Business Trends
It’s the End of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) as We Know It
“Corporate performance management (CPM),” also know as enterprise performance management (EPM), is a term/concept coined by Gartner almost 20 years ago (2001). As we approach 2020, times have changed and the original principles behind CPM (top-down driven strategy and management of performance) are less relevant as the need for agile enterprise planning to break down silos, connect everyone, and improve business outcomes has become a strategic imperative in today’s hyper-competitive business climate.
In fact, one can argue that CPM never took hold as most investments in CPM platforms (or “suites”) were entrenched in the office of the CFO and centered around either financial planning or financial consolidation. Recognizing this, Gartner officially retired the term, “Corporate Performance Management” back in 2017, and refocused around financial planning and analysis (FP&A), and the financial close (FC)¹.
Collaborative Enterprise Planning Evolves
Unlike CPM, which never made it beyond the finance function, collaborative enterprise planning spans the organization, connecting strategic, financial, and operational plans on a common planning platform. Everyone and every function are involved in some form of planning and need to collaborate and align towards common goals based one version of the truth to improve organizational agility and results.
Recognizing this need for agile planning, SAP Analytics Cloud (introduced in 2015 as SAP Cloud for Planning) was designed from inception to be a modern enterprise planning platform for financial and functional plans with advanced analytical capabilities (a deficiency in many other planning tools). At the same time, financial consolidation capabilities, as part of the financial close process, were incorporated into the underlying financial management suite with the release of SAP S/4HANA for Group Reporting. This aligns with Gartner’s strategic planning assumption that:
Through 2020, at least 70% of large and global organizations will purchase separate FP&A and FC solutions, rather than CPM suites¹.
This week at SAPPHIRE Now + ASUG Annual Conference, we announced exciting new capabilities in SAP Analytics Cloud for collaborative enterprise planning There were over 17 SAP Analytics Cloud sessions taking place that covered planning topics, including sessions featuring Siemens AG (“Improve Business Outcomes with Real-Time Planning in the Cloud”), General Mills (“Build a Multimodal Financial Planning System that Provides Food for Growth”), and Graphic Packaging International (“Sales Outlook with SAP Analytics Cloud”).
On the show floor, we had two topic (demo) stations featuring SAP Analytics Cloud for planning—PL821 in the Platform and Technologies area and DI310 in the Digital Core Neighborhood.
Bottom Line
So, while it’s the end of CPM as we know it, the need for agile enterprise planning and a faster close remains. SAP Analytics Cloud uniquely supports collaborative enterprise planning with the ability to build and connect all plans across the enterprise with inherent BI and augmented analytics so you have everything you need to make fast, confident decisions.
Learn More
Visit our collaborative enterprise planning page for more information.