KPMG joins forces with Bell to drive finance transformation

As Partner and Telecommunications Sector Lead at KPMG in Canada, Dan Krausz has played a key role on Bell’s finance transformation journey over the past few years. 

“There are three things that make KPMG an effective advisor for a transformation like this,” says Krausz. “First is our approach to transformation, which is business-led and technology-enabled. The second is centred around our team – we have access to a cross-functional global organization that works on the ground in Canada, leveraging deep industry experience in finance, data and analytics, cloud, and AI through KPMG Lighthouse. The third is the way that we operate as an integrated team. We work shoulder to shoulder with Bell to deliver their desired outcomes.”

Rapid technology innovation in telecommunications

Being in a rapidly changing industry, new technologies emerge every day. Krausz explains the importance of staying on top of innovation in order to undergo an effective transformation. “It is critical to be able to look around the corner, and to check in with our global teams and technology alliances to ensure that we have a good understanding of the latest solutions and the value they can bring,” says Krausz.

“The days of having a one-stop-shop for technology are in the past. I see the different technology solutions operating more like a toolkit. There are lots of technologies out there that are solving different industry challenges – our approach is to really focus on the business problem or opportunity, and leverage the best tool, or combination of tools to solve for that use case.”

To be successful in the face of huge industry transformation, Krausz explains that one thing is vital: “Telecommunication organizations need access to more data, more frequently, that is well governed. Data is at the core of what finance does, so being able to make informed decisions, fast, is something that finance needs to drive.”

Business-led and technology-enabled finance transformation

Working with Bell to drive its finance transformation project from the beginning, KPMG has supported the development of their related vision and strategy. “We started out by helping Bell to determine what they wanted to achieve and translating that into a practical roadmap for implementation,” explains Krausz.

An integral aspect of KPMG’s involvement in the transformation is the combined approach of delivering technology outcomes while bringing a business lens to the table, taking a use case approach. 

He adds: “There have been several implementation workstreams that we have been involved in. One that I’m most proud of is intelligent forecasting – we were able to develop AI models which use both internal and external data sources to produce forecasts. These not only improved forecast accuracy, but they also continue to learn and become more accurate over time, and drive efficiency into a process which was previously manual in nature.  Another use case was for analytical process automation – significantly reducing the number of manual journal entries as part of the financial close process. This also provided additional granularity from a management reporting perspective given the details were maintained in the data warehouse.”

“A common theme throughout this project with Bell has been our collaboration, working shoulder to shoulder to not only deliver transformation outcomes, but to support the enhancement of Bell’s capabilities, ensuring that the teams are well equipped to leverage new technologies,” concludes Krausz.

Read the full Bell's digital report HERE.