Focusing on projects that matter through partnership
The opportunity: Delivering a step-change in technology, process and insights
An S&P 500 company, leading US insurance brokerage Brown & Brown needed to overhaul the way it ran HR and finance. Without even a legacy ERP platform, back-office functions were largely run on spreadsheets and stitched together systems, which led to significant manual overhead, duplication and a mistrust of the numbers.
“We have no shortage of really good value add projects,” said Michael Conway, Brown & Brown’s Chief Accounting Officer & Controller. “But having enough people, and enough time to get them all done is the real challenge."
Brown & Brown turned to KPMG to deploy KPMG Powered Evolution enabled by Workday, that would firstly give them an efficient platform to run their finance function, including SEC reporting, together with a human capital management solution that provides workforce insights to help fellow teammates to become more efficient and effective. This is especially important as Brown & Brown executes on their growth strategy to acquire and integrate attractive agencies that are a cultural fit.
We knew we needed expertise and KPMG was an excellent source of that. The team really understands what we’re trying to do.
The response: Beyond transformation
Powered Evolution helped Brown & Brown to dramatically accelerate their financial close process. As a public traded company, they used to get very close to the SEC reporting deadline. Now, they file their SEC document the day after they release quarterly earnings to the markets. They have total confidence in their numbers and the analytics around them before they file their submissions.
The KPMG Powered Evolution (application managed services) team is helping Brown & Brown to continuously improve the return on their investment in Workday through further configurations and where necessary, re-configurations. “They’re completely aligned to our goals” says Michael Conway, “they’re just like another teammate, we really don’t draw a distinction”.
The outcome: Coupling HCM data with finance data to make better decisions
Brown & Brown recognizes that people drive value in their business. Therefore, they have an ambition to help teammates to focus on activities that matter.
Adopting the HCM platform, allows them to combine workforce related data with financial data. Understanding the correlation between teammates’ activities and results, provides the data driven insights needed to support the organization’s growth, and further their success based on ‘principled customer focus’.
Meet the person behind the story
KPMG’s finance and HR transformation approach through Powered Evolution helped address the challenges facing Brown & Brown, using proven operating models based on KPMG’s industry experience, leading practices and a set of pre-configured assets built on top of Brown & Brown’s preferred technology platform.