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This paper focuses on unified business performance management (BPM) and the application of predictive analytics for optimal planning, reporting, analysis, and decision-making. Below is a summarized version of what you will learn by reading this paper:
Actionable information on every manager's desktop is an oft talked about - but rarely achieved - goal of most businesses and the software vendors that serve them. Numerous vendors have attempted to address this issue through a litany of solutions including "enterprise information systems (EIS)", "analytic applications", and "business intelligence". Solutions such as these took a historical approach to understanding business performance. Given the increasingly complex requirements of business, it became clear that a more "real-time" approach to understanding and leveraging performance was needed.
A bevy of technological advancements and emerging business realities helped usher in a new breed of analytic solution called "business performance management (BPM)". Deemed by many as the "evolution" of traditional business intelligence, BPM emerged as a strategic re-application of BI for more effectively managing, aligning, understanding, and controlling organizational and individual performance.
Unified BPM systems began to appear shortly thereafter, standing in stark contrast to "point solution" and suite vendors who continued to offer separate applications for discrete processes and tasks. Unified systems effectively leveraged a single application, centralized database, and standardized interface to manage multiple components of the BPM process - all from a single system.
A small number of BPM vendors began turning their focus to "predictive analytics", and for the very first time, out-of-the-box BPM solutions incorporated predictive technology to augment the planning and decision-making process - a natural complement to BPM. Solutions equipped with predictive capabilities are inherently proactive in nature, taking a forward-looking view of business performance. Predictive analytics closes the BPM loop to more effectively drive business decisions, while opening the door to continuous, predictive planning and budgeting.
OutlookSoft Everest, a unified BPM solution, is one of the first solutions of its kind to leverage predictive technology. Solutions like Everest bring companies one step closer to the "real-time" enterprise, while further empowering managers and decision-makers with the most actionable information possible.
As companies continue to demand more from their decision support systems, unified business performance management, along with predictive analytics, will play an increasingly important role in shaping strategic and tactical planning and decision-making. Predictive analytics, applied with unified BPM, bridges the gap between real-time activity monitoring and calculated execution -be it corrective, exploitive, or otherwise. As vendors rush to embrace and exploit predictive analytics, only those with a truly unified solution will succeed in capitalizing on this powerful and promising technology.
Actionable Information on Every Manager's Desktop
Actionable information on every manager's desktop is an oft talked about - but rarely achieved - goal of most businesses and the software vendors that serve them. After all, what company would not want to arm all of its employees with as much information as possible in pursuit of better business decisions based on analysis of timely, relevant data?
Over the past decade, numerous vendors have attempted to address this issue. Nearly as many monikers for the solution arose as did vendors. First came the term "enterprise information systems (EIS)", followed by "analytic applications", and, most recently, "business intelligence".
While effective for what they were, empowering a small subset of users with powerful query and reporting tools, solutions like these took a historical approach to understanding business performance. Their focus was on what had already happened. This "rearview" approach to managing performance was inherently limited in its scope and effectiveness. Given the increasingly demanding and complex requirements of business, it became clear that a more "real-time" approach to understanding and leveraging performance was needed.
As business realities like Sarbanes-Oxley and the call for governance and compliance fueled the fire, a bevy of technological advancements helped pave the way for a new breed of analytic solution. One which focused on the present and delivered on the promise of information democratization and dynamic collaboration. Known today as "business performance management (BPM)", "corporate performance management (CPM)", "enterprise performance management (EPM)", and a host of other names, BPM solutions were considered the "next-generation" of traditional business intelligence (BI) solutions.
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