CPM and BI provide opportunities: the 2010 Gartner-FERF technology issues for Financial Executives survey provides a consistent picture of the chief financial officer's view of technology and presents an important opportunity for organizations to benchmark their own internal initiatives and perspectives to those of other finance organizations.

• Author: Van Decker, John E.
• Position: IT MANAGEMENT - Business Intelligence - Corporate Performance Management - Financial Executives Research Foundation

Business Intelligence (BI) and Corporate Performance Management (CPM) are major technology initiatives for today's CFOs. Many organizations recognize that existing financial management processes are a constraint and are making investments in process and technology for improvement.

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At the same time, enterprises are increasingly adopting BI technologies to boost the analytical and decision-making processes that underpin their overall success. Within the category of BI, CPM suites have provided major improvements for enterprise financial management.

These are some of the main conclusions of the 2010 Gartner-Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF) Technology Issues for Financial Executives survey. The survey--the 12th annual survey for FERF, and the second with Gartner--resulted in 482 responses to approximately 50 questions that covered senior finance managers' views of technology. It was conducted from October 2009 through January 2010 and more than 74 percent of the respondents are senior financial executives.

Besides providing a consistent picture of the CFO's view of technology, the study presents an important opportunity for organizations to benchmark their own internal initiatives and perspectives to those of other finance organizations.

Gartner first defined the term "Corporate Performance Management," or "CPM," in 2001, although some of the individual components of a CPM suite existed for many years as standalone applications. CPM includes the processes used to manage corporate performance, such as strategy formulation, budgeting and forecasting; the methodologies that support these processes, including the balanced scorecard, or value-based management; and the metrics used to measure performance against strategic and operational performance goals.

However, CPM also comprises a series of analytic applications--such as budgeting, planning and forecasting (BP&F), financial consolidation and financial reporting solutions--that provide the functionality to support these processes, methodologies and metrics targeted at the CFO, finance team, senior executives and corporate-level decision makers.

The 2010 Gartner-FERF study provides insight into the CPM capabilities and investment patterns for enterprises. The following are some of the major observations:

* CPM Applications are the Top Investment Priority

Many of the top constraints point to the need for better BI and CPM platforms in organizations. Because many BI and CPM projects require services to bring in these applications to configure the product after first understanding what is required and how to address CPM business processes, this is in alignment with how many firms are currently budgeting for most projects.

The top constraints are all CPM capabilities, so CPM is the top area in BI for investment. Coinciding with the CPM-related constraints (as indicated in the chart above, "Planned Upgrades of CPM Functionality"), many firms will be making investments in these platforms, with CPM technologies getting a boost in support.

Planned Upgrades of CPM Functionality Management dashboard 54 Consolidation and reporting 39 Performance measurement/scorecard 40 Planning/Budgeting/forecasting 49 Customer and product profitability 39 Financial consolidation and reporting 39 Data warehouse 39 Statistical...