Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is a concept introduced by Gartner in 2002. Under the Gartner definition, Corporate Performance Management describes the set of processes, methodologies, metrics and systems aimed at measuring and managing the performance of an organization (see L. Geishecker, F. Buytendijk, Research Note M-17-4718 del 02-10-2002).

Corporate Performance Management consists of the following processes:

• Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting
• Profitability Modeling & Optimization
• Dashboard & Scorecard
• Financial Consolidation
• Financial, Statutory & management reporting

CPM software provides organizations with a single source of information, bringing together all types of data, including financial and operational information. By integrating this data into a single system, every information about the business is enriched with data from all over the organization - datawarehouses, standard ERP applications, spreadsheet and legacy or proprietary systems - all providing a greater understanding of what is happening right now.

Why CPM?
Companies want and need the ability to proactively make decisions. Accountability and visibility are two of the most critical issues facing corporate financial professionals today, especially in terms of compliance with legislations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and International Accounting Standards. CPM is more and more viewed as a strategy to address both of these challenges.

CPM enables managers to perform dynamic business calculations, to investigate what-if scenarios, allowing forecasts to be updated and budget adjustments to be made. In addition, CPM provides a single version of the truth, that the entire organization relies upon and uses. This requires the data to be stored in a single repository. If any business unit, or individual, disagrees with a number, the inconsistency can be confirmed or rejected by drilling down to the individual entries through reporting tools. The right CPM solution provides the right people with right and consistent information, across all areas of your company.

It is clear that there is a growing interest in leveraging CPM solutions. More and more companies are finding out how valuable CPM is for their organization. However, there has been some confusion in the market as to what constitutes a unified CPM solution, since not all the software vendors deliver a true unified solution, but an integrated suite.

For more info download the following White Papers:

• "Corporate Performance Management: the value of processes unification" Fabio Rizzotto, IDC Analyst

• "From the Management Control to Corporate Performance Management: what is changing" Massimo Solbiati and Gianluca Meloni - Accounting, Control, Corporate and Real Estate Finance Department - SDA Bocconi

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Tagetik is a global software vendor of the first unified Performance Management & Financial Governance solution to help CFOs and CIOs simplify complex business processes.

A complete financial closed-loop software, Tagetik 3.0 unifies key processes and applications – such as budgeting, planning & forecasting, financial consolidation, financial governance, strategy management, profitability modeling, working capital analysis – to manage and control overall performance, support compliance initiatives, harmonize different views of critical financial data, enable maximum visibility down to business transactions. In this way, the CFO can support the CEO in monitoring the implementation of strategies, ensure their sustainability and control corporate performance.

Since the software leverages “built-in” processes and cross-platform technology – fully web-based and integrated with any ERP, our customers can profit by up to 50% reduction of the total cost of ownership (TCO).