In my prior blog to this one, I suggested that a downturn in an economy, such as now, should encourage organizations to accelerate their pursuit of enterprise performance management initiatives. There is another voice saying the same thing.
In a recent BeyeNETWORK.com article titled What’s Ahead for Performance Management?, Craig Schiff, President and CEO of BPM Partners, echoes my feelings. But Craig backs his opinions with evidence from his firm’s BPM Pulse survey. He states that performance management “becomes even more critical when times are tough … because companies need accurate data to make critical decisions on a more frequent basis than usual.”
What I like about this statement is it shifts the emphasis from data to decision making. James Taylor, a respected IT and business intelligence analyst, explains this well in one of his posts titled What’s the Difference Between Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) and Performance Management?
A key point Craig makes about 2009 that I like refers to how business analytics software vendors like my employer, SAS, have been adding functionality to core performance management methodologies (e.g., strategy maps, scorecards, dashboards, activity-based cost management). Examples include embedded predictive analytics, profitability optimization, customer intelligence, risk, governance, and compliance.
Craig also mentions in his 2009 projection the appeal of software as a service model (SaaS) for buyers of performance management solutions who fear the financial stability of a desired software vendor. The financially healthy vendors understand this, and they have offerings that will appeal to mid-size and smaller companies. Ric Ratkowski, a product manager for a performance management software vendor discusses this in If Not Now, When? Business Conditions are Ripe for SaaS.
Will Craig and I be correct? Check my blogs in December, 2009 and we’ll see.
