Where’s the Innovation in Corporate Performance Management (CPM)? — Modern Approaches to CPM and the Benefits

This is part three of a series on modern corporate performance management. Read part 1 and part 2.

Corporate performance management (CPM) is a category of finance and analytics software. Through CPM, chief financial officers (CFOs) and finance teams track, manage, and optimize organizational performance. CPM is increasingly vital today given the rapidly changing role of the CFO in the face of the following modern challenges, among others:

• Geopolitical (tariffs & trade)
• Changing regulations across jurisdictions
• Global economic uncertainty (inflation & currency fluctuations)

In addition, CFOs are critical to providing unified data and data-based decision-making capabilities to drive organizational success. CFOs must not only meet the demands of the finance function but also provide insights, analysis, and cross-functional collaboration to stakeholders across the business. With this ever-expanding remit, the challenges of traditional CPM approaches are limiting the ability of CFOs and finance teams to serve those needs and adapt and evolve in an increasingly complex, dynamic environment.

In the previous posts in this innovation blog series, we explored the history and evolution of CPM and the challenges that have plagued traditional approaches. We’ll now examine the evolving role of the CFO and what’s needed in modern solutions to transform the CPM landscape. In this final post in the series, we'll discuss the innovative approaches reshaping how organizations manage performance, drive efficiency, and achieve a single source of truth.

The Evolving Role of the CFO and Finance Teams

Our recent Finance 2035 study highlighted the evolving role of the CFO as organizations navigate an increasingly complex and dynamic environment. Today, CFOs are expected to drive digital transformation, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, and cloud solutions to enhance analysis and operational efficiency. The study emphasizes the importance of CFOs providing insights and analysis capabilities to stakeholders across the business, ensuring harmonized, accessible data for informed decision-making.

The study also underscores why CFOs must demonstrate technical, operational, and strategic capabilities to gain the confidence of investors and business leaders. Now more than ever, new approaches to CPM are needed to navigate the challenges of legacy approaches and limited cross-functional collaboration. By embracing modern approaches and becoming data stewards, CFOs and finance teams can position organizations for success and focus on strategic growth, risk management, and the integration of emerging technologies.

Modern, Unified Cloud-Based Solutions

One of the most significant advancements in modern CPM is unified cloud-based platforms. Unlike traditional systems that rely on separate, disconnected applications, unified platforms integrate all core CPM functions into a single, cohesive solution. This unification eliminates the need for complex, time-consuming data movements and reconciliations — ensuring all financial and operational data is aligned and consistent.

With a unified platform, organizations can achieve a single source of truth that provides a reliable foundation for process optimization and decision-making.

Multidimensional and Relational Data

Modern CPM platforms such as OneStream are designed to handle both multidimensional and relational data, allowing organizations to analyze data from multiple perspectives. This capability is essential for gaining a comprehensive understanding of business performance.

By integrating multidimensional and relational data, finance teams and business stakeholders can perform more sophisticated analyses. Both can also quickly update plans and forecasts at levels of detail not previously possible. This capability ensures everyone can uncover insights previously hidden in siloed systems to then make more informed decisions and drive better business outcomes.

Built-In Analytics

Built-in analytics are a cornerstone of modern CPM platforms. These advanced analytics capabilities enable organizations to analyze data in real time, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. With built-in analytics, finance teams can move beyond traditional reporting and gain deeper insights into business performance.

Modern CPM platforms such as OneStream include predictive analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. With these features, finance can better streamline processes, improve planning outcomes, get deeper insights, and make proactive decisions.

Dynamic Data

The ability to work with dynamic data is another key feature of modern CPM platforms. Many CPM systems often rely on static, periodic data that can lead to outdated insights and slow decision-making. In contrast, modern CPM platforms are designed to handle dynamic data, allowing organizations to continuously update and analyze data in real time. This capability is particularly valuable in today's fast-paced business environment, where timely and accurate information is critical for success.

Marketplace

Modern CPM platforms often include a marketplace, such as the OneStream Solution Exchange. Within these marketplaces, robust solutions can be easily downloaded and configured into the core platform, without adding additional applications, integrations, and technical debt. These marketplaces provide organizations with access to a wide range of solutions and capabilities:

1. Account reconciliations
2. Transaction matching
3. Task management
4. Specialty planning solutions (e.g., People and Capital)

The above solutions and others enable organizations to constantly evolve their CPM solutions to meet specific business needs. By leveraging marketplace solutions, organizations can quickly enable new capabilities without extensive deployment or integration work. This flexibility allows finance teams to stay agile and evolve their solutions to adapt to changing business requirements.

Low-Code/No-Code Configuration and System Maintenance

One of the most significant barriers to adopting traditional CPM systems is the time, cost, and complexity of configuration and maintenance. Modern CPM platforms such as OneStream address this challenge by offering low-code/no-code configuration. With it, organizations can personalize experiences, adapt or launch new processes, and innovate to address evolving business needs.

These user-friendly interfaces enable finance teams to configure CPM solutions without extensive technical expertise. In turn, the ease of use reduces the burden on information technology (IT) departments and empowers finance teams to take control of their CPM processes.

Ability to Move to More Continuous Close and Planning Processes

Modern CPM solutions with the capabilities listed above enable organizations, when ready, to evolve from periodic to more continuous close and planning processes. From the balance to the transactional level, all data is unified. Plus, dynamic data and AI-powered processes mean modern CPM platforms such as OneStream can support more continuous close and planning processes.

The ability to update financial data and forecasts more rapidly facilitates proactive adjustments, analysis, and decision-making which enables organizations to respond quickly to changing conditions.

Why Are Others Still Using 3-Decades-Old Approaches?

Despite the clear benefits of modern CPM platforms such as OneStream, many organizations continue to rely on traditional approaches. Why? Because it's easier to stick with familiar vendors, systems, and multi-application approaches — even if they’re inefficient and cumbersome. Traditional CPM systems may seem like the path of least resistance, but they place a significant burden on finance teams.

Ultimately, these legacy approaches require complex integrations, manual reconciliations, and constant maintenance, diverting valuable resources away from the organization’s ability to quickly adapt to achieve strategic initiatives. By adopting modern CPM platforms, however, organizations can eliminate these inefficiencies and unlock the full potential of finance teams.

Benefits of Modern CPM Platforms Such as OneStream

The benefits of modern CPM platforms include helping finance transform the finance function and delivering analytics and insights to business stakeholders across the organization. How? By helping CFOs and finance teams overcome modern challenges. Here are some of the key advantages of modern CPM platforms:

• Single Source of Truth: Provide a consistent, reliable view of financial and operational data, eliminating the need for complex reconciliations and the painstaking or manual processes of ensuring data accuracy.
• Efficiency: Streamline finance and operational processes, reducing the time and effort required to manage financial consolidation and close, financial and operational planning, reporting, and analysis.
• Effectiveness: Enable finance teams to make data-driven decisions, and empower business stakeholders with the information, tools, and insights to proactively improve overall business performance.
• Removal of Technical Debt: Eliminate complex integrations and customizations because all data and processes are unified, reducing technical debt and freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Quickly adapt to changing needs without adding additional time, cost, and applications, lowering the total cost of ownership.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As we conclude this blog series, the future of CPM clearly lies in modern, cloud-based, unified platforms like OneStream. These innovative solutions provide the foundation for a more efficient, effective, and agile approach to performance management. By adopting modern CPM platforms, organizations can achieve a single source of truth, streamline processes, and support the data-driven decisions that drive business success.

The journey doesn't end here, though. As technology continues to evolve, so too will the capabilities of CPM platforms. Innovations such as AI, machine learning, and dynamic data services will further enhance the ability to manage performance and drive business outcomes. Organizations that embrace these advancements will be well-positioned to thrive in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment.

Conclusion

The time has come to move beyond the fragmented, outdated approaches of the past. By investing in modern CPM platforms such as OneStream, organizations can unlock the full potential of their finance teams and achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness, and agility.

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Check out our website and customer success stories. The future of CPM is bright, and the possibilities are constantly evolving. Together, let’s innovate and drive the next era of CPM.