Network Kings
Professional services giant KPMG International operates as an international network of independent member firms, known as a Swiss cooperative.  While the member firms that make up KPMG International might be independent of one another, their businesses are similarly organized around three service lines: audit, tax and advisory.  And, within those service lines, the offerings from country to country are likely to be pretty consistent, too.

Efforts to maintain that consistency are more difficult to achieve across national borders—and the more national practices involved, the harder it is to achieve genuine consistency. Keeping that in mind, the firm has operated a European group of practices—with voluntary sign-up to a set of standards—for several years. Accordingly, while there are KPMG offices in almost every European country, the firm's European group consists of almost some 143 offices in 18 countries. At the time of writing, national practices in major European economies such as France had not signed on to the Europe-wide group, while those in the likes of the UK and Germany had. For the purposes of this profile, future mentions of KPMG and its practices will refer to the integrated European group, rather than any individual practice.