Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) has become the foundation for strategic decision-making among companies across all sectors and industries. While this technology is usually owned and managed by the finance department, it delivers value across the entire organisation.
From marketing and sales to procurement, and even IT and HR, every line of business can benefit from the advantages of a solution that enables value-added business processes, helping to coordinate resources, activities, and tasks across multiple departments and teams. The easy platform management offered by modern Enterprise Performance Management solutions alleviates demands on IT; their resource management capabilities support project management, production, and other business tasks; and their analytics and real-time data can be utilised by sales, marketing, customer service, and virtually every other department within the company.
Adding value across the business
Every company that has experienced growth has a first-hand understanding of how challenging managing all the various business processes across the organisation can be. Disorganised data can lead to inefficiencies and hampered performance, while a lack of insight into the details involved in the planning, reporting, and analysis of individual lines of business can result in missed opportunities.
Gathering and consolidating data automatically and in real time, EPM solutions allow the business to achieve better results from everyday activities while helping to ensure that the company’s financial and strategic goals are being achieved. Despite its reputation for financial reporting, planning, and modelling, the true value of EPM lies in breaking down silos and improving access to business management functions for corporate decision-makers – no matter what their role or focus area is.
The automation of tasks and tools eliminates time-consuming tasks, while cost and risk are reduced by driving decisions based on facts. Taking existing workflows and allowing them to be managed with the support of enterprise performance, EPM solutions help coordinate and consolidate information seamlessly and instantly. Most importantly, when an EPM solution is used to support collaboration across the organisation, the efficiency and productivity of projects spanning departments can be dramatically increased.
Supporting collaboration
Communication and collaboration bottlenecks are common challenges for organisations of all sizes, occurring at any point between the planning of a project and a review of the company’s achievements. There are a multitude of reasons for this, including unclear or inconsistent goals, scope, and expectations; lack of trust, transparency, and accountability; conflicting or competing priorities, interests, or agendas; or merely an overload of information, tasks, or meetings. EPM connects the day-to-day operations and performance of a company to its business goals, helping to overcome these types of bottlenecks.
Everything from data and information to documents can be easily accessed from the EPM system. By combining data into one location through dashboards and reports, all members of the organisation can see and access that data. This is not only far more efficient than having to share a spreadsheet, but it helps ensure everyone is on the same page and working with the same information.
The improved transparency and better visibility of financial and operational data enabled by EPM support both the short- and long-term goals of individual departments and teams as well as the organisation. With better data and tools to drive analysis and forecasting, planning cycles and other financial variables become more predictable and defined. Business leaders therefore must grapple with fewer uncertainties when making tough choices, which ultimately leads to smarter decision-making.
