KPMG & Microsoft: Inside the Alliance on Cloud ERP, CRM, and D&A

It has been a year since KPMG announced an expanded strategic relationship based on Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Azure.

"It's been a strong year of development, a year and 14 days to be exact," said John Houtary, KPMG's US lead partner for the Microsoft alliance. "There's certainly a tremendous amount of activity within the US and outside."

The goal of the collaboration was a lofty one: to realize the business potential of a single global and scalable platform that delivers cloud-based solutions for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Data and Analytics (D&A).

KPMG unveiled its progress earlier this month at the Microsoft Envision 2016 conference, with three new offerings in D&A, cloud transformation and compliance (CTC), and CRM. The firm has further built its integration expertise via two acquisitions, most recently of Australian Microsoft systems integrator Hands-on Systems, giving KPMG greater coverage in APAC; and of the European IT company Crimsonwing in February of 2015. "So it's a growing trend of Microsoft integrator acquisitions by the firm globally," says Houtary.

Of the last year, he says "I would say this is almost a first wave of activity. I imagine sitting here in the next year, there will be a second wave in the next 12 months of joint development solutions with Microsoft."

Data & Analytics: Born from business conversations

KPMG's D&A offering uses the KPMG D&A Core Platform to bring several Microsoft technologies under a single umbrella to improve financial analysis and operational performance. The solutions run on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, and are powered by the Cortana Intelligence Suite.

As Houtary describes, using the D&...