The largest professional services firm in Canada, KPMG is a business accustomed to change. From modest beginnings in Montréal in 1840, the firm has constantly expanded, today employing some 5,000 Canadians in more than 70 offices from coast to coast. Nearly 100 firms in large and small communities from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast have joined forces over the past 150 years to build a dynamic, full-service organi-zation that encompasses KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne, chartered accountants, and KPMG Management Consulting. The firm provides a complete range of audit, consulting, financial advisory and tax services to business, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations.

Many of Canada’s pioneer enterprises are KPMG clients. The Bay, George Weston, and Rogers Communications are a few of the prominent names on a client list that reaches into virtually every facet of Canadian life and commerce. The firm’s more than 55,000 clients include a large share of Canada’s biggest and best-known companies, the largest number by far being owner-managed enterprises.

These clients are innovative, entrepreneurial, and action-oriented — and they expect the same from KPMG’s personnel. Excellence in auditing or accountancy is not enough in today’s marketplace. The stereotypical accountant, pouring over legers with one hand on a calculator, has given way to a diverse range of professionals committed to providing creative solutions to client problems and opportunities.

The entrepreneurial spirit that has propelled KPMG forward is apparent today in the way the firm services the individual needs of its diverse clientele. KPMG’s practice groups focus on the needs of specific Canadian industries — from banking to mining, from automobile dealerships to hospitality and tourism. Their mission: to assist clients in addressing the latest operational, financial, regulatory and marketing issues affecting their organizations.
 

A cartoon of the 1880s showing Canada as a rapidly growing young nation surrounded by envious nations.

Opportunity lies within any change. As organizations look for new ways of doing business in the nineties, KPMG has emerged as a sought-after advisor whether the situation calls for downsizing, expansion, or streamlining for competitive advantage. To help clients turn change into opportunity, KPMG has been a leader in embracing new approaches and at the forefront in entering new service areas. For example:

• The firm has put more than a dozen accountants, engineers, and management consultants to work in the environmental area, helping clients address risk, comply with new law and take advantage of tomorrow’s opportunities.
• Acting for lenders, regulators or troubled companies themselves, KPMG’s corporate recovery specialists have been involved in some of the most sophisticated restructuring exercises that have, in recent years, taken place in Canada.
• KPMG consultants are assisting organizations to develop new costing systems using activity based management to measure performance. New management techniques, new capital, more automation and computer systems usually mean that the allocations based on the historical labour component are misleading.
• With corporate fraud on the increase and financial litigation becoming more complex than ever, KPMG developed the largest forensic and investigative accounting practice in Canada as an aid to assist clients in combating and protecting themselves against everything from kickbacks and wrongful dismissals to management frauds, stock market manipulations, and even arson.

Towards 2000

Just as entrepreneurial clients have “gone global,” so too has KPMG become their global advisor, with a service network that reaches across Canada and stretches worldwide. First among accounting firms to complete a global merger, KPMG is the world’s leading professional services organization with a network of over 800 offices in more than 130 countries. By thinking globally and delivering locally, KPMG brings worldwide knowledge to bear on client concerns.

To succeed in a time of change, limits must be stretched and old assumptions challenged. KPMG professionals are advising Canadian entrepreneurs to pursue aggressive growth around the world, establishing new international markets for Canadian products and their strategic acquisitions of operations outside Canada. To meet the information needs of its clients, many of KPMG’s surveys are international in scope — such as its in-depth reports on international fraud and corporate environmental reporting, perceptions of business leaders on the implications of NAFTA and its authoritative analysis of global cross-border merger and acquisition activity. KPMG is a true pathfinder....

Looking toward the twenty-first century, KPMG’s aspirations are reflected more than ever in the firm’s mission statement: “We will be the recognized leader in providing personalized, objective professional services. We will strive relentlessly for the success of our clients through teamwork, innovation, and access to firm-wide expertise.”