Your essential guide to CPM tools, tips and vendors

Editor's note

Corporate performance management is an umbrella term that includes methodologies, processes and technologies used to measure and monitor corporate health.

Also called business performance management and enterprise performance management, CPM can help organizations build better budgets, reduce costs, create alignment in key performance indicators, improve financial processes and more. CPM tools include forecasting, budgeting and planning functions -- to name just a few -- and relies on reader-friendly visuals to quickly display information. Although such a reliance on dashboards and visual scorecards can sound very similar to business intelligence, it is distinct from BI, although often used in close conjunction with it.

CPM began as a way of taking the pulse of the finance department, looking at factors such as forecasting, budget and planning, and the information was shared only with stakeholders related to finance. CPM typically still begins in finance, but its role has expanded. Over time, business leaders realized it could be used to measure other key indicators of success, such as strategic planning and employee performance, and as an overall measure of other domains, such as sales. CPM software often is targeted to specific business processes, such as supply chain management. In addition, many businesses create CPM programs around a business methodology, such as balanced scorecard.

This guide gives a bird's-eye view of what corporate performance management can mean to your company, shares some real-life examples and provides some basics on the vendor landscape.