Infrastructure: our offices G4-13

Our 26 offices in Brazil are located in cities that serve as business hubs for strategic regions and provide the physical and technological infrastructure required for our professionals to provide quality and efficient service to our clients.

Since 2009, our Building Infrastructure area has worked to adapt our facilities to the needs of professionals with physical disabilities. Building maintenance and performance items are also covered by this area.

An important highlight in infrastructure is the opening of our new flagship office in São Paulo, planned for May 2015. Our Audit, Tax and Advisory professionals, currently working at three separate offices, will now be integrated in seven floors of office space at the EZ Towers in Morumbi. The decision was supported by studies and extensive discussion among our leadership on aspects such as layout, location, surrounding facilities, access to public transport and corporate image.

Our investment in new office space is intended to provide a higher quality work environment, better integration and efficiency and an improved organisational climate. It also delivers on our global environmental commitment to building efficiency and sustainable technologies – environmental guidelines were followed to minimise environmental impacts both during construction and when in operation through features such as energy efficiency, bicycle parking space, building automation, water recycling, a heat-insulating glass façade, a state-of-the-art air conditioning system and other comfort enhancing features. These attributes earned the towers LEED® CS Gold pre-certification from the Green Building Council - a globally recognised programme to promote high-performance, green building design, construction, operations and maintenance.

In addition, KPMG has invested in an internal programme to obtain LEED® ID+C Gold certification for our facilities, involving a range of requirements focused on sustainable technologies and materials.

The move was announced to our professionals in June 2014 and has been supported by an extensive communication and clarification process through a dedicated Intranet channel. Despite our efforts to ensure the impacts of the move are mostly positive, we know that some of our professionals will be impacted by new commuting routines and we will be unable to address each case individually. G4-LA4

Corporate fleet

In 2014 we implemented a new company vehicle benefit programme for managers, called KFleet – the first of its kind among the Big Four. More than 80% of our leaders have subscribed to the benefit and chosen among four available models (all of them flex-fuel vehicles).

Technology

• Equipment and service - The volume of information that our teams must access and process, both locally and globally, requires state-of-the-art infrastructure and effective hardware and software solutions. We are equipped with 100 servers and 4,000 computers, as well as help desk support for fast troubleshooting. Some of the improvements implemented in 2014 include: duplication of our office data links, outsourcing of our Data Centre and replacement of our core switch and printing service provider.
   
• Integrated Business System (IBS) - In a growth environment like KPMG, investments in improving the efficiency of our management and internal governance processes are crucial. KPMG's new business management system was deployed throughout 2014 to enable integration, review, standardisation and aggregation of many of our processes, including Engagement and Billing, Time and Expense Management, Risk Management, Finance and CRM, in full alignment with our international systems.