From the moment organizations embraced cloud computing, it was clear that the days were numbered for on-premises enterprise performance management (EPM) software and that the future of EPM would be in the cloud.
This is a hard reality for longtime EPM providers who struggle desperately to rid themselves and their clients of their past within the company. In the past few years, they have felt the ground shifting from under their feet as companies look to the cloud for ease of deployment, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and many other benefits.
What is an EPM program?
Gartner defines EPM as “the process of performance monitoring across the organization with the goal of improving business performance.” EPM is sometimes referred to as Corporate Performance Management (CPM), a term coined by Gartner years ago. The terms EPM and CPM refer to the same set of business processes. The main difference is that CPM is focused specifically on providing a company-wide performance management application for finance teams, while EPM addresses the performance of the entire organization, extending beyond finance departments into sales, human resources (HR), marketing, and more. . It also requires a periodic review – a rolling forecast – to update budget assumptions throughout the year.
However you define the benefits of EPM, to really get real value, the software must include modern planning features and functionality. Many companies think that replacing an old EPM solution is too expensive and complicated. But the fact is that many modern planning systems have made the upgrade process cost effective and easily manageable.
Workday adaptive planning platform
Not all cloud EPM systems are the same, of course. But more and more forward-thinking organizations are choosing Workday Adaptive Planning for key EPM capabilities that set us apart from the pack, including:
It is fast to deploy with a quick return on investment. Average time to publication is 4.5 months, even for some of the largest companies in the world.
Manages growing data volumes. With ever-increasing data growth, many financial planning and analysis teams struggle to turn the information available to them into valuable insights that aid strategic business decisions. Adaptive workday planning supports changing business conditions while remaining robust enough to withstand complex modeling and data demands. It also automates integration from customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM) and other systems, so you no longer need to rely on IT to manage your data integrations.
It is easy to use. Visual analytics opens the door to a more collaborative environment, providing insights accessible via self-service enterprise reports and financial and operational data dashboards. Easy-to-interpret data is shared more easily and can be accessed by anyone with permission to view the dashboard. When data is presented in highly visual and familiar formats, business users can often quickly see challenges and opportunities that might otherwise be missed. If a viewer has a question, simply click on the data to focus on or drill down to the lower-level data, assumptions, and transactions — and get the answers they need in real time.
Increases business speed. Scenario planning is crucial to business agility, helping decision makers to determine potential outcome ranges and impacts. This is especially important in times of economic uncertainty. With adaptive workday planning, FP&A teams can quickly create what-if scenarios, build iterative models, and accurately report results. These capabilities enable organizations to quickly navigate change, forecast and budget using existing data, and ultimately make smarter decisions. Scenario planning is a critical component of continuous planning. Through continuous planning, company-wide stakeholders monitor goals, metrics, and milestones for current priorities on an ongoing, rolling basis. But they also seek to simultaneously develop new strategic priorities. This combination ensures a culture of self-evaluation, innovation and adaptability.
Automates critical planning processes. Cumbersome forecasting and budgeting processes using manual spreadsheets are prone to error and drain productivity. Adaptive Workday Planning automates these critical financial planning processes, speeding up reporting cycles and ensuring accurate budgeting and forecasting. Built-in workflows and process management ensure users know what they need to do when, which simplifies user collaboration. Self-service reporting is critical for teams to access real-time data without barriers, and automated updates and security patches help streamline the user experience and increase reliability. All of these factors help free up time for finance teams to spend on high-value analysis and decision-making planning.
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