Ethics and transparency

Our commitment towards clients

KPMG’s teams are made up of specialists equipped with relevant expertise and necessary experience. We actively control all processes of each engagement, carefully monitor and point to agreed milestones, and follow approved timetables. We work efficiently and make the most of our knowledge so that our cooperation with clients is as beneficial as possible.

We provide ongoing feedback on the progress of each engagement and all matters that may impact the clients’ decision-making. Straight-forward behaviour is the basis of open and sincere cooperation. If there is something we cannot do or if we know others who can do it better - we will say so. We always try to find win-win solutions.

We never charge unreasonable fees or fees that have not been approved by our clients in advance. We look for synergies and opportunities for improvement and we pro-actively advise clients when they may save time and costs and mitigate risks.

A designated client partner is responsible for the quality of all services provided to each particular client and may be contacted whenever clients need to do so. The partner coordinates the communication and relationship with the client and bears the responsibility for the client's satisfaction.

We make sure our clients stay abreast of news and get together with them e.g. at conferences, training courses and seminars that we organise; we also prepare analyses, research and benchmarking studies for them.

Engagement work principles

In managing independence, we make use of a world-wide KPMG application, which records and monitors all KPMG investments including partners' and managers' private investments.

We use a global electronic system for controlling independence and conflicts of interest, which allows us to review and approve business relations between KPMG and clients within our global network of KPMG offices. This helps ensure that KPMG member firm engagement teams provide only services which are not in conflict with our independence and impartiality.

KPMG member firms follow strict internal confidentiality guidelines regarding client-related information and all information obtained during engagements is considered confidential. All KPMG employees including administrative, support and technical department staff are obliged to maintain confidentiality. 

Quality and risk management principles and instruments

We have a comprehensive quality and risk management system in place that is fully compliant with the International Standard on Quality Control (ISQC 1), the codes of ethics for auditors and accounting experts and attorneys-at-law, as well as rules required by international regulators.

Our quality management system rests on the following pillars:

• The firm’s management is responsible for our corporate culture, quality and risk management.
• We use a global electronic system for controlling independence and conflicts of interest, serving to monitor the services provided not only to specific companies but also to all their related entities.
• For each individual client and every engagement, we assess the impacts of our cooperation on our firm’s reputation.
• We apply clear rules and robust methodologies and adhere to high quality and expertise standards.
• Every year, our employees participate in a number of professional training courses that focus on legal compliance and ethical conduct. Annually, they are asked to confirm their independence with regard to our audit clients. Each function of our firm is equipped with a broad methodological background as well as tools complying with regulatory requirements, and reflecting the newest trends in the given industry.
• We invest into our employees’ development.
• Our employees are our main asset. To be able to offer the quality services and added value which our clients expect from us, we support a motivating and inspiring working environment and corporate culture. To adequately promote KPMG's reputation, employees need to adhere to our values. The recruitment of suitable candidates and their professional growth is crucial.
• We apply efficient engagement management processes.
• Each engagement is managed precisely in compliance with clear rules and set process procedures.
• Timely involvement of managers and partners into the engagement process is standard.
• We continuously strive for improvement and excellence.

Our existing quality standard involves the regular annual review of selected engagements by the staff of other KPMG member firms. Similarly, we conduct annual internal tests to verify the adherence to internal corporate regulations.

All employees as well as any third party may make use of the KPMG Hotline to report issues or complain about unethical behaviour.

Our Code of Ethics lays down the firm’s corporate culture and its values are vital for a successful and sustainable business.

We want to play an important role in the cultivation of the entrepreneurial environment which is why we participate in projects designed to promote it.

Coalition for Transparent Business

We are one of the founding members of the Coalition for Transparent Business, whose goal is the cultivation of a transparent entrepreneurial environment in the Czech Republic.

Recommendations for Public Tender Contractor

We are a signatory of the Recommendations for Public Tender Contractors, which supports more transparent public tender and public contractor selection processes.

Business for Society

We are members of the Business for Society Platform, the largest professional organisation focused on spreading CSR principles and sustainable business in the Czech Republic. It is an association of socially responsible companies that are sensitive to their business environment and whose management involves approaches respecting the needs of society, employees, customers and the environment.

The Czech Business Council for Sustainable Development

We are one of the founding members of the Czech Business Council for Sustainable Development with the to promote the active involvement of the entrepreneurial sector in the sustainable development of Czech society.

American Chamber of Commerce

As members of the expert CSR Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce we participate in the development of corporate social responsibility in the Czech Republic.

Netherlands-Czech Chamber of Commerce

Together with the other companies in the Corporate Responsibility Club of the Netherlands-Czech Chamber of Commerce, we endeavour to accentuate the importance of CSR principles in business undertakings.

Our knowledge management principles:

• share your knowledge
• be aware what you can and cannot share
• keep the knowledge you share up-to-date and relevant
• make it easy for others to find you and any non-documentable knowledge you may have. Keep your personal data in the firm’s profiles updated
• do not detain your knowledge in closed communities or systems
• use uniform systems and applications for knowledge sharing.

KPMG’s Knowledge Management includes the following areas:

• Content

  • We make internal know-how sources (methodologies, policies, templates) as well as external information sources available to our colleagues (e.g. information on companies, interconnectedness of companies by assets, industrial analyses, news releases).

• Cooperation

  • We interconnect our employees and accelerate the sharing of information through the appropriate combination of personal meetings and communication technology.

• Technology

  • We take advantage of all global knowledge sharing tools throughout KPMG. At the same time, we look for other ways to effectively share information when central tools are not enough.

• Sharing culture

  • We have an organisational structure in place and assigned roles and responsibilities that support knowledge sharing.
  • We want our colleagues to be able to confidently and comfortably ask for advice and information that they themselves might not have. We teach our employees that they lose nothing if they share their knowledge, but that instead all will gain and the firm will move forward faster.
  • We support peer-centred learning. KPMG supports a number of formal as well as informal expert communities that share information not only on electronic platforms, but most importantly at internal training courses and workshops.

• Knowledge Management tools

  KPMG Portal

  Our intranet is a central place featuring information that helps employees in their work. It contains internal know-how, methodologies, processes and sample statements. The Portal serves as a guide, directing people to professional and administrative applications.

  In today’s world, having more information does not necessarily mean having better information. We prefer quality to quantity. We want up-to-date knowledge and expertise and aim to avoid overloading employees with a plethora of irrelevant data. That’s why during 2017 we cleaned and updated the contents of our intranet and modernised as well as simplified the look of the pages and upgraded to a higher software version.

  KPMG Portal content	2016	2017
  Number of documents	27 000	16 200
  Number of pages	642	407

  Knowledge Base

  The Knowledge Base platform ensures the safe and effective sharing of expertise combined with engagement outputs, references and complete proposal presentations. KBase lets our advisory departments quickly search and find the results of their predecessors’ work, and with its competency data base, it enables users to locate a colleague with a given competency, while the system immediately generates the CV of the found expert to be used in proposals and tender procedures.

  Areas covered by Knowledge Base	Introduced in 2016	Introduced in 2017
  Tax advisory	Opinions, position papers, case law, presentations	Tax and legal library catalogue including lending system
  Advisory services	Service proposals, engagement outputs, references	Virtual profiles of employees, their professional and linguistic competences, including a system generating up-to-date CVs