Summary:

Craig Schiff has defined the essence of BPM by combining the recent history of business performance management with current trends as we head into 2010 . Although BPM has evolved a great deal over the last five years, Shiff asserts that there are still many aspects that remain the same. Budgeting, planning, forecasting and strategic planning are still part of the core foundation, and performance dashboards displaying scorecards containing an organization’s key performance indicators are still one of the main ways BPM data is made available for decision making.  Even though BPM has grown significantly beyond its humble beginnings, some in finance and IT still view it as budgeting and/or dashboards.

Schiff takes a look at what’s new with BPM and how these applications effect changes in the way organizations conduct business. Growing beyond the financial construct, it has become the primary front-office strategic decision-making tool.  Newer aspects include financial reporting, profitability analysis and optimization, risk reduction and operational analytics. This new, comprehensive business performance management has become a mission-critical initiative for many companies.

Article Quote:

“Five years ago BPM was primarily focused on addressing the budgeting and planning needs of the finance department. For information technology (IT), business performance management meant graphically displaying information from a data warehouse in a performance dashboard. While BPM has grown significantly beyond its humble beginnings, some in finance and IT still view it as budgeting and/or dashboards.”

Article Link: http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/12282

As a tough economy accelerates the focus on effective business performance management, taking a look at efficient management software becomes critical. A strategic management system that incorporates tracking progress, goals and individuals responsible for activities provides management with greater control over all business operations.

For more on management software, see http://www.managepro.com/management.html.