Earlier this month, KPMG announced that it’s planning to combine many of its country-level partnerships into larger regional units. The firm currently operates with over 100 separate partnerships across different countries. By the end of 2025, that number could drop to around 30.
This might sound like a corporate reshuffle only relevant to one of the Big Four, but it is actually something that’s happening across the entire consulting industry: a push for simplicity, speed, and better internal alignment.
Even if you’re running a team of five or 50, the reasons behind KPMG’s decision apply to you, too.
As it stands today, KPMG’s country offices operate as separate legal and financial partnerships. That means each one makes its own decisions, runs its own systems, and handles its own client delivery.
According to the Financial Times, KPMG is consolidating to make faster decisions across regions, reduce duplicated work, invest more easily in shared tools and training, and create a more consistent experience for clients.
Some of KPMG’s smaller partnerships have struggled to keep up with rising operational costs and complex regulations, especially in areas like audit. By combining into bigger regional units, those challenges become easier to share and solve.
The firm believes this change will make it more agile and more competitive.
While this move might seem like Big Four business, the message it sends is one that hits close to home for firms of every size:
Complexity holds firms back. Clarity moves them forward.
Most small and mid-sized consulting teams don’t have 100 partnerships to manage. But they do often find themselves stuck in messy operations. Tools that don’t talk to each other. Projects that get managed in different ways. Clients asking for updates that require 15 minutes of internal back-and-forth.
KPMG’s decision is a high-level version of what many smaller firms feel every day: delivery is harder when the way you work isn’t connected.
What KPMG is doing with global partnerships, smaller firms can and should do with their workflows, systems, and teams.
When you consolidate how your firm operates, you start seeing results that impact your bottom line, your client satisfaction, and your team morale.
Here’s how:
Centralizing your project tracking means you always know where things stand. Whether it’s status updates, next steps, or ownership, your team has one place to go. That reduces internal noise and keeps work flowing.
When your tools, files, and communication are scattered, even simple tasks take longer. Bringing things together in one place saves time, reduces stress, and helps your team focus on what really matters: solving problems for clients.
When you have a repeatable, organized way of delivering work, you reduce waste. You bill more hours that count. You spend less on fixing errors or doing things twice. And you get paid faster because your output is clear and timely.
KPMG is making this change because their old way of working couldn’t keep up. The same is true for many firms, just on a smaller scale.
You don’t need a global reorg to make your business better. But you do need to look at where your systems are slowing you down. Where communication breaks. Where delivery is more manual than it should be. Where clients get frustrated even though you’re working hard.
The good news is that you don’t need to solve all of that at once. You just need to take steps toward clarity and consistency.
Start by creating standard ways of working. Bring your projects into one place. Track your client work in a way that anyone on your team can understand. And use tools that support the way you actually work, not ones that add more overhead.
This is where Pike helps smaller consulting firms looking to scale, with streamlining their entire workflow from A-Z.
Book a call today or request access if you want to learn more about how we might be able to help your team. The first consultation is absolutely FREE of charge, and is only meant to help you shed light on where your firm could improve.
