The term Corporate Performance Management (CPM) has been around since 2001 when Gartner coined the term, but one could argue it has been around for longer than that. All organizations have a system in place to crunch the numbers and to quote former 1970's NYC Mayor Ed Koch, inevitably ask, "How'm I do'in?" Those systems can range from simple excel based solutions to siloed stand alone applications, all the way to a suite of products offered by a single vendor.
When you think about how much technology has evolved in our personal lives over the last two decades, from flip phones to smartphones, DVD's to streaming and now the early stages of cars that can drive themselves, you would think CPM would have experienced a similar transformation. Well, you would be correct, it has. Unfortunately, many organizations have taken the approach of if its not broken, don't fix it. Does that make sense? Your flip phone wasn't "broke" but I seriously doubt you are still using it today (along with your MP3 Player for music and Garmin device for directions)!
In this blog post we will dive into why now is the time to move off of your legacy the benefits of shifting from a legacy corporate performance management system to a modern solution such as the OneStream unified CPM platform. We will outline the benefits of making this transformational move and how the efficiencies gained will far exceed the invest in time and resources. Finally, we will cover how the CompIntelligence team can make this process as seamless as possible for your organization.
Why Do I Need to Move Off My Existing CPM Solution? It Still Reports the Numbers!
Perhaps you run a legacy CPM system such as Hyperion within an Oracle Enterprise Performance Management stack. If you moved to a Hyperion solution back in the 90's, you made the best decision possible at the time and it has served you and organization well for an extended period of time. Over the years you probably recall the various technology acquisitions and eventually Hyperion being sold to Oracle in 2007. If so, you may be familiar with the fragmented nature of the Oracle Suite of CPM products, which bring difficulty in data governance such as maintaining on-site warehouses and acquiring high quality data.
Additionally, you likely face decreasing availability of support for the outdated software solutions required to keep your Legacy CPM operational.
With that said, you may still be wondering if an Oracle EPM replacement is truly required. After all, shifting requires retraining your finance team, migrating data streams to a cloud-based solution, and the risk of operational interruption to your key business processes associated with any major software transition.
You’ve made it work so far by tacking on additional systems and your staff is familiar with your current methods, why risk a Hyperion replacement if things are working well-enough?
The fact of the matter is that these transitional challenges are readily overcome by bringing the right Corporate Performance Management Consulting firm on board. The benefits of moving to an integrated, cloud-based CPM such as the OneStream platform rapidly outweigh the costs of transitioning.
As with any major investment, the long-term growth and success of your organization means making sure you leverage the best available Corporate Performance Management Tools.
If your organization is still running Legacy CPM and EPM platforms such as FCCS or ePBCS, ask yourself this question: what are the risks of not moving to a unified CPM platform?
Do you want your legacy as a leader within your organization to be doubling-down on systems that entrench inefficiency in your company? Or would you rather be the visionary responsible for driving your organization forward by moving to a unified CPM platform?
When Is It Time to Move Off Your Legacy System?
So, you’ve realized that putting more time and money to keep your legacy system afloat is a growing sunk cost, but when do you make the transition to a unified CPM?
The following are a few indicators that it’s time to retire your legacy CPM and move to a modern, integrated platform:
- The difficulty in maintaining and/or using your legacy CPM system outweighs the pain of migration.
- The cost of keeping your system afloat exceeds the adoption cost from transitioning.
- You face a continued demand to tack on additional software to meet your needs, creating an increasingly siloed and cumbersome process for making data-driven decisions.
- Your legacy vendor offers insufficient support to meet your organization’s needs on the outdated platform.
- The CPM industry has moved on to superior technology systems.
Inevitably, your organization will face one or more of these challenges if you continue with your legacy CPM platform.
If you are at this point, it’s time to plan your transition to a unified CPM such as OneStream
What Can a New CPM System Give You?
In essence, a unified CPM such as the OneStream platform allows your team to spend more time making informed decisions and less time collecting and modeling the data from your organization.
This reduces the total Corporate Performance Management cost to your organization and maximizes your adaptability to market conditions.
Between technological innovations, ever-shifting global economic and political realities, and the constant change in consumer behavior and demand, quarterly and even monthly budget forecasting will always be playing catch-up to present conditions.
This delay puts large organizations behind the curve when it comes to staying competitive in the modern business environment.
A unified CPM platform makes weekly or even daily forecasting possible, allowing real-time decision making.
OneStream accomplishes this objective through a foundation of effective data governance and quality combined with integration of these data streams into a unified platform that reduces information silos, fragmented processes, and endless spreadsheets.
OneStream offers a host of features that support efficiency and adaptability for your teams, including the following:
- Preemptively preparing your system for growth with ongoing updates and support, readily integrated into the OneStream platform.
- Ability to add additional functionality within your CPM over time as your business needs evolve without having to find separate, siloed software solutions, as is required with legacy platforms.
- Unification of all CPM processes within the OneStream platform through AI-driven modeling that automatically integrates data from across your organization, allowing your whole team to be on the same page.
- Leveraging modern software architectures and capabilities, including fully remote cloud-driven solutions, that reduce your update and data governance costs.
- Simplifying the process of user training, licensing, maintenance, and upgrades to your CPM.
- Improved morale and finance staff retention by providing training and experience on the latest industry CPM solutions, which also attracts more up-and-coming finance talent to your organization.
- A customer-focused CPM vendor committed to the success of your organization.
Moving to OneStream is a step forward for your organization that allows you to benefit from the improvements in CPM solutions, not fall behind as the industry evolves with the latest technology.
Choose CompIntelligence to Help You Implement Your CPM System
Minimizing the risk of transition to OneStream and ensuring you leverage every feature relevant to your organization means hiring the right CPM consulting firm to assist with the process.
Compintelligence has over 12 years experience in upgrading client CPMs from legacy solutions to the OneStream Platform. With over 70 clients, 275 successful projects, and a 100% customer success rate with the OneStream platform, we make your transition to OneStream as seamless and efficient as possible.
Our process includes OneStream training for your entire finance team, fully-outsourced administration and application support, infrastructure support, and individualized consulting to ensure your organization is fully onboarded to OneStream before user acceptance testing begins.
The flexible approach we use is tailored to your specific organizational needs, allowing minimal interruptions to business processes and a risk-free shift to the best modern CPM Software in the industry.
In fact, CompIntelligence recently announced it achieved outstanding results in the annual Planning Survey from the Business Application Research Center (BARC) in its five peer groups: Large/Enterprise Wide-Implementations, Global Vendors, Financial Consolidation-Focused Products, Planning-Focused Products and Performance Management Specialists.
Are you ready to transform your organization’s CPM reporting, consolidation, forecasting, planning and budgeting processes to tackle the ever-shifting market demands?
If so, contact us today and find out how we can help your organization achieve true finance transformation.
