As discussed in the introduction from our Joint Chairmen, the debate over the future of audit could lead to major changes for our profession and the services we offer. We are urging policymakers to make sure that their proposed remedies do not undermine the quality of audit services and insight we provide.
The quality of the Audit services we provide is paramount. It always has been the cornerstone of our philosophy and it will continue to be so. Anything that potentially undermines the quality of Audit services will be detrimental to business and the future health of our economies.
We are a leading player in Audit in all of our main markets as well as some important emerging markets,notably CIS which includes Russia, in 2011. Our performance elsewhere was mixed, particularly in established markets where we are seeing increased price sensitivity.
Given the challenging environment, our overall performance was satisfactory. This year, we saw a fair number of first-year audits.
We are now providing clients with a broad range of Assurance services, beyond the financial audit. We are particularly targeting our key global clients with this suite of Global Assurance services, which includes sustainability reporting, financial forecasts and internal control assurance.
There was also a joined up approach globally to review the overall strategy for Audit. This review focused on a holistic re-design of the delivery model for Audit services as well as on increasing the relevance and value of KPMG’s Audit and Assurance services.
Further, we are evolving how we deliver our services to clients by making better use of technology. KPMG’s tool e-AudIT, has now been rolled out across KPMG Europe LLP, and we are using new audit delivery centres to carry out standardised audit tasks, freeing up our best qualified professionals to work more closely with our clients and to ensure that quality is not compromised.
We believe IT will allow us to interrogate data in greater depth and this will further increase the quality of our work — an absolute priority for us, our clients, and the capital markets.
*Growth rate figures in the 'Functions' sections are for ELLP firms at 30 September 2011, ignoring the impact of mergers and exchange rate fluctuations (see note 3)