Making faster and smarter business decisions by
establishing a “prepared mind” for your organization
Finance professionals make critical business decisions that must rely on integrating and rapidly
analyzing growing volumes of data siloed in sales, marketing, operations and other applications
and areas of the business. Further, there is a proliferation of external driver-based data outside
the company that could be taken advantage of. With financial implications at the core of these
decisions, finance executives are particularly challenged by the relentless growth of internally
generated and externally available data today.
“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is
the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
“Chance favors only the prepared mind.”
–Louis Pasteur
The Marriage of Business Intelligence and
Corporate Performance Management
a Host Analytics and Cervello primer
These quotes raise two interesting questions when thinking about how to more effectively manage the performance of your business:
1) How good is your organization at making quick and informed strategic and operational decisions, particularly when faced with complex facts and changing business conditions?
2) Does your organization have a “prepared mind” in order to take advantage of new business opportunities?
Experience tells us there is a big opportunity for organizations today to get smarter and better at making decisions using facts and data, and for establishing a “prepared mind”. In this short primer, we’ll look at some of the capabilities that businesses commonly use to take advantage of this opportunity.
Integration of BI and CPM
Under the umbrella of performance management are two different but related disciplines, Business Intelligence (BI) and Corporate Performance Management (CPM). The formal definitions for which are included in the side bar. Simply put, BI is focused on delivering analytics capabilities and CPM is focused on delivering planning and reporting capabilities, all with the intent of making better business decisions. Taking this a step further, BI, as a discipline, allows organizations to look at real-time performance, and in some cases, anticipate future performance. CPM, as a discipline, allows organizations to validate performance vs. a financial benchmark (budget and forecast) and to model how specific strategic and operational decisions are going to be executed.
While they are separate disciplines and are often managed by different functions of the organization, we believe the real power of BI and CPM is through the integration of the two as part of a single, continuous process. In fact, we view performance management as a critical organizational capability and not one that should be owned in silos.
Done right, marrying BI with CPM offers businesses a holistic approach to managing performance. In the end, the integrated technologies helps businesses to make faster and smarter decisions based on the important facts that directly impact the bottom line.
Rolling Forecast Operational Dashboard Reports & Analytics
Strategy Analysis Strategy Map Balanced Scorecard
Initiative Portfolio Long Range Plan Budget
P
LA
NM O
NITOR
ANAL
YZE
OPERATIONS(TRANSACTIONS)
Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.
Corporate Performance Management (CPM, BPM or EPM) consists of a set of management and analytic processes, supported by technology, that enable businesses to define strategic goals and then measure and manage performance against those goals. Core CPM
processes include financial planning, operational planning, consolidation and reporting, business modeling, analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators linked to strategy. CPM builds on a foundation of BI, but marries it to the planning-and-control cycle of the enterprise – with enterprise planning, consolidation and modeling capabilities.
<< Typical performance management model
<< that integrates both BI and CPM.
Introducing Host Analytics Business Analytics
Launched in March 2012, Host Analytics Business Analytics combines the best of CPM and BI in the cloud, providing decision makers with a 360-degree view of the business through a single interface. Open database connectivity drivers enable access to both CPM and non-CPM data.
The innovation behind Business Analytics lies in the fact that it incorporates financial and operational data and a user- friendly interface making it accessible to users beyond finance and accounting. As a cloud-based product, it is ground- breaking beyond traditional on-premise BI tools enabling ease-of-use and faster deployment.
By empowering executive stakeholders with the confidence that they are making the most informed, strategic and fact- based decisions possible, Host Analytics offers overwhelming business potential. The results translate into streamlined financial processes, scalability in the finance function, improved accountability throughout the organization and ultimately greater profits. No other cloud CPM vendor or product goes beyond finance to bridge operational, financial and external data for the most comprehensive view of business performance.
Key features of Host Analytics Business Analytics include:
• Fully integrated BI technology: Best of breed, fully integrated BI technology offers easy deployment and user flexibility by eliminating the confusion created by traditional, cobbled-together applications.
• Pre-built reporting and dashboards: Reports and dashboards are ready to be used out of the box without additional effort, and can be rolled out in record time.
• Self-service customization: Reports and dashboards are easy to customize and users can create their own views of the data.
• Dynamic reporting: A report generator for ad-hoc analysis and financial reporting allows for flexible slicing and dicing of data.
• Standard KPI’s: Incorporation of select, standard key performance indicators.
• Scorecards: Ability to align your organization to company strategy with balanced scorecards where you can drill down to department and unit level.
• Connectors: Integration of data from siloed source applications uncovers new insights enabling powerful decision-making.
• Mobile: View reports and dashboards from mobile devices including the iPad to monitor the business while “on the go.”
A simple example of performance management in action
Rather than talk about the components of the model in general terms, let’s look at how it works using a simplified example of a fictional retailer – Acme Retail. Acme is a midsize retailer in the competitive market of selling widgets and is faced with the challenge of creating sustained, profitable growth.
Analyze
As part of the analysis supporting the strategic planning process, the leadership team at Acme Retail determines that in order to establish sustainable profitability they need to create the right customer buying behavior through improved customer satisfaction, which is directly correlated to improved employee satisfaction. Based on this working assumption, they put two important goals in the learning and growth section of their strategy map focused on recruiting & staffing and managing their store associates.
Plan
With further analysis, the leadership team determines that recruiting and staffing improvements should have the most significant effect in driving employee satisfaction. Based on this insight, they fund a couple of specific initiatives to improve the store associate recruiting program and to improve the staffing process. The planning team uses the company’s long-range driver-based model to validate the causal chain for the two initiatives and their ultimate impact on profitable growth. Finally, specific line items in the P&L and capital forecast are budgeted to ensure that the initiatives get the right funding and resource allocation.
About Host Analytics, Inc.
Host Analytics is the number one cloud corporate performance management company, providing the only complete suite for finance. Host Analytics helps organizations make better operational and financial decisions by streamlining and automating their consolidations, planning and reporting processes.
Over the span of a decade, Host Analytics has gone from pioneer to leader with their deep product functionality, world- class team and broad partner ecosystem. Thanks to the cloud, customers enjoy low costs, low risk and fast results that give them an edge and helps Finance gain greater influence in setting business strategy and operational priorities. Host Analytics is:
• 1st cloud corporate performance management solution
• 1st to deliver external data integration
• 1st to deliver a business analytics application built for finance in the cloud
Host Analytics serves midsize to large customer organizations, including AT&T, Groupon, Crocs, Thule, Otis Spunkmeyer and Schumacher. For additional information, visit http://www.hostanalytics.com or join the conversation at www.twitter.
com/host_analytics.
About Cervello
Cervello is a dynamic technology company that is focused on business analytics and planning. We take an innovative approach to making complex solutions simple so our clients can focus on running their businesses. Our services and applications enable our clients to gain the benefits of a world-class analytics and planning capability without the headaches. For more information, please visit our website at www.mycervello.com.
Copyright © Host Analytics, Inc.
Monitor
Once the new programs are put in place, leaders in the field and in the home office are able to track key operational metrics on a daily and weekly basis to ensure the performance of the recruiting and staffing efforts. Every month, the business re-forecasts results at a high level using some of the same logic from the long-range forecast. In particular, the team is very focused on the causal relationships for the two initiatives. Over time, analysts begin to notice that changes in the recruiting process may not be having the desired effect on employee satisfaction that they originally anticipated. Based on the results of this analysis, they may change the funding for the two programs and reallocate it towards staffing.
This is obviously a very simplified example, but you can see that if you integrate BI and CPM into a single, continuous performance management process it can provide a valuable foundation for creating a “prepared mind” and quicker and better business decisions for your organization. As you become more proficient, you will be able to reduce the cycle time for analyzing, planning, and monitoring your performance, which will make the organization more nimble and able to react to complex decisions in a timely manner.
