CFOs have become one of the business' most coveted assets during the last two decades, and much more so after the pandemic. While financial reporting and compliance remain important aspects of the job, more companies are turning to a CFO's management knowledge to help them make strategic decisions.
Many CFOs spend their days dealing with day-to-day financial duties and putting out fires. Add in the recent issues of managing distant teams, needing to adjust to dramatic market fluctuations, and the increased demand to produce essential data to guide strategy.
So, here's our question for you: is your team doing everything possible to enable one of your most important assets?
CFOs Need Time for Strategy
You want your CFO to be a visionary and strategist, but according to a recent survey, while CFOs strive to devote 50% of their time to strategic initiatives, in reality, this figure is closer to 25%.
CFO Evolution Survey Report, Armanino LLP, 2017
Furthermore, according to a 2018 Gartner analysis, half of the time executives and their teams spend on strategy is wasted (56%). That's because when finance teams spend too much time trying to manage, analyze, and comprehend their data, they're diverting valuable time away from strategic planning.
The good news is that the appropriate technologies may save your CFO (and your team) time and stress by generating efficiencies and offering insights, and so acting as a catalyst for successful strategy implementation.
What is Corporate Performance Management (CPM)?
According to Gartner, CPM is “an umbrella term that describes the methodologies, metrics, processes, and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance enterprise”.
This is a somewhat broad definition that may be difficult to comprehend. This is because CPM attempts to broadly group a wide variety of activities into one bag. Simply put, CPM is a set of techniques for monitoring a company's performance. The company has a set of procedures for monitoring key performance indicators, or metrics, that help managers operate efficiently.
CPM Software Solution
CPM software solutions attempt to help define and manage the strategic objectives of the organization. It's utilized to create and implement procedures and processes that allow executives to manage and monitor key performance indicators. One of the most important tasks of CPM software is to help with forecasting, value proposition budgeting, and financial planning. Modern systems include configurable dashboards and graphical "scorecards" that provide key performance indicators (KPIs) to the company's management.
Originally, finance and accounting departments were the primary users of CPM software. In fact, some CPM solutions are designed expressly for accounting departments and are often used to analyze financial performance. Throughout the years though CPM applications have become more important to other departments as software solutions have improved yet they are still predominantly used by finance professionals.
A Successful Strategy Can Be Driven by Using the Right CPM Solution
A CPM solution can help you save time and gain insights so you can get the most out of your CFO:
Automated Financial and Operational Reporting and Analysis
Create rich, user-friendly reports that save time by automating manual operations such as data entry into numerous systems. Automation eliminates the possibility of human error and ensures that your CFO can rely on the data.
Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Key Data Points
Deep data capabilities enable your CFO to locate and evaluate both financial and operational data by querying a set of dimensions unique to your company.
Near Real-Time Data Integration with Your Systems and Built-in Forecasting Modules
So that your CFO doesn't have to acquire and standardize data from other business divisions, synchronize data with your systems in near real-time. Your CFO can develop solid estimates in seconds thanks to near real-time data and built-in forecasting. In such a volatile business environment, this helps to reduce uncertainty while planning.
Powerful Tools
CFOs may analyze their data and rapidly get to the bottom of any concerns using reporting portals, smart dashboarding, and capabilities like CALUMO's'slice and dice' and 'drill-to transactions.'
To identify patterns and monitor impact, "slice and dice" filters and aggregates transactions by customer, geography, cost center, or any other dimension.
Drill-to transactions can help CFOs connect an effort's impact to a profit-and-loss line item, ensuring that every initiative has a measurable outcome.
In the following, we will examine some of the best CPM software solutions in the industry (in no particular order):
Anaplan is a transformative way to see, plan, and run your business. Anaplan's HyperblockTM technology contextualizes real-time performance and forecasts future outcomes, allowing you to make faster, more confident decisions. Anaplan is widely regarded as a useful tool for large businesses. One of the system's key advantages, according to reviewers, is its capacity to adapt to changes in business and data structures. Anaplan also provides advanced analysis capabilities and a large data storage capacity. It has the ability to run sophisticated what-if scenario modeling and allows many users to be synced with the system.
DataRails cloud-based solution allows you to automate the collection of data from all spreadsheets, platforms, and departments with a simple and quick setup - no need for an IT department. DataRails' solution interfaces with any previous internal systems, including your ERP, GL, CRM, and HR data, and wraps around your existing interface. Perform analysis and comparisons for real-time financial insights from the comfort of Excel with DataRails' Excel interface! Create a database for all versions of your work and perform variance analysis, slice and dice data sets, drill-downs, FX conversions, and version histories with a single click of the mouse.
Board is an all-in-one Decision-Making Platform that combines Business Intelligence tools with Corporate Performance Management, Simulation, and Predictive Analytics capabilities. Its coding-free, drag-and-drop interface enables users to build self-service analytics and planning applications with ease to meet the ongoing decision-making requirements of their organization. Board allows the creation of dashboards, reports, and analyses that are fully integrated with enterprise planning and simulation processes, bringing together financial and operational data for complete visibility of the relationship between output, performance, and financial results.
Now is the time to integrate CPM technology to help your CFO save time, gain extra knowledge, and boost their capacity to invest in strategy.
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