology enablement from a mobile as well as digital perspective. We had some of that capability before bringing the professionals from Cynergy on board, but this really adds more scale. When you link it with the other capabilities we have from an operations and process change management side, it really creates the opportunity for us to provide that solution from the very beginning of the strategy to the very end of execution, implementing and designing the actual mobile application in some cases to help make the customer engagement more effective or enabling the workforce to work more effectively. They've done that across a number of industry sectors, so we think it's leverageable across a multitude of industries.