As the youngest athlete ever to be named captain of the prestigious Solheim Cup, Stacy Lewis felt a tremendous sense of possibility--followed by the intense pressures of high-stakes tournament play.
“My first thoughts were about the 12 players… what an honor and responsibility it would be to lead athletes of their caliber. Next, I thought about the entire world of golf watching the US team compete against Europe—and then I got to work.”
In studying the performance of Ryder Cup captains, Stacy saw just how critical data and analytics had become in helping the men’s teams finalize captain’s picks, determine initial pairings, and define a course strategy pretournament, while being prepared to make real-time decisions during tournament play.
“For years, the men’s tour has been using analytics to model how different player pairings would perform based on everything from player performance to course characteristics,” she said. “Meanwhile, the women were still relying on overall rankings and gut feelings on player compatibility. You can’t even compare the two. And that got me fired up.”
The KPMG Performance Insights platform was already helping LPGA Tour athletes use data and analytics to improve their individual performance on a week-to-week basis. Stacy asked if the platform could also provide the kind of advanced tournament analytics and simulations the Ryder Cup captains leveraged—and that got the KPMG Performance Insights team fired up, too.
A young captain sees a major disparity
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Future
Replace aging applications that differed across divisions and subsidiaries
Reduce manual, disparate processes freeing up more resources for advanced analytics
Enable enhanced reporting and make it more widely available across the enterprise
Act with greater speed and agility to capture value in acquisitions
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Company-wide
opportunities
Process hundreds of thousands of transactions per month with greater efficiency
Reduce 10,000+ manual journal entries per period
Decrease >3-week close
Shorten the >3-month annual budgeting cycle
Provide better support for a growing e-commerce business
Control rising finance function costs and derive greater value
Finance
opportunities
Reduce 10,000+ manual journal entries per period
Decrease >3-week close
Shorten the >3-month annual budgeting cycle
Provide better support for a growing e-commerce busines
Control rising finance function costs and derive greater value
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Improve technical capabilities to keep pace with increased hiring needs
Reduce dependence on IT and tech resources for supporting and enabling continuous compliance with more than 800 collective bargaining agreements
Unify and automate workforce administration processes across the enterprise
Eliminate the need for employees to learn new systems and interfaces as they move from recruitment to training to managing benefit
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Shortly after asking if KPMG could support her as US Solheim Cup captain, Stacy Lewis sat down to see what the custom platform could do. She found data-driven insights at the ready around everything she needed to know—from which athletes were predicted to qualify for the Solheim Cup, to which athletes perform best under pressure or on certain types of grass.
In addition to direct access to user-friendly tools, Stacy had the support of a KPMG Performance Insights team stretching from on-site to off-shore locations. “KPMG ran nearly 20,000 simulations to help me arrive at our initial pairings,” she said. “Meanwhile, I was showing my team the data and how it led to decisions around certain pairings and strategies that could help position us for success. There was a lot of excitement in the room and a lot of confidence. We left for Spain with a plan that had every player onboard, because we had the hard numbers to show it would play to everyone’s strengths.”
During the tournament, with pressure peaking and situations evolving, KPMG Performance Insights continued to deliver. The Performance Insights team walked the course with the US players, firing data back to the US team room where analysts ran up-to-the-minute simulations on the platform. Resulting insights helped Stacy adapt her strategy in real time.
While the US team didn’t bring home the Solheim Cup (it resulted in a 14-14 tie, with Europe retaining the Cup), they achieved three historic firsts during the tournament, including the US’s first-ever foursome session sweep.
“KPMG Performance Insights helped drive every key decision I made as captain,” says Stacy. “And that put every player in the best position to perform at the top of her game.”
LPGA predictive analytics takes players to new heights
Developed all the necessary processes to support a single, modernized digital platform serving the entire enterprise
Migrated 290,000 employees from legacy systems to Oracle Cloud
Increased insight-driven decision making across functions, driving performance and growth gains
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success
Decreased balance sheet reconciliations
by 85%
Achieved a consolidated retail and
corporate close within a shortened period
Reduced the types of P&L statements from 100+ to 4
Reduced operations costs across the board
Enhanced availability of data-driven insights that help to capture maximum value during acquisitions
Achieved a consolidated retail and corporate close within a shortened period
Reduced the types of P&L statements from 100+ to 4
Reduced operations costs
across the board
Enhanced availability of data-driven insights that help to capture maximum value during acquisitions
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HR
successes
Deployed a custom application for union-rule processing enabling a single HCM platform to administer benefits to all employee populations under 800+ complex union agreements
Created a digital-first, digital anywhere experience resulting in higher employee engagement
Reduced new-hire onboarding time
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Reduced new hire onboarding time
Streamlined and improved the process integration of new employees post-acquisition
Integrate processes and technology across the employee lifecycle from recruiting through compensation and performance
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Stacy Lewis set out to provide her 2023 US Solheim Cup team with the data-driven insights that Ryder Cup captains have been providing to their teams for years. But she accomplished much more than that.
Now, with robust data enabled insights coming out of the 2023 Solheim Cup, Stacy and the US team are looking ahead. With key learnings from Spain, they’ve developed a blueprint for success and now are in an even better position to glean performance-driving insights for 2024 when the Solheim Cup takes place in the US with Stacy again leading the way as captain.
The KPMG Performance Insights platform will only grow stronger over time, giving the confidence that comes with data-driven decisions, and putting every athlete in a position to perform at her best.
Continue to enhance analytics-driven planning and forecasting
Optimize the supply chain
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vision
Achieve a continuous, virtual accounting close
Achieved a consolidated retail and corporate close within a shortened period
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Establish a continual feedback-and-improvement loop based on quarterly HR reports from the field and deployment of new capabilities
Migrate payroll, benefits, and absence management to Oracle cloud for 2023
Insource benefits administration
Embracing the ongoing role of data and analytics
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