KPMG brings Innovation Lab to Australia

Sydney plays permanent host, pop-ups planned.

KPMG has selected Sydney to host its third innovation lab globally, revealing a “multi-million dollar investment” aimed at helping its customers “pre-empt disruption”.

After similar initiatives in New York and Amsterdam, the audit firm said that it would bring the KPMG innovation lab concept to its new office in Barangaroo International Tower Three in Sydney.

Barangaroo is emerging as a new financial and fintech hub adjacent to Sydney’s CBD.

It is to be headed by Kristina Craig, previously a director in KPMG’s management consulting practice.

“We’ve identified the most successful features of different innovation labs and centres across the KPMG global network to develop a unique capability [in Sydney],” Craig said.

“While the innovation lab environment will be housed in Sydney, it will be a national, firm-wide facility, and our intention is to bring the innovation lab experience across Australia through ‘pop-up’ labs and other digital platforms.”

The focus of the labs globally is to “anticipate and plan for disruption”, KPMG said.

At the core of the lab, KPMG said, is a “methodology that mines weak signals of change and maps global technology innovation trends to provide a data driven view of disruption at a sector or company level.”

“The [Sydney] lab will utilise technology that analyses 500,000 online sources a day such as global patent databases, annual reports, venture capital activity, press releases and social media,” the firm said.

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