Interview: Matt Peers, CIO, Deloitte

Deloitte is one of the top four accountancy firms in the world (along with Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG), employs more than 180,000 staff worldwide and rakes in billions of pounds in revenue every year. 

As Deloitte’s newly appointed UK CIO, Matt Peers is supporting the firm through a “wave of consumerisation”. Peers spent over a decade at Carphone Warehouse, looking after its IT across Europe, and is now hoping his wealth of experience in mobile will help him in his new role.

“I had been at Carphone for over 11 years and I felt that I was ready to use the skills I had learned there in a different role,” explains Peers.

“Deloitte has a very active and mobile workforce, and with my background, and the passion I have for mobile, I can fully support it through this wave of consumerisation.”

The people most affected by this wave are Deloitte’s 13,000 practitioners, most of whom have to regularly travel within the UK and abroad to consult with clients. At present, Deloitte provides standard build laptops to these practitioners regardless of the positions they hold, or the applications they need.

“Historically, Deloitte has not recognised the different needs of the practitioners. I think addressing this is going to be a challenge going forward,” says Peers.

“For example, if you are a consultant and you are predominantly using Microsoft Office-based packages to create documents and presentations, you’ll need quite a different set of tools to those required by the tax practitioners. They don’t use Microsoft very much and largely access bespoke applications to access tax-specific documentation and case law.”

Peers also believes practitioners are having to carry too much technology with them because the firm’s security policies prevent them from using their work kit to perform personal tasks.

“In today’s environment, practitioners go to meet a client and it is likely that they’ll have a work laptop, a personal laptop, a personal iPad, a work-issued phone and a personal phone,” says Peers.

“The technology exists to solve this problem and we can help consolidate these products for people. I hope there will be a coming together of products for both personal and work life,” he adds.