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In the world of business, time is money, and decision makers are looking for every opportunity to reduce inefficiencies that drive focus away from company end goals. Tasks like compiling, cleaning, and reporting data are important however, they are tasks that often take countless hours of work before any real decisions can be made. Enterprise Performance Management software strives to solve this problem by automating your data and providing a single source of truth with real time information. This power over your data gives decision makers the flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing business environment.
EPM vs CPM
Before we get started it is important to make a distinction between Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). A lot of people believe these to be the same thing, and although similar they are not exact synonyms. Corporate Performance Management refers to the corporate wide application of your management solution, primarily surrounding a corporation’s finance department. Enterprise Performance Management refers to the use of your software solution in order to maintain your entire enterprise in departments that extend farther than finance such as sales, supply chain, and marketing.
What is Enterprise Performance Management?
Enterprise Performance Management is the process of monitoring performance across an enterprise with the goal of improving business performance. This requires analyzing data from a number of different sources such as data warehouses, e-commerce systems, front office and back office applications, and many more. Enterprise Performance Management primarily focuses on four key aspects:
- Budgeting planning and modeling
- Data analysis and consolidation
- Monitoring key performance indicators
- Performance reporting
Together these processes provide distinct advantages. The first of which is speed. Enterprise Performance Management provides decision-makers with more readily available information. This is done through the automation of data services. This provides a single source of truth for your organization and allows for managers to spend less time looking for information and more time acting on it. The next key advantage is consistency. Due to the creation of a single source of truth, reporting practices become standardized as all parties have access to the same dashboards. This allows for more streamlined communication between departments and easier comparisons of data.
Another key advantage is trust. By eliminating human error from the data consolidation process and maintaining consistency in reporting you to maintain an element of trust in your data that you may have otherwise not had. With increased trust in your data comes improved risk evaluation, more accurate budgets, and forecasts and greater business agility.
Enterprise Performance Management Framework & Best Practices
Utilizing Enterprise Performance Management software is extremely effective when implemented correctly, however it is important to be sure that you are unlocking all of your software’s capabilities. Here are some best practices:
Set Clear and Intentional Goals
Your business goals must be universally understood among your company and this must be reflected in your EPM software. In order to achieve these goals, businesses must be intentional with their planning with a view towards what is next. Keeping focus on the future provides countless opportunities to grow, while others may get left behind. The key to any plan is its objective. However, you need to provide benchmarks in order to monitor your progress towards that goal. These benchmarks must be specific and clear to your team. The more specific they are, the easier it will be to identify areas where you excel as well as where you may come up short.
Integrate with Core Business Systems
As you plan across your organization, you must use data from a number of different departments, that use different software and practices. The key to maintaining organization throughout your business is to integrate this software into your EPM. Connecting your EPM with your CRM, ERP, HCM, Comp Management and other platforms will streamline the information process and clean up the data between departments. That way no information is lost in translation when data is consolidated. Integration with EPM also provides a robust top-down view of your business, providing clarity when situations may arise.
Identify Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators are often different for every business, however, their importance is central to utilizing Enterprise Performance Management software effectively. A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric used to measure factors that are pivotal to the success of an organization. These metrics must be monitored over time in order to observe trends and should be relatively few in number. Some classic examples include market share, net profits, churn, and customer engagement. Strong KPIs are able to grab individuals’ attention and communicate a clear message. This can be done with clear goals and benchmarks.
Common Challenges and Key Benefits of Enterprise Performance Management
There are a number of challenges that come with implementing new software into your business practice. These may seem intimidating when starting, however, when using your Enterprise Performance Management software correctly, there are a number of key benefits that you can hope to enjoy.
Benefits
- Flexible modeling that lets you adjust dimensions as business conditions change for what-if scenario modeling on the fly. This increased flexibility provides decision-makers with increased control over their data.
- Enterprise-wide planning capabilities enable organizations to orchestrate planning and performance at local and corporate levels. This provides managers with a wide range of tools to help drive growth.
- A single data source across the organization for the insights and confidence needed to make better decisions faster.
- A highly interactive user interface for self-service reporting that lets you visualize the data and see the impact of your changes instantly
Challenges
- It can be difficult to integrate new software into your business systems for a number of reasons. A common issue is that different software may label items differently or need to be cleaned before implementation. Other issues include educating employees and performing maintenance.
- Day to day operations may not allow time to implement new software. Between implementing new software and learning what it can provide. It can be hard to find time to effectively implement your EPM software.
How QBIX Can Help
Do you think you could be interested in Enterprise Performance Management for your business? For more information on Enterprise Performance Management, and to learn how to get started schedule a call with QBIX and speak with an expert today.