As your organization grows, you undoubtedly will be faced with the question of which systems do we need to upgrade first. You have likely accumulated multiple Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms due to acquisitions and/or to support various departments/divisions. In addition, in order to gain insights from these ERP systems, you very well might have several Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (These tools were also called Enterprise Performance Management or EPM in the past.) Between ERP & CPM, your organization can have up to a dozen or more systems that need to be managed!
The 3 big ERP players (Oracle, SAP, IBM) took the initiative to help you streamline these systems when they acquired CPM vendors (Hyperion, Outlooksoft, Applix/TM1) and “integrate” them with their ERP offerings. In theory this would appear to have been a great strategy for one stop shopping however, these mega vendors have expanded their overall focus towards comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning, Human Capital Management, and other Finance Transformation solutions over innovation in their CPM platforms.
This has led to stagnation and lack of focus on their CPM offerings, which seem to have gotten lost in the mix. As a result of the big 3 not focusing on CPM, it has opened up the market for newer vendors such as OneStream to offer highly-focused CPM solutions that integrate with the company's wider ERP ecosystem.
Back to Basics - ERP Runs the Business
ERP systems are transactional and focus on running the overall organization. Originally created in the manufacturing industry for managing, tracking, and controlling inventory, ERP has evolved into a suite of integrated applications designed to automate the tracking and managing of all key business operations. These include:
- Manufacturing
- Supply Chain Management
- Project Management
- Order Processing
- Accounting and Finance
Back to Basics - CPM Manages the Business
CPM is the system layered above the transaction and accounting focused ERP layer that manages the performance of the system itself, including employees and processes. CPM is essential for handling the complexities of change and growth in large organizations, and facilitate the upgrade of ERP without disrupting key management processes like planning and reporting during periods of transition.
CPM systems track performance by integrating and analyzing data from multiple sources and applications, including front-office, ecommerce systems, data warehouses, external data, and back office systems.
CPM can specifically support the following key management processes, among many others:
- Modelling Analytics and Scenarios
- Consolidating Financial Systems
- Managing Profitability
- Corporate Tax Provisions and Reporting
- Statutory Reporting and Management
- Strategic Planning
- Forecasting, Budgeting, and Planning
The High Costs of De-Emphasizing CPM
Re-allocating investment away from CPM within the broader ERP causes the aforementioned stagnation and innovation within the development and improvement of the CPM system. Many mega-vendors update the look and feel of the ERP and CPM to create a perception that each solution is the same, rather than actually driving innovation in the CPM system itself. They often wrap up a heavily discounted CPM system within a major ERP and HCM package.
These supposed one-stop-shop solutions give the appearance of simplicity associated with using a single vendor, but are suboptimal for several reasons. Here are just a few of the costs that come with de-emphasizing CPM within a broader ERP solution stack:
- Finance teams fail to understand the key differences between ERP and CPM.
- Prioritizing ERP investment delays the benefits of a modern CPM offering, often by years.
- IT groups fragment the CPM tools, increasing risk and complexity, which is counter to the primary objective of CPM implementation.
CPM Investments Streamline M&A Strategy
A recent case study demonstrates how investing in a OneStream CPM solution simplified a major acquisition where there was little time or information for properly integrating the financial systems.
The customer utilized OneStream to consolidate the legacy transactional ERP layer during the acquisition in a matter of days with no major disruptions in the day-to-day business operations. In this way, the OneStream CPM solution exponentially reduced a process that can take months to years, saving millions in expenses and eliminating the productivity declines typically associated with integrating major acquisitions.
OneStream: the Next Generation of CPM
OneStream offers a completely different solution to the hollowed-out CPM systems typical to the industry’s current mega-vendors. As a single integrated platform, OneStream brings together all key CPM processes and analytics into a single platform, simplifying and streamlining all key aspects of effective performance management.
Some key benefits include viewing weekly or even daily performance indicators, allowing faster action towards optimizing and improving performance compared to traditional monthly data reporting common with legacy CPM solutions.
OneStream's intuitive workflow ensures singular instances of data loading, which becomes immediately available for every required process such as planning and financial consolidation. OneStream's unique design allows it to re-use core aspects of dimensionality accommodated in a single platform, which previously required multiple CPM instances that reduce efficiency in legacy CPM platforms.
Over 1,200 customers have now converted from fragmented legacy CPM products into the OneStream Intelligent Finance platform, with zero regrets. Collectively, these organizations have seen major benefits to all key areas addressed in the CPM layer, including:
- Reducing and eliminating the traditional risk and complexity of data integration, validation, and reconciliation across modules, products, and applications
- Transforming the Financial Team’s time from tedious administration to high-value analysis
- Integrating multiple line-of-business requirements into a unified platform, leading to exponential gains in efficiency and productivity across multiple workflows
When the Time Comes to Upgrade Your Systems, Look to Move First with CPM!
ERP upgrades take years and if your organization is constantly in acquisitions mode, you will always be pursuing a single ERP (but never get to a single ERP). A best practice is to upgrade to a single unified CPM platform like OneStream. OneStream provides the ability to access data from multiple ERP systems, deliver streamlined business performance reporting while also providing an effective management solution to integrate data-driven decision making into all levels of business planning.
Due to a specific focus on CPM, OneStream can accomplish this integration without adding the excessive complexity associated with maintaining multiple software modules or diluting the CPM within a wider ERP structure.
Learn More:
CompIntelligence has been a OneStream partner from the beginning. We strategize hand-in-hand with our clients on the best route to transition from legacy CPM platforms to the unified OneStream solution.
Our track record over the last decade includes working with over 70 clients to successfully deliver more than 270 projects. We assist our clients in discovering how they can best leverage each aspect of the OneStream unified platform, including training users and working with clients through our complete managed service offerings.
To learn how our team can streamline your organization’s Financial Transformation, contact us today.
Due to a specific focus on CPM, OneStream can accomplish this integration without adding the excessive complexity associated with maintaining multiple software modules or diluting the CPM within a wider ERP structure.
