KPMG launches global knowledge management system

Global Big Five consultancy KPMG is rolling out a new knowledge management system to its entire global network of 100,000 workers, enhancing knowledge sharing and collaboration between KPMG partners, employees and clients.

Dubbed KWorld, the system will offer KPMG workers and clients electronic "paths" to the company's intellectual capital, breaking news and external information by using collaborative tools based entirely on Microsoft products: Windows NT, Exchange, Site Server, Office, Outlook and Internet Explorer.

"With the launch of KWorld, we will leverage the intellectual capital of everyone in KPMG and enable our practitioners to better serve our clients locally and globally," said KPMG CEO Paul Reilly.

KWorld will let KPMG workers conduct active conferences and public exchanges, locate customized and filtered external and internal news, and access global- and country-specific firm information.

"Knowledge is content in context, and our global communities of practice -- who marry knowledge about complex services to specific industries -- determine KWorld's contextual frames," said Mike Turillo, KPMG's international CKO. "KWorld brings qualified internal content and filtered external content to each community with a click."

KPMG has invested over a year and $100 million in revenues in developing its universally accessible knowledge-sharing environment.

IDC helped KPMG validate its knowledge management strategy at the project's initiation. "KPMG is leading the charge in terms of the investment that it's making, the resources at its disposal and the vision that is has for knowledge management to serve clients better," according to Gerry Murray, director of knowledge technologies at IDC.

KWorld will be rolled out in two weeks to KPMG's practices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, followed by practices including Canada, Australia, Sweden and Switzerland and the rest of KPMG's worldwide operations