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Global consulting firm KPMG and data analytics software vendor SAS have teamed up to establish a series of so-called Cloud Acceleration Centres with a specific focus on a number of regions, including Asia Pacific.
Broadly, the goal of the new centres is to help companies navigate their journey to the cloud, from design and architecture to implementation, more cost-effectively and with increased speed — a goal the companies claim is “a positive response to the current challenges faced by global organisations”.
It is understood that the centres will be designed to be highly collaborative, tech-enabled environments that bring together multidisciplinary teams and will work to support businesses that have their own cloud environment as well as those that are employing other cloud-based managed services.
According to KPMG International’s global head of technology and knowledge Christian Rast, the new partnership means that the consulting firm’s network of more than 400 SAS practitioners will be able to ramp up collaboration on existing solutions and open the door for more work on new advanced compliance solutions.
“We’re excited to be expanding our global alliance with SAS,” Rast said. “With these centres, KPMG professionals can continue to help SAS clients to derive increased value from successfully moving to the cloud as well as drive improved collaboration that will enhance the current solution portfolio, which already includes solutions such as procurement integrity and anti-money laundering compliance that have been particularly helpful for organisations during the current pandemic.
“Additional advanced compliance solutions that are helping clients to meet regulatory requirements with increased speed and accuracy will also be prioritised,” he added.
The partnership comes as SAS and Microsoft announce a technology and go-to-market strategic partnership, with the companies migrating SAS’ analytical products and industry solutions onto Microsoft Azure as the preferred cloud provider for the SAS Cloud.
“Through this partnership, Microsoft and SAS will help our customers accelerate growth and find new ways to drive innovation with a broad set of SAS Analytics offerings on Microsoft Azure,” Scott Guthrie, Microsoft executive vice president of cloud and artificial intelligence, said.
“SAS, with its recognised expertise in analytics, data science and machine learning, is a strategic partner for Microsoft, and together we will help customers across dozens of industries and horizontals address their most critical and complex analytical challenges,” he added.
