Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software

Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software Overview

What is Corporate Performance Management (CPM)?

Corporate performance management (CPM) software monitors and manages an organization's performance, according to key performance indicators. These can be revenue, return on investment, ROI, or other corporate strategic goals.

CPM Software Features & Capabilities

Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting

These activities are designed to assist with both data-driven operational, short-term planning and strategic long-term planning:

• Long-term financial planning

• Financial budgeting

• Forecasting

• Scenario modeling

• Management reporting

Consolidation & Close

These features allow CPM users to combine and examine data from multiple entities:

• Financial data consolidation

• Journal entries and reports

• Multi-currency management

• Intercompany eliminations

• Minority ownership

• Local and consolidated reporting

• Detailed audit trails

Financial Reporting & Compliance

These features assist CPM users with their financial statements and regulatory filings:

• Financial statement reporting

• Management reporting

• Excel-based reporting

• Automated board and financial reporting

• XBRL support for regulatory filing

Analytics

These tools for at-a-glance and in-depth analysis help CPM users interpret performance metrics in the context of their company's larger strategic goals:

• Personalized dashboards

• Color-coded scorecards

• KPIs

• Cost and profitability analysis

• Key Performance Indicator setting

• Benchmarking with external data

Integration

It is vitally important for a CPM system to integrate with a company's BI system. The BI system feeds the CPM system performance data, which the CPM system links with strategic and financial data for the purpose of higher level planning and assessment. Types of integration include:

• Flat file integration

• Excel data integration

• Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

This is a process-oriented set of tasks that involves financial activities including:

• Budgeting

• Planning

• Forecasting

• Financial consolidation and close

• Financial reporting and compliance

• Analytics and financial reporting

• Calculating return on investment (ROI)

• Overhead and operational costs

• Profitability modeling

Corporate Performance Management and Business Intelligence

Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is a closely related discipline to Business Intelligence (BI).

CPM leverages the data provided by BI to guide the organization towards its strategic objectives. The KPIs and scorecards that are the endpoint of BI systems are the starting point of CPM. CPM software links those metrics to the strategic goals of the organization.

BI is focused on gathering and processing disparate data and presenting it in an easy to digest form like a report or visualization or a dashboard. However, reporting is not necessarily linked to an organization’s strategy. It does not include any mechanisms for planning, controlling, or managing towards business objectives or KPIs.

The fact that these categories are so closely related has led to some category convergence with a number of leading products offering both CPM and BI capabilities in the same platform.

Pricing Information

Pricing varies widely depending on whether tools are designed to serve SMBs or enterprises. Subscription pricing structure is usually per seat per month, with lower pricing for read-only seats. Enterprises are typically paying in the region of $25k total subscription price for market leading solutions.