In order to unlock the full potential of our business, each one of us has an important role to play. Whether you’re a CFO, CEO, Controller, Accounting staff, c-level executive, or one of those blue/white collared workers, despite tough economic times, we are all bounded to perform at our best in order for our business to achieve profitable growth, consistent operational performance, and competitive advantage.
Balance Scorecard Still Champions Business – But on a Higher Scale
Over the past decades, the use of the Balanced Scorecard, on which executives set metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in measuring the effectiveness of every goal, has brought significant impacts to many companies worldwide. Not surprisingly, this performance management framework is still widely adopted by thousands of businesses today.
But it’s already an up-scaled Balanced Scorecard. From formula-based and macros-enabled spreadsheets, Balanced Scorecard is now part of more sophisticated enterprise-class systems like Business Performance Management (BPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) software.
What is BPM? BPM is a computing platform that leverages the power of modern technologies. With the advent of Big Data, predictive analytics, cloud computing, mobile, social computing, and in-memory technologies, more robust and enterprise-class breeds of BPM emerged. Solutions like BOARD Management Intelligence and Adaptive Insights are best examples of such platform that supports business planning, financial consolidation, and reporting and analytics – on a higher scale.
Does Your BPM Still Work for Your Business? If Not, Dump it!
Linking strategies to plans and execution, monitoring financial and operational results against goals, and applying analytics to understand key trends; are the main functions of BPM in an enterprise. But what if these functions are not being performed properly due to the inability of your people to perform their supposed roles in managing the business? What if your BPM system no longer works for your people and for your business? Our best advice to you; dump it!
By implying analytical skills, we will get to realize that the failure of a BPM system to perform its key functions will make it difficult for decision-makers to understand when and how to respond to market opportunities, competitors’ moves, and regulatory changes. Worst of all, the failure of any business to adopt the right tools and best practices could drive away success.
So what are the clear indications your performance management system no longer works for your business and for your people? What are the signs that it is already inefficient and needs to be dumped?
These are the 5 signs your business performance is already suffering because of a poor system – trash you need to dump.
Your employees and departmental goals and objectives are no longer aligned with corporate objectives. Strategic plans are not aligned to financial and operation plans and resources.
Your Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting processes have lengthy cycles, erroneous, and are not anymore adopting the best practices.
The accuracy and integrity of your financial close and reporting processes suffer a lot due to errors and issues in tax accounting, cash flow statement consolidations, and revenue recognitions.
Your corporate executives and division managers lack visibility of business profitability resulting in poor management accountability.
The complexity of your IT infrastructures relative to operation, maintenance, security, deployment, and integration of your existing management system drives up costs instead of opportunities for growth and expansion.
If these signs are already visible to your organization, one thing is for sure. It’s about time to invest in better BPM software.
What’s the Next Best Approach?
Alright. Fine. The whole world understands your concern. We understand that while these five signs are clear manifestations that your business is potentially at risk of losing its competitive advantage, systematic observation and validation of facts and figures are still required in order to convince your entire management team to invest in better BPM software. So what is the better approach to this?
Well, this is the point in time wherein you already need to find and read a reliable Buyer’s Guide to Business Performance Management Software (We have one of this on our ITQlick website). You also need to find dependable partners who can provide software implementation services that will fit your budget and overall requirements.
There is No Miracle of Change – but there’s BPM
The business Performance Management system operates based on goals that must be achieved by identifying and executing best practices and measuring them thru performance metrics. More importantly, these goals must be converted to results that would then unlock your business potential.
Let’s wrap this up. If these five signs are already visible to your business, don’t waste your time waiting for a miracle of change. Meet your management team and set the goal straight. Invest in a solution that drives strategy and growth. That’s BPM! Look for a solution that drives innovation and empowers business users. That’s BPM again! The signs are clear. It’s about time to invest in Business Performance Management software.