EPM solutions enable businesses to respond quickly to changes in revenue, managing sales or marketing pipelines and having a clearer understanding of consolidated graphics of accounts. The responsibility of financial employees has changed, to become more strategic and value-focused. Finance teams are leading the transformation of business innovation as a part of the wider digital initiatives.

Today’s CFOs look beyond reporting to provide decisions that support strategies with business execution. CFO’s enable more strategic solutions, utilising EPM solutions to plan, measure, optimise and close financial results in a comprehensive framework.

In an earlier report by CEB into finance in terms of company performance, the findings suggested that analytic capabilities are vital to a finance team’s ability to influence business partners and play a critical role in driving business outcomes.

Benefits of EPM Solutions

There are a number of benefits resulting from implementing EPM solutions, including enhanced quality of data, improved management efficiency and informed decision making. EPM solutions empower finance professionals with the systems required to enhance existing systems and really transform the potential performance of a business. This includes improving the agility and speed of planning cycles, improving decision making processes and reducing the time spent on manual activities.

A business that has a range of disconnected systems with separate data systems does not have the real-time visual information and opportunities available for industry leaders. Integrated EPM solutions can improve operations and eradicate manual tasks within a business. Business managers and responder quicker to measure revenue, manage Marketing or Sales pipeline and a clear representation of accounts.

Time spent analysing excel spreadsheets, measuring discrepancies and checking formulas is time that could be spent on other value-adding activities. EPM solutions enable finance professionals to save time spent on manual activities related to management reporting, budgeting and forecasting.

In a related study delivered by BPM Partners, the results showed that over 20% of respondents use spreadsheets as the main solution for financial reporting. In the same study, 12% stated they used spreadsheets as the main solution for financial consolidation. Over the years, many businesses have upgraded spreadsheets and deployed financial and reporting applications on-premise. These solutions have proven to be time consuming and expensive.

This has increased the interest and demand for new cloud-based financial consolidation and reporting services. Many cloud-based solutions offer similar capabilities as on-premise solutions, with added advantages of considerable cost savings, quicker service deployment, reduced reliance on IT and improved security in the cloud.

With access to more accurate, consistent data and analytics systems, businesses can make quicker and intelligent decisions with EPM. Integrated planning systems enable users to perform detailed scenario analysis to understand the impacts certain decisions would have on business performance. Implementing a leading EPM solution can support the transition of conventional finance from measuring assets and financial data to supporting an enterprise and determining the factors that influence performance levels across the entire business.