Business Performance Management: the Critical Piece of the Bi Puzzle
In today’s regulatory environment, timely, accurate and comprehensive information is more critical than ever. While traditional business intelligence (BI) solutions have dominated the corporate environment based on their ability to quickly query, access and then report on information, they often lack the processes and metrics needed to measure and manage business performance. As a result, business performance management (BPM) solutions are gaining momentum as a more complete way to address the need for financial transparency and provide users with a means to act on information.
“Companies are starting to realize that traditional business intelligence is not enough to improve business performance,” said Crispin Read, Chief Marketing Officer at Cartesis, the world’s leading specialist in finance and business performance management software. “BPM solutions are filling this gap, allowing companies to achieve faster, more flexible planning cycles and to gain deeper financial insight. ”BPM: A More Integrated Approach to BI
Business Intelligence solutions unlock critical management information and attempt to put that information in front of decision makers who need it to run the business. However, one of the challenges with BI tools has been that the data that they do unlock isn’t always consistent across the enterprise. For example, BI tools can’t add up revenue numbers in different currencies because they lack the financial intelligence to translate from one currency to the other.
Another area where business intelligence solutions have fallen short is in addressing the requirement for financial transparency, one reason some traditional BI vendors have acquired BPM vendors for financial and performance management capabilities. The need for such transparency is greatest within finance departments where specific challenges demand just one set of numbers and ideally one set of applications. Whereas a business user of a BI query tool is generally satisfied with the content he gets and how this helps him look into defining next week’s stock ordering, the group controller or CFO needs the most accurate, real-time information for mission-critical functions such as budgeting, planning, compliance with financial reporting regulations, and performance improvement.