It would be easy to dismiss the alarming inconsistency of the quality of KPMG’s thought
leadership by attributing it to sheer volume of material the firm publishes. That may, indeed,
be true, but EY publishes significantly more and manages to maintain an impressive degree
white space of consistency by comparison. So what’s going on here? It’s hard to be sure, but we suspect
a chronic inability to centralise thought leadership within the firm is leading to a lack of coordination

KPMG shares the ‘high variability’ box with its Big Four compatriot EY. We know, however, that work is underway at KPMG
to improve quality across the board, so hopefully this leap up our ranking is indicative of a trend rather than just a lucky
sample choice.
When a firm’s output is variable, relative scores against the four criteria tend to change from review to review based on
the random sample chosen. This time, the firm’s strongest area is differentiation; its weakest resilience. KPMG is clearly