Corporate Performance Management Defined
Since the advent of the industrial age, organizations have used long-term strategy to manage their day-to-day business. As competitive cycles grew shorter, strategic plans followed suit. But, how does a CxO translate the strategic plan into actions and tasks that will result in solid performance, improve productivity and increase user and stakeholder satisfaction? EPM is an ever evolving process used by organisations to control, analyze and adapt company strategy using goals and objectives, and measures and initiatives that are specifically tied to each of the desired results.
Without the right EPM tools it is nearly impossible to know whether the organisation is taking the right actions to achieve the desired results. Each executive, middle manager and employee performs tasks to accomplish goals. Most of the time, the employees and managers do not see the direct correlation of activities to results. Without a clear picture of the impact of an executed task, it is difficult to know whether the company is doing the right things at the right time, and equally as difficult to adapt a process or provide additional training to ensure success at the department, division or corporate level. To truly understand the effects of an action, the organisation must establish a methodology to find the root cause of a problem and to analyse the benefits of a particular step in the process. EPM software enables the organisation to quantify corporate performance measures, and to identify and overcome issues linked to monitoring, and control. These tools also provide alert mechanisms to achieve effective performance management. EPM solutions can identify the cross effect of performance of one level, activity, or process, to another level, or process within the organization. Direct correlation allows for accurate analysis and problem solving. By using these solutions, organisations can establish corporate strategy and effectively communicate and monitor related activities to ensure that the entire organisation is focused on the Performance Matrix. The result is a healthy balance among Finance, Customer Facing activities, Internal Processes, and Growth and Learning perspectives. This balance is measured and illustrated using a Balanced Scorecard.
Balanced Scorecards - Aligning Strategy and Perspectives
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are an important component of the Balanced Scorecard and critical to a performance management initiative. KPIs provide strategic measures of success and ensure resources are focused and aligned to the objectives of the corporate strategy. KPIs are integrated with the Balanced Scorecard to add granularity and clarity. This clear detail helps the organisation to make course corrections and to focus on the right business components as they relate to business results.
ElegantJ BI EPM – Answers the Critical Questions
It is easy to understand the value of EPM to corporate officers, but these solutions can add value at every level of the organisation. Consider the features in a robust EPM and how they might apply to officers, board members, middle managers, analysts, technology professionals, and others in the organisation.Every organisation, of every size, in every industry, in every country needs to answer certain fundamental business questions.
- What is our plan?
- What have we accomplished so far?
- What is the impact and outcome of our current strategy?
- How can the organisation accelerate results?
- How can the business create more effective plans and make better decisions?
- How can the organization monitor results to adapt strategy quickly and make course corrections?
Clients can use ElegantJ BI EPM to Plan, Monitor, Analyse, Direct and Improve Performance and answer the questions that drive performance.
What do we want to achieve? The Planning features in ElegantJ EPM include Scorecards and Dashboards to develop a targeted set of goals and KPIs.
How are we doing? The Scorecards, Dashboard, Alerts and Automated Delivery of the ElegantJ BI EPM product act as a barometer for the state of the organisation, and identify issues and problem areas.
Why are we performing well, or having problems? Reporting and Analysis features in ElegantJ BI EPM answer performance questions simply with flexible report formats and easy to use tools.
What should we be doing? Exception Reporting, Analysis Alerts and Automated Delivery allows the organisation to optimise resources and align organisation processes to achieve solid performance.
How can we do it better? – Scorecards and Analysis help the organisation to continuously improve and adapt.
Using EPM tools throughout the organisation can increase success, and improve the quality of business decisions. Middle managers and tactical managers can be more responsive and productive, aligning tasks and modifying processes to synchronise with current objectives and staying abreast of strategy changes. Senior executives can adjust strategic objectives quickly and accurately and with full confidence.
ElegantJ BI - The EPM Solution for Managing Strategy and Performance to Achieve Business Success
Every company needs an EPM solution to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. The most successful organisations are proactive, and forward-thinking. A world-class small or medium enterprise (SME) is ahead of the game. They achieve benchmark status with a focus on emerging trends and opportunities. They constantly assess the business landscape, adapt strategy, and align resources to maximise performance. Whether an organisation refers to the process Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Business Performance Management (BPM), or Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), the focus is on accurate information, and on translating that information into a dynamic strategy, and cascading strategy to departments and teams to meet corporate objectives. ElegantJ BI EPM allows organizations to correlate specific activities to results; and use information to manage processes within the context of these business results.
Using the Balanced Scorecard, the organisation can clearly see the context of actions taken to achieve goals. Employees can directly trace tasks to the success or challenges faced by the division or the organisation. Visual illustration of action and reaction provides direct correlation so the organisation can quickly identify problems and provide appropriate solutions. Strategic and tactical maps link processes and dependencies for scheduling, cycle time, and change management. The powerful linkage of BI and EPM creates a clear picture with detail and granularity by region, department, product line and team, making it easy to focus on solutions and to modify processes. The integrated Balanced Scorecard functionality connects operational BI with strategic performance. A sales team may improve results for a division by using report results to identify issues and taking specific action to improve sales training or other factors affecting performance. ElegantJ BI brings sensibility to EPM with improved visibility and insight, and fast, reliable, current information; delivered to the right people at the right time! The solution leverages the best technology to satisfy the functional and budgetary requirements of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). It will easily conform to any industry, or product or service context. It is worth noting that many organizations launch EPM projects in a business unit, or department, and manage the installation and use of the tools without the assistance of technology teams. This autonomous implementation allows the technology team to focus on other critical tasks, while the department manager and employees can immediately leverage the application value to achieve results. These clients can take advantage of the rich features of EPM without exceeding the budget or waiting for years to obtain the EPM system they need today.
