Global consultancy and auditing major KPMG recently revamped its operations in India, strengthening its management team and nominating new heads along business lines. Notwithstanding the current concerns of slowdown and possible impact on businesses in India, KPMG believes the long-term outlook is positive. As the firm completed 15 years in India, the recent restructure will come into effect early next year.
KPMG continues to expand in India and plans to scale up headcount to 5,000 people by 2010-11 from 3,500 now. Today, as businesses look at the East, KPMG believes that it will be easier to attract people and skills from their global network. The consultancy is optimistic on the potential in sectors such as infrastructure, information technology, energy including oil and gas despite recent concerns of slowdown and turbulence. "Very few economies are growing at the rate at which India's GDP is growing. It may be 7-8 per cent per annum or may be even 6 per cent due to some recent developments. But, we believe that the India growth story is intact despite some recent turbulence," Mr Russell Parera, Chief Executive Officer of KPMG India, said. In a conversation with Business Line, Mr Parera discussed the promise and the potential in India and their business, areas of concern and opportunities. Outlining some key trends, Mr Parera explained how KPMG has a positive India outlook. Notwithstanding some concerns, KPMG is in consolidation mode, he said. Excerpts from the interview: The global economy is passing through tough times, impacting practically every sector. How do you view this as a consultancy provider? Every country and every business seems to have been impacted in a relative sense since the last six-nine months. In India, we are fortunate that the economy, while slowing down, is still expected to grow, by various estimates, between 6 and 8 per cent. Businesses have to adopt different strategies to harness the fewer opportunities that will be available. Our multi-disciplinary tax and advisory practices are well-positioned to help our clients navigate through these changing times. Some areas like productivity improvements, cost-control and innovation will be more important in a receding tide. How long do you see this impacting the global economy? It will take some time for the sentiment and confidence to turn after the liquidity is improved through the bail-out packages in the larger economies and not before 12-18 months. While it is difficult to predict how economic conditions pan out, we advise clients to stick to core competency, manage costs and innovate to stay ahead. The biggest challenge is the mindset. Whether one calls India coupled or de-coupled with other economies, the question is how do you restore confidence in business? Just dwell deeper into any sector and analyse, you know that there is great potential for upside. Therefore, we advise our clients to look at the fundamentals in sectors such as infrastructure, IT and energy, among others. Do you see opportunity in helping enterprises in M&A during this transition? Finance for merger and acquisition is drying up. Therefore, it will be more of consolidation in any sector. We are very well-positioned through our multidisciplinary service offerings to help solve clients' issues. We are actively working with Indian businesses to restructure, be it from a tax, capital and financing perspective. As our clients access capital or look to acquire business, our ability to assist cross border activity is strengthened by the great collaboration that we have today with the network of KPMG firms across the world. Global auditing practice is undergoing transition phase as they move to IFRS. How do you see this opportunity unfolding for KPMG? There are over 6,000 listed companies which have to convert to IFRS by 2011. We believe that with our experience of having done similar projects in other markets and our pool of trained resources in India, we are in an ideal position to help clients transition to IFRS. This has manifested in the number of projects that we have commenced over the last year including filings with two SEC registrants. What have been some major achievements for KPMG in India in the last 15 years? It has been very successful in the last 15 years. We have achieved a lot in a short time with a vibrant and young team known for quality and service delivery in one of the fastest growing economies in the world. When I look back at the journey, we were the last of our peer groups to establish in India. We, at that time, picked the sunshine sector of IT/ITES and helped a number of progressive companies access the international capital markets by converting their accounts to US GAAP. We subsequently built our tax and advisory service lines which have each developed critical mass by sub-service lines. Today, we have over 5,000 Indian and international clients, close to 3,500 people and offices in seven cities. We have strong functional expertise in audit-related, tax advisory across our verticals of financial services, industrial markets, consumer markets, infrastructure and government, private equity and information, communication and entertainment sectors http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/10/31/stories/2008103150510900.htm Rich get experience. Experienced get rich. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Kences1" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/kences1?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
