Bermuda -- is a move toward decentralising power out to international affiliates, the accounting partnership's chairman said.

"The notion of being able to run something directly from the centre doesn't work in a large professional services organisation,'' KPMG International chairman Colin Sharman said Friday. "You have to make groupings that make logical sense. We are bringing common interests, common problems and common issues together with a view to implementing our strategy more successfully.'' Mr. Sharman, who is also KPMG's senior partner in the UK, was in Bermuda last week at a conference for the formation of the Caribbean regional group. Other regional groupings have been formed or are being formed as the partnership gears up for a merger with Ernst & Young, creating the world's largest accounting and consulting firm.

"KPMG and Ernst & Young are heading in the same direction in terms of the development of the international business,'' Mr. Sharman said during an interview. "Both of us are very committed to a strong regional structure, very committed to the notion that you get things done by having a strong regional organisations, and strong national entities. As we have become much more cohesive we have found the structure more efficient.

"Services are getting so specialised and resources are so scarce that even within a large practice like the UK we don't have all the skills we need to deliver service,'' he said. "We buy in skills from the US and the Netherlands and similarly we export skills.'' KPMG Bermuda managing partner Robert Steinhoff said the local firm was especially strong in US tax consulting and would be able to provide services to the Caribbean practices' clients as needed. Other firms in Curacao and Jamaica were strong in information technology, and could fill in any gaps needed by KPMG Bermuda.

Mr. Sharman said the merger with Ernst & Young was a good fit. Both firms were committed to providing a full range of services.

"Our fundamental approach is very much similar to Ernst & Young, which is what makes it a good cultural fit,'' he said. "We're committed to the integrated service concept which means in many sets of circumstances the way in which we present services to clients is as a combination of different skill sets, some of which may be accounting based, some of which may be tax based, and some of which may be consulting based.'' He said globalisation and information technology was transforming the accounting and consulting industry.

"You could speculate that 15 years out the most important thing we will do will be to provide instantaneous text information feeds rather than auditing historical financial statements,'' he said. "You might be sitting before a screen in Bermuda looking at information about the passenger load factors for major airlines, information certified by KPMG.

"From Bermuda's point of view it doesn't matter where these services are -- you can deliver them anywhere. At the moment when we transfer knowledge we move people. In the future when we transfer knowledge we will be moving pieces of electronic information.''