Enterprise performance management in a connected culture

Dmitry Faybysh of Glenture Group discusses how to revolutionize the way we manage business based on the latest advances in communications technology.

Many finance organizations have recognized the need to take Corporate Performance Management to the next level. It is commonly believed that the plan itself has no significance, but rather is a means to an end. As a result leading organizations attempt to forecast more frequently and/or on a rolling basis. Our new constant and real-time communications technologies, however, should enable constant and real-time planning. There need not be a planning cycle at all because we now have the ability to collaborate and address opportunities and decisions as they arise. This type of management technique, which we have termed Collaborative Management, is the next logical step from Corporate Performance Management to Enterprise Performance Management.

• Collaborative Management - The integrated planning and analysis platform supports a common forecast model across all functions in the enterprise. As such, the model can be adjusted from different perspectives in combination with an online dialog. This gives improved visibility to projected results and involves more corporate managers in decisions. In addition, more decision points can be opened for collaboration and their impacts forecasted.

When discussing Collaborative Management our retail clients are top of mind. Retail sales, whether brick and mortar or online, are driven by a wide variety of initiatives - from sales training to merchandise availability to promotions. One multibillion dollar hardlines client tackled the tough problem of understanding the impact of each area through developing a collaborative sales plan at store, day, and item level. Although they could not actively plan to that level, they could take each department's plans and allocate them so that a meaningful performance comparison to actual could be made, and exception stores could be quickly identified and addressed. For this client, collaborative management fostered the ability to truly understand the drivers of sales and impact them.

It is difficult to believe that the smart phone with its persistent texting and email connectivity has been around for ten years now. Social networking has already reached its fifth anniversary and Facebook has over 350 million users, over half of which connect every day, on average for almost an hour! Businesses worldwide are attempting to leverage these "new" communications technologies in their marketing strategies, but far fewer recognize their impact on internal corporate management techniques. In fact, it has been over fifteen years since the last significant change in the way we measure and manage enterprise performance.

Throughout these years, Enterprise Performance Management technology has evolved to become more integrated. Our clients progress along a similar continuum of integration that improves their ability to manage efficiently across the enterprise. Integration begins with a strong data foundation, and each level of achievement improves the communications between managers based on more commonalities in the way they understand and react to results.

• Enterprise Performance Management - "Companies can closely link insight from analytical tools with business objectives and processes," explains Betsy Burton, Vice President and distinguished analyst with Gartner. "[EPM] will become pervasive in operational and workplace application sand companies will use embedded BI tools for more than just measuring their business. It will deploy across the enterprise from executive management to operations departments. The goal is to enable better daily decision-making."
• Corporate Performance Management - The planning and analysis platforms are integrated to transform the review of past performance directly to the actions and adjustment of a future forecast within the finance organization. Typically this integration occurs within corporate finance where the plans are compiled at the account and period level.
• Enterprise Business Intelligence - A common technology platform is used to present and visualize performance across the organization. Because managers can share analysis more easily and the analysis look and feel the same, discussions regarding past performance become more frequent. Planning is still separate. Leveraging the datawarehousing and dashboarding.
• Data Integration - data from disparate transaction applications is compiled, cleansed and presented through a cohesive enterprise data model and structure. This ensures base level measures (i.e. sales by customer) agree across the organization and provide consistent visibility to past performance. Results are no longer questioned.
• Metadata Consistency - KPI's and the business rules to calculate them are documented and executed consistently across the organization. Managers across functions use the same taxonomy and definitions in measuring success. This further improves their ability to work together to address opportunities.

Culturally, we have adopted Collaborative Management in our personal lives. We text each other to decide what might be best for dinner or who should retrieve the children from school. In order to apply communications technology to the complexities of corporate decisions, we must not only integrate the management technology platform, but also the business model itself, building in the forecast logic and the ability to view a common plan from different functional perspectives. This forecast model, in conjunction with new communication technologies, empower managers with a real-time forecasted view of the results expected from any decision deemed pertinent enough to discuss.

Founded in 2001, The Glenture Group, LLC delivers a unique set of tools and skills to clients that quickly reveal straightforward business-critical analytics that are sometimes lost in the data blizzard most organizations have built through their transaction and enterprise risk performance systems. Glenture helps organizations take simple steps through the journey of converting complex, cumbersome and unresponsive information systems into connected knowledge assets.

Glenture is a certified SAP Business Objects and Microsoft Partner with the specific expertise in the solutions applicable to Data Warehouse Services. We have provided business intelligence technology expertise to many industry leading firms through over 300 Enterprise Performance Management Solutions implementations.

Glenture serves clients in financial services, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality/services, industries ranging in revenue from $200 million to $13 billion. Glenture's biggest asset is its employees. Glenture's people have multi-layered experience, breadth of capabilities and commitment to the cause.

Dmitry Faybysh is Founder and Managing Partner of The Glenture Group LLC. Faybysh brings 18 years of experience in consulting world-class clients to Glenture. In addition to being a Certified Public Accountant, Faybysh earned an M.B.A. from Lake Forest Graduate School and a Bachelors of Science in Accounting from DePaul University.