Streamline your digital transformation sales for accounting and tax with airSlate SignNow

How to create outlook signature

welcome I'm Barbara call senior director of content strategy at CIO marketing services and I'll be your host and moderator for today's webcast titled tax reimagined digital transformation in the tax department and brought to you by CIO Thompson Reuters and KPMG I have three guests with me today first up is Kevin permenter research director Financial applications at IDC welcome Kevin tell us a little bit about yourself sure like you said research director been in the research market research game for about 20 years here at IDC my coverage area is financial application so everything from like your small business accounting apps through to the big Erp Financial Suites and then into the the key Point solution areas like tax like AR AP and Treasury and happy to be here it's an exciting topic my second speaker is satnam Singh Chief product officer corporate tax and trade Global API and Cloud leader at Thompson Reuters tell us a little bit about yourself satinum Barbara thank you and the KPMG team for the invite to discuss this key topic around the digital transformation of the corporate tax department as you shared I serve as the chief product officer for corporate stocks and trade as well as the API and Cloud leader for Thompson Reuters in that capacity ahead of product management for several of our key applications including Direct Tax around income tax and tax provision indirect tax which is around determination and compliance for sales tax vat GST global trade trust tax information tax reporting which is around 1099 reporting as well as the platform that gives our customers capabilities around um you know the data movement and analytics I'm based in New Jersey and a proud graduate of the UNC Chapel Hill a proud Tar Heel so sincere apologies to anyone from duke who might be joining this call or watching this all right nice to have you sought now and my third speaker is Amit ringshaw principal at KPMG tax welcome Amit tell us a little bit about yourself oh good morning everybody thanks Barbara uh happy to be here this is Amit um I'm a partner in kbmg's tax practice I've been with it for about 21 years and and what I've been doing is focusing on on Tax and Finance functions with technology so I think this is a very relevant conversation and I'm glad to be here on the panel with satnam and Kevin I look forward to a very good discussion all right great nice to have you and so we're going to start our conversation with a question for Kevin Kevin can you paint a picture of what you're seeing in the market for us absolutely um I think the the through line here uh in the tax base is definitely going to be about change and transformation um everywhere you look um when you're talking about tax corporate tax uh whether on the indirect side with Wayfair and the uh the changes to um some of the vat laws and GST laws throughout the throughout the globe uh or you look on the direct side with you know changes around the 1099 reporting and income tax uh shifts uh everywhere you look um there is there's change um I like to think of it as sort of a Rubik's Cube that keeps sort of changing colors uh while you try to put it back together I was never really good at Rubik's Cubes um now I hear that people can do them in like seconds um but um the the I think the analogy holes because as you turn one knob as a tax leader something else you know changes and you have to keep all those things in mind and you're often having to do it with Legacy Solutions you're often having to do it with um maybe spreadsheet sort of technology and tools and what's been happening is that there's just the tendency to either throw a lot of people at this problem resources uh or you know you know pay the pay the fines as they come in and just sort of call it a day and see what happens um or you uh so sort of muddle along with um you know best guess and and and sort of guessing as a or estimating as a as a you know sort of a business practice so I think you know one of the key things that I see going forward is that yes the officer the CFO is is transforming becoming more digital uh and as a result to the office of uh of taxes and the head of tax uh is also becoming more digital or more transformed and I think also what we're seeing too is that tax itself is moving from being you know sort of uh in the back office way in the back office in the back of the back office um all the way it's moving more toward the center of the uh the office of the CFO I mean look you know um we just we just heard from our you know our our co-speaker at Thompson uh where he talked about 1099 tax withholding tax information reporting That's essential to you know the gig economy and sort of these um the contingent worker you know conversations that are sort really sort of relevant the sales and use tax on the indirect side the V8 you know on the sales and use tax on the indirect side very relevant to e-commerce and all the sort of rocketing skyrocketing Trends around uh Digital Services and digital Goods um the vat piece uh envoicing is is reshaping and re you know reimagining forcing companies to reimagine their position in Europe throughout South America and into the Middle East right um so I think overall uh what what we're seeing is that um you know the areas like accounts payable um you know you know that it that you know that sort of function is is looking more toward compliance um as being a central issue you can look at the accounts receivable aspect and compliance is playing a role there uh treasury you can look of course at an expense travel and expense where compliance is playing a role I just think that as we move forward we're moving into a future where um compliance tax compliance is moving more toward the center of the office of the CFO that's really exciting uh it presents a lot of opportunities for the software vendors and the service providers in this space to help companies adjust to this new normal all right great satnam I see you not in your head do you have any other thoughts you'd like to add no absolutely I I level you know Kevin's expertise in terms of how he was able to take my two sentences and really expand on it I think I think all of his insights were so on point if you will and valuable in terms of how this is you know this is no longer a siled piece right this is an interconnected web if you will across you know various functions and and functions that you would have never thought about really you know coming together or needing to come together you know it's it's it's interesting you know I I also have you know a slightly different lens on it if you will where kind of the the uh the other side of the lens which is as you if I think about like three areas if you will from tax departments both in terms of their challenges and opportunities I see process technology and people right and what I mean by process is you know as Kevin was talking about you know the the the complexity of the tax requirements the complexity of what you need to do is is getting more difficult and the deadlines are actually getting more tighter right so if you look at you know the corporate what the corporate tax department must do must do they must collect they must review they reconcile things that they've been doing in the past yes right but now with for example on the e-voicing side the the size of the data becomes bigger right there's enormous amount of data that they have to calculate then they have to report on it and then you have you know different type of tax taxes like transfer price saying you know that cash taxes tax credits you know I can go on and on um and all of them required you know different information and calculations right so that's the kind of the process side of it which is adding complexity the second piece is on the technology side again to what Kevin was talking about you know if you think about e-voicing versus you know how you used to report previously that determination the planning and the compliance the movement of data that that requires across teams especially between finance and tax is one example that's getting more complex and tax teams you know have the need to reconcile that information right data today is still siled right to us to a certain extent and there's varying levels of sophistication if you will on the business logic layers for cell service I mean in the Thompson Reuters state of the corporate tax survey tax department survey that we did um 64 percent of departments basically self-assess themselves as either chaotic meaning they use you know spreadsheets and manual processes or reactive meaning they use some form of databases but not connected to Enterprise databases only 12 percent of of of departments said they were using analytical data-driven decision making with automated workflows so we got a long way to go on the technology side and finally it's about people right I mean we're looking at Talent migration attrition know there's um from Thompson Reuters we in order to understand the challenges that our customers can face when they have to stay late nights you know before the filing deadlines right and that's translating into tax departments losing team members to other companies and industries and through technology through better processes we really have to bring this together that digital transformation that we were talking about that Kevin was talking about to make sure that it's the the future is easier better faster if you will both from an efficiency perspective an Effectiveness perspective for these tax departments that's great that's nice uh challenge outline admit I want to make sure I get your perspective here as well what are the challenges you're seeing I think we're the one thing that is very interesting is are these new regulations so pets 2.0 the the things led by oecd Iran tax transparency the new ESG regulation that's coming through for governance and social governance environmental you know and and then that Global Focus so the need to be globally consistent in how you are present in yourself is a very unique challenge I mean coming from a tax organization traditionally the the change in the tax has been driven by improving the financial clubs that that has seen the traditional big Focus area and uh you know now the idea that you have to be globally consistent in how you're positioning yourself your company and how you're presenting yourself to The Regulators uh is is really rethinking how tax was organized uh by organization you know internal taxable organized breaking down those silos allowing them to think globally consistent uh or being able to work globally consistent uh very unique and very interesting we're seeing already seeing tax organizations uh re-change their operating models you know reorganize themselves along the lines of being able to better meet these regulatory needs and challenges so that's one interesting area uh well yeah there recently oh obviously uh we've had this big funding to the IRS that is also a very interesting development much needed I must say uh from what I understand uh this is this is going to make IRS a better organization uh it is going to be leading to transformation within the IRS as a function and for most taxpayer I understand uh it is going to enable a better uh you know easier to work with IRS but at the same time when we're expecting our regulator to transform and our regulator to become better uh there is internal and expectation then the taxpayer is also going to get better all right and traditionally tax functions uh you know yes one aspect of this they are worried about seeing in you know increased auditor activity increased Audits and and notices and other things but in reality they're also going to need to transform themselves have better access to data being able to present a better picture so I think if to really look at the landscape both uh you know globally as well as here in the US I think you're seeing Regulators you know really transforming themselves and the regulation as well thereby expecting the taxpayer to follow suit in that manner as well you know sort of comment on something that admits said that it really sort of resonated with me the idea too um that the tax authorities themselves are transforming um and becoming uh better um you know suited to today's sort of tax landscape uh I think it's also important to add on the idea that um as complex as it is now as many lines and and sort of uh angles that that Rubik's cube of tax compliance has now um the tax Gap is still such depending on who you ask it's well into the billions um in in different uh you know regions here in the U.S well into the billions um one thing that we know is that no matter how complex it is now it's only going to get more complex right um there's only going to be more uh regulations there's only going to be more um efforts by States uh by country cities by regions to close that tax Gap so um I think that's an important piece you know to understand as well yeah just if I'm at one other thing here which actually these are great points so they um you know Kevin as you were talking about the um that closing the tax Gap right I mean if you look at the super fund right that just got reinstated 25 years after right um on oil and from you know certain oil and gas related um you know um substances if you will right I mean that's a prime example of really looking to close that Gap you know in billions if you will over the course of the next 10 years and if you look at you know if the the broader landscape of indirect tax and how that's going to bring into you know more and more if you will to close that Gap and that's where I fundamentally feel the kind of data volumes that we've seen in the past is not a reflection of the data volumes we're going to see in the future because that data in the future is going to be more granular more Atomic if you will than the data we've seen in the past and that means two things a you have to think about the right technology infrastructure you have to think about the right applications you have to think about your applications integrating with each other but then it also opens up the possibility amazing opportunities to analyze that at a more Atomic level then you've never had access to that companies have never had access to before so um so just wondering about you know some perspective there agreed all right great stuff we've been talking about the challenges let's talk a little bit about how we're going to solve this and clearly there's two people at the table here right the CIO from the technology point of view and the CFO representing Financial operations and taxes specifically so what is so important about this collaboration and how can it help let's start with you Amit well so you know at the end of the day we're all serving the business the CEO the strategy the plan and I think the expectation today from the CEO is for each one of these functions to bring uh you know decision making value to the table in time and uh you know being able to drive a business outcome so for example activities like M A's uh you need a a a a tax function that is able to provide scenario modeling in a time-bound manner and be able to really think about the post-tax the revenue that would look like for the Future Organization down to more granular level than you had ever been in making the decision and I think that requires access to data access to the deal access to be able to think about it plan the scenario understand state of Horsemen understand what the Future Organization will be able to look like all overnight uh in in how the deal making process works that's a unique set of pressure and that's not just this chief tax office I'm sure the chief marketing officer the all of the different corporate functions are facing the same value so when the CEO is asking more from the c-suite everybody on the c-sword is then looking back at the CIO and saying hey how can you give me that data that information those tools those skills that I need in my organizations to be able to serve the business and and I think there is increased pressure on the CIO function now than ever the good part about this is there isn't just people asking for more from the CIO function but they're also willing to do more so there is a rise in enabling Technologies there is a rise in the champion or the domain user people who are in non not not in I.T but are willing to use technology tools have their domain expertise and knowledge and and be able to apply that and do things with with these things so they are I would call them the citizen-led movement that is starting across the chain so that's a good the more addressing part of it is it puts more pressure pressure on governance pressure on Enterprise alignment pressure on cost management and I'm being able to think through things so while there is a lot of goods there is also a new uh set of challenges that the CIO function you know faces I think the to kind of sum it up the the future of what we're looking at uh as the data demands increases I think we're looking at data professionals arising through the organization across the chains across the silos and we're looking at the IP function change itself from being the doers to the enablers and then to be able to do that there is going to be a new set of rules a new set of equation that needs to be created across the entire organization and I think that's where we're trending to us and it seems to be very exciting at least as far as I'm concerned all right Kevin what would you add yeah I would I would I would definitely concur that um the the core problem is emerging um to be the uh the data management right um moving data into and out of your Tax Solution um at speed right so we're talking about doing that especially in the in some of the um indirect side um uh of the of the world we're talking about doing that uh in fractions of a second for some of the e-commerce applications um we're talking and then and then even on the direct side are you you're talking about speed when it comes to um some of the micro transactions that that are that are becoming taxed um you know through Uber and Lyft and all the the different ride share kind of kind of situations lots of really lots of really um uh important sort of uh Industries are requiring that the tax the function and tax software be able to move its speed um also we're talking about scale right being able to to you know have these kinds of uh tax determination tax capabilities um and be able to scale that across the entire organization uh and the only way you can can have that speed at scale uh is to is to think about the plumbing of the software uh Plumbing of the application um getting data into it and out of it becomes essential we talked a little bit about the apis um we talked a little bit about um you know sort of moving data via apis I will go a step further and say that you know it's going to be the software packages that are built to functions in this sort of Highly Dynamic world that are going to be um best suited and when I say built the function action I'm talking about those that are are built around sort of micro services and containerization and some of these aspects that allow data to be incorporated in they'll allow external resources external data to be incorporated all at speed and at scale so that's that's what I think about when I when I hear that I'm excited I hope that doesn't come across too much um but uh yeah I don't know maybe maybe it's tough to find a guy that's excited about tax but here here we are yeah can I just can I just add something Kevin because you raised some interesting things in my mind I think I agree with you I think a lot of it is coming down to the right data management skills that I did a management strategy and and also about being able to think critically outside the box right and because we're changing in a new environment so I think tax needs two things uh it needs those skills and it needs those thought leaders you know you know people who can think about what it would be absolutely and what it is going to be looking like in the future and again uh you know the the whole transactional level I think where we're moving from a Consolidated to a More transactional Level environment is really unique and it's challenging I think it's it's interesting because we're going to need to be you know level consistent like I said globally consistent taxes I also feel like we need to be a trans you know level consistent you know as a tax department in the sense like we need to now really understand how to go from the Consolidated information to the transactional and back and forth back and forth uh more more seamlessly than we've ever had to which is going to put additional pressure on our tools and our data pipelines and our Technologies to be able to do that in our people to understand that uh to be able to apply regulation on transactional data and and being able to do these are these are the main areas of machine learning tools like those outshine themselves in these areas right I think we're going to see that come towards to to you know rising in the Horizon it's always been fascinating you know it's hacks and machine learning are like two color you know sides of the equation but I see like as we're moving down to the area of transactional taxes I think it's an inevitable feature where where we're seeing some of these Technologies being applied on transactional data so yeah the the future is very interesting the technology to solve some of those things are here today what we certainly need is that thought leadership that helps us kind of merge those two things and then organizations to come up agreed 100 yeah I mean I I had a couple of things you know one of the benefits I've had of my career is you know I've sat at the intersection of product data Ai and digital and I've had the fortune of seeing you know as well as being a part of creating the change in several different Industries if you will right so for example you know you go back 15 20 years um uh you look at the marketing departments 15 20 years ago when digital marketing was very nascent if you will in its nascent stages and and you you were faced with the same challenges you said oh my God the amount of data I have is ridiculous what do I do with it and then you're right and this was the point when you had those annoying Banner pop-up ads you know they were starting to kind of you know and and then you had the birth of these data management platforms and customer data platforms and and you think about where digital advertising is today with real-time bidding you know supply side platforms demand side demand side platforms and none of that would exist if you if you didn't have what I see you know I think about like three core areas so number one uh and both of you touched on that you know um in in in different shapes one was um the the applications and the Integrations between the applications right so how applications need to move from monolithic applications to more services driven containerize right API driven and and a bit of a gory term called The Headless applications where you are separating the UI from the calculations right that that run underneath this that's one bucket if you will the second bucket is data management right and and great arguments you know I just extended as one is that organizations today are starting to get into that data management thought process the piece where uh the leap the right leap that's going to come is to treat data as a as an asset of business outcome and not necessarily pure you know uh say mission accomplished when you've got the data Lake established that's not the that's not the end all olympiol you need to make sure that that can drive the business outcomes it has to be which brings me to the third one which is along um the analytics right how do you get the organization to be more data driven to be more agile to be able to use uh in my past life you know I was tasked with turning around you know Travelocity which was the online you know travel agency and the ability to give data in the hands of our people who were Market managers to take to each hotel and say look how much business I'm driving you've got them the ability to get better deals if you will right and I think while it's not an Apples to Apples comparison I think that's exactly where we're going to get to in terms of tax now a couple of things that I think about between the CIO and C CFO specifically is this meeting of the minds I think of cios you know from their perspective they're looking to to kind of drive you know technological solutions as as Amit you said robust form of risk assessment um strategic intelligence that corporate leaders need for decision making and forces CFO it's about translating those investments into shareholder value creation now whether that's through Revenue growth margin Improvement asset efficiency and creating opportunities for faster value realization both through inorganic as well as the m a activities right and that's where this collaboration really needs to come I think that's where the CFO team can really help the CIO team in terms of saying okay how exactly should you think about the holistic Roi on the tax Investments whether Strategic investment assimilating different Technologies and from the cios in it's about illustrating the value of those Investments both in terms of operational excellence as well as strategic initiatives I mean and this is you know again in my past life I was the uh Chief data and analytics offer for companies like MetLife Travelocity and others and I and I can tell you the CFO was my biggest partner in crime um to bring along because ultimately I needed their buy and I needed their agreement and I needed their sponsorship to move the organization towards that so absolutely I've been on both sides and and and I can I can tell you that yes this is a journey that I'm very excited for tax because I think it's going to be amazing all right great discussion thanks guys so I want to switch gears a little bit said Mom I want to talk about Thompson Reuters and also KPMG and what you bring to the table and how you can help absolutely Barbara um at Thompson Reuters we have the One Source Suite of solutions where data Integrations across systems and workflow integration is a key Focus let me first start by talking about two solutions that are specifically focused on the data aspects and then talk about Integrations with One Source data flow companies can reduce the corporate data tax data collection and preparation time whether that be work papers to tax packages or to section 199 calculations requests the data flow will help customers get data readily available when they need it you know all of this data is centrally stored in one database that can be integrated into tax applications you know speaking of data being centrally stored in one database it brings me to data Hub software which is a centralized tax data repository for corporate stack data our customers need to enter their tax data just once and and then they can automatically leverage it across any apis they're using without the need of any manual intervention data Hub is uh equipped to handle large data sets that and allows greater connectivity so taxed teams spend less time on data manipulation and spend more time on the tax data analytics data Hub also has apis as I talked about for example apis to manage data ingestion ingest apis or file uploads extensions and to extract data from Integrations to other applications and and we have our partnership with alterx and through that partnership our customers can support essentially a holistic data life cycle management of text so they can ETL data and they can bring in data through ETL prep the data through alteryx then use data hub for centralization organization and computation and then extract the data throughout tricks for visualization in fact Andrew Marriott from KPMG who is the 2019 CIP taxologist of the year has a great case study with one of the firm's customers wherein he utilized the customer utilized the combination of One Source Tax provision along with all tricks for significant success yeah if I remember correctly their clients of the firm was essentially taking they were normally taking three days three frustrating days to transform a trial balance in Excel into something readable for a presentation but once they utilize the data solution from along with alteryx they were able to take that same process that same transformation process of the trial balance in about 20 minutes down from three days if you will look I could go on I could take this entire hour I could go on and on about the amazing Solutions we have but just in the interest of time I'd like to share another interesting recent development we've integrated One Source Tax provision with sap s4hana using Sap's business technology platform and what this integration really gives our customers is they get the market leading patented calculation engine of One Source Tax provision that computes tax provision um General entries available for s4hana um through this integration we've automated this space between trial balances in s4hana and income tax provision journal entries and and asset that integration uh leads to lends itself to the efficiency of the financial period closed as Amit was talking about earlier it reduces the manual intervention it reduces inaccuracies or the opportunities for inaccuracies and the time spent on tax provision during Financial close which is again an important point that Amit was racing earlier once again you know KPMG is very proud to partner with Partners like Thomson routers and and altrux and and very happy to see the progress those students have done uh you know and bringing about change and transformation to our customers and then to and to them to the car to the market in general that's great and we're very happy for our Partnerships and I look forward to to a lot of these tools that we were talking about um well we're also looking at is is helping organizations think through how to apply these tools and Technologies in the right way those deliberate movements well thought through planned strategies and so in in other words it's a digital operating model we're really thinking about how you're going to operate as a tax department uh in this new world and really be able to plan those things out so that's one area what's also very interesting and and increasingly a conversation today is that strategy around the total experience you know in really breaking down silos within the organization really thinking about uh how can we weave together ourselves the employee the stakeholder the regulator the customer all together and in one coherent strategy so that we can deliver value that is uh you know that that kind of empowers everybody in this equation empowers the customer employers the employee really you know helps us bring a change a transformative change in the organization into tax the customer is is a lot of that is internal a lot of the customer is external right tax is interesting and sits in the cusp of like this dual Market customers so that's just been very interesting conversation and lastly none of these things can be done without those thought leaders and those Future Leaders and so really thinking about what is and who is a future leader in tax function what are the characteristics of the Future Leaders what skills and what things they embody and how can we train those leaders in our organizations those have been really you know fulfilling experiences in helping our clients really think through those things with our partners and in my experience excellent all right great conversation gentlemen before we wrap up I want to give each of you an opportunity to give a couple key takeaways for our viewers today so Kevin let's start with you what are those key takeaways yeah so the key takeaways for me is that um the compliance function is moving toward the center more toward the center of the office of the CFO it's being involved um in all the different departments apar you know expense spin management uh procurement um you know so as such uh compliance is becoming more high profile um I would say too uh that um something like e-invoicing is really sort of interesting um and it's a big sort of shift um as some of the the conversations I've had with compliance vendors um are saying that they've been pulled into conversations that have never been pulled into before conversations around invoicing conversations around billing management these are these are new conversations for for compliance vendors um and they and they represent New Opportunities um and then I would say the last thing is that um more and more we're starting to see um that um Technologies like machine learning like AI um are going to be not just sort of nice to haves but as things keep getting more and more complex I think they're going to be essential um aspects of the tax department going forward all right thank you amid let's go to you next um sorry I know you asked for one last comment I got two and I apologize the first thing I think is is a movement of hacks outside of tax and I think we're going to see that increasingly come to us which is tax coming and tax people involved with non-traditional packs areas and issues and I think that non-traditional data that is required for tax decision making none and so you're going to see a lot of non-creditional and I would call that called tax outside of tax uh and and I think that's gonna bring tax closer and it is going to make a tax person work more closer with the rest of the organization and for others to support tax for it to be successful so I think that that's one Trend we're saying but the other thing I think is is we're seeing is that there is a change in optimization and cost reduction and that focus on just optimizing to a little bit to a more focus on value driven uh which is great uh message for tax and I think as tax is realizing itself in this new value driven organization it's kind of getting its mojo back from reduced costs cut down people uh into rethinking and Reinventing itself along the lines of how can I effectively help the CEO and the board make Better Business decisions actually you know Amit great made a great point that I want to I want to extend on I love the how he phrased this as tax outside of tax you know I couldn't have said that any better um I I think it's almost like you know tax going from filing to driving or planning if you will right you know in the past it has all been about making sure you meet the deadlines making sure you have accuracy in those deadlines so it's all been about filing filing filing and compliance and now it's about you know as we shift see that shift towards more and more data potentially being available more and more into you know uh outside of the tax department data Integrations if you will I think we need to see that shift if you will to more of that driving or planning if you will for organizations especially you know within the context of m a right as as one prime example so I think that's one and Barbara I'm going to take two as well so uh but uh I think the other thing is one that kind of naturally comes from it is the technology Investments right the whole aspect of how companies will need to think about their technology Investments and I think the fundamental aspect here is understanding and agreement within the organization alignment within the organization of the impact of those technology Investments within the broader context of Enterprise growth and effective financial management and I think that's where tax plays a very important role and uh going to steal amidst words again but tax outside of tax I think will have a much bigger impact going forward so I think again tax outside of tax and the whole technology Investments that the organizations have to think through plan through I think those are the two big areas that I see as ASCII takeaways in and a journey towards a much better future let's just make sure we give the royalty checks [Laughter] all right great stuff thank you gentlemen that really great conversation that's all the time we have for today thank you again to my guest Kevin permenter of IDC satnam Singh of Thompson Reuters and Amit Renshaw of KPMG and thanks to you our audience for joining us for additional information on this topic be sure to visit the resources section on your screen for CIO Thompson Reuters and KPMG I'm Barbara call thank you Barbara thank you Barbara