What to Look For in a Performance Management System

While performance management software that addresses the challenges outlined in this post can vary widely in their capabilities and sophistication, most systems are now designed for enterprise-wide use, and often work best as a compliment to business intelligence software systems.  Similar to business intelligence systems, the best performance management systems include features for forecasting, budgeting, and planning, and have data visualizations in the forms of dashboards and scorecards.

When comparing different performance management systems, you should look for software that offers these key capabilities, whether as core capabilities or as potential add-ons that can change with the needs of your evolving organization:

Planning, Analysis, and Forecasting

If you can automate budgeting and perform driver-based forecasting, “what-if” scenario modeling and multidimensional profitability analysis, then you can radically transform your entire planning cycle. With a system that enables you to rapidly analyze data, model business requirements, and conveniently collaborate on plans, budgets, and forecasts, you’ll uncover hidden business options and optimize performance faster and easier.

Profitability Modeling and Optimization

The right performance management system should help you accelerate profitability analysis with an organization-wide approach that joins financial, operational, and strategic planning.  With the right business analytics capabilities, you can hone your profitability modeling and optimization with powerful capabilities like analytical reporting, trend analysis, what-if analysis, and more.

Financial Close Management

Automating your close, consolidation, and reporting process, from data collection to output of management and regulatory reports, will revolutionize your entire financial management operation. You will no longer rely on error-prone, manual steps. Instead, your finance team will streamline the close process to deliver complete financial results, create financial and management reports, and provide the chief financial officer (CFO) with an enterprise view of key financial ratios and metrics.

Performance Reporting and Scorecarding

Data visualizations in the form of dashboards and scorecards help you align strategy with execution, communicate goals, and monitor your performance against targets. With one glance at a graphical interface you’ll be able to monitor and manage business metrics, comparing them with the strategic and operational objectives of your organization to make sure you stay on track.

Disclosure Management

The best performance management systems help to streamline your disclosure process – and once you’ve experienced the ease and peace of mind that comes with it, you won’t ever want to go back to your old way of doing things. Standardize and automate manual processes to reduce risk.  Leverage your systems to ensure accurate, consistent data for regulatory disclosures and statutory reports, including XBRL.

Sales Performance Management

One of the KPIs you’ll want to manage is sales performance, and good sales performance management delivers measurable improvements for your organization’s finance, sales, human resources, and IT departments.  Align sales performance with sales strategy through more effective and efficient territory management, quota management, channel management and incentive compensation management.

Automation and Integration

Process automation and data integration are key components that we praise the most in today’s performance management systems.  With these capabilities, you’ll reduce custom coding and manual processes across platforms and applications.  You’ll also introduce self-service automation for business users and unlock proprietary cube data, which makes things run even smoother.

While each of the core capabilities described above are impressive on their own, when combined into a performance management system you can make better decisions faster, understand the link between operational and strategic performance drivers, and improve organizational visibility.

That makes sense, right? If you think that performance management systems might make sense for your organization, just contact us or click on the button below.

Questions? Contact Us!

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