The Importance of AI in Corporate Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by prevero/Unit4

  • Learn about the benefits AI can bring to budgeting, forecasting, and planning
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: December 2018
  • Pages: 10
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

Vendors of corporate performance management (CPM) software have begun to recognize the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in their products. Nearly all vendors have some AI-based features today, or under development for an upcoming release, but only a select handful have emphasized AI as a strategic, fundamental component. Customers have started to request AI in CPM systems, particularly for its value in predictive analytics and forecasting – which many in Finance already have experience using that predates the use of AI in this area. This white paper focuses on the role of AI in budgeting but some of the discussion is applicable to other areas of CPM and Finance as well. Due to its “high volume, accurate historical records, and quantitative nature”, Finance is well-suited for artificial intelligence.

BPM Pulse 2018 Survey Results: Performance Management for Everyone

/in /by BPM Partners
  • Benchmark your project and get new ideas from over 300 peer organizations that took part in this year’s BPM Pulse survey on budgeting, planning, reporting, consolidation, cloud, and mobile performance management. This document contains the complete raw survey results.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: June 2018
  • Pages: 80
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form

Executive Summary:

The 2018 BPM Pulse survey was conducted during May 2018 and received over 330 valid responses. Only input from verifiable end user organizations was accepted.

The demographic breakdown:

  • Largest group of respondents came from North America (83%)
  • While many industries were represented the largest groups (7% – 19%) came from manufacturing, financial services, professional services, healthcare, higher education, and not for profit
  • Company size – 8% small, 59% midmarket, 33% large/enterprise
  • Respondents came from IT, operations, executive management, but the largest group (76%) came from Finance
  • Both technology (cloud, mobile, AI, software vendor preference, role of Excel) as well as business topics (reforecast frequency,  profitability optimization requirements, operational analytics focus, budgeting and reporting priorities, etc.) are covered.

Extending Performance Management for Company-Wide Benefits

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by OneStream Software

  • Discover how to easily go beyond Finance with extended solutions for operations
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: October 2017
  • Pages: 13
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

Business performance management (BPM, also known as CPM or EPM) has established its place and importance in most corporate Finance departments. BPM applications are very effective at automating routine budgeting, planning, and forecasting tasks, as well as consolidation and reporting. This is the core of BPM, but it is just the beginning of the use cases for performance management in the enterprise. Businesses need measurement, analysis and insight, in a wide range of management tasks, and many users outside Finance are ready to put BPM to work in their jobs. Often, this requires extending or modifying the functionality, models, or analytics to fit a department or business unit.

How to Leverage Consolidation Functionality in Budgeting and Planning

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Host Analytics

  • While many companies use workarounds, learn how to benefit from robust consolidation capabilities during the budgeting and planning processes
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: July 2017
  • Pages: 10
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

Financial consolidation functionality can play a key role in making corporate budgets more accurate, faster, and easier to create. If consolidation capabilities such as intercompany eliminations and alternate rollups are not available in their budgeting and planning solution, companies usually resort to work-around methods or make do with rudimentary capabilities that can be tedious and promote errors. In such instances, it can be difficult to create an accurate corporate budget that supports the organization’s structure and its reporting requirements in different jurisdictions.

The Next Wave: Performance Management Plus

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Jedox

Read about the next generation of budgeting and planning solutions with greater ease of use, customization, accessibility, and breadth.

Executive Summary:

Business needs have evolved beyond just budgeting and planning for Finance,  and older solutions are not able to keep up. More modern solutions that extend beyond the core capabilities are now available. They address the expanded BPM requirements of today’s CFO and Finance team, and the need for analysis and insight across lines of business (LOBs). We call this category of solutions “performance management plus”, or PM+.

Cloud or On-Premise: Choose the Best Approach for BPM

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Prophix

Understand functionality, vendor capability, security, and cost before locking into a deployment approach.

Executive Summary:

The progression toward cloud-based solutions in enterprise applications is seen in almost every software category. More vendors of business performance management (BPM or CPM, for corporate performance management) software offer a choice, and every company should compare its architecture options before locking in the final decision. Users have choices in performance management software. Functionality and vendor capability to deliver the needed capabilities should be the top two criteria.

Automating Financial Consolidations While Retaining Excel Investments

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Vena Solutions

Learn how to cut through the forest of consolidation spreadsheets with ‘Enterprise Excel’.

Executive Summary:

Many companies have yet to consider – and indeed, may not even be aware of – financial consolidation solutions to replace the highly tailored stand-alone spreadsheets that currently drive their month-end close process. With Excel entrenched as the lingua franca of finance and accounting worldwide, Finance departments at such companies tend to tolerate a mostly manual approach to consolidations. They struggle through the quarterly and year-end close and reporting cycles, often with a forest of linked spreadsheets. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Performance Management with Excel Delivers Enterprise-wide Benefits

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Vena Solutions

Learn how ‘Enterprise Excel’ combines workflow and a centralized database for controlled planning and analytics in operational departments.

Executive Summary:

The use of corporate performance management (CPM) based on ‘Enterprise Excel’ can bring the benefits of CPM – including controlled planning and modeling, analytics, and workflow automation – to operational areas across and beyond the Finance department.

Cloud-based Financial Consolidation and Reporting

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Host Analytics

Learn how to address the many challenges of an under-powered or overly rigid financial consolidation system with a modern solution.

  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: March 2016
  • Pages: 7
  • This white paper is available for Instant Download

Executive Summary:

All companies know they require planning and forecasting software to replace spreadsheets, but many do not think they need a financial consolidation solution. If they require just minimal or no currency conversion, or have only one general ledger, they often tolerate the struggle to get through quarterly and year-end close and reporting manually. As other processes in Finance are improved, though, the difficulties in the financial close stand out more.

Automating Budgeting and Forecasting for the Midmarket

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Centage

  • Warning signs that indicate it’s time to make the move, and steps to minimize the costs and time frame required to implement.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: August 2013
  • Pages: 12
  • This white paper is available for Instant Download

Executive Summary:

When and how should an organization with revenues up to $250 million make its move from budgeting and forecasting that are based exclusively on spreadsheets, to a packaged application? How can the SME significantly lower its TCO (total cost of ownership) for a business performance management (BPM) solution? A valid starting point is to establish which processes urgently need automation and how dominant a factor implementation time will be in your system selection process. For some companies, especially those with very small IT departments, the amount of pre-configuration and built-in logic or financial intelligence are important; in other words, how ready the application is right out of the box.