CPM The System to support the formulation, communication, execution and monitoring of the strategy

Most Software vendors of CPM solutions aim to provide integrated applications that support all of the basic processes of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) — from the formulation of strategy, through implementation, monitoring, forecasting and reporting on progress.But for the most part, these rely on the collecting and reporting of measures either by some kind of table or in a graphical ‘traffic-light’ format. Apart from the entering of budget/forecast numbers, many of these systems are basically reporting systems. While these reports are great for telling us what happened, they are of limited value when it comes to managing the business. The reason is:

• They tell us what happened but tells us nothing about the actions or the relationships that produced them;
• They are predominantly about the past and provide little or no information about what needs to happen in the future;
• They are an accounting-based view of the world — and not directly related to the activities of operational managers — activities that determine future results;
• And finally, there is no way of knowing from this report if strategy is being executed or even how successful it has been in generating the results obtained

What they lack is the ability of senior management to communicate organizational objectives and high level strategies to which operational managers can build tactical plans that have a clear ’cause and affect’ relationship to those organizational objectives.

“Organizations need a new kind of management system — one explicitly designed to manage strategy …” (Kaplan & Norton)

This is what the Ackinas CPM solution is. It is a Strategy Management System, in fact the first solution to integrate Performance management with Process management, Risk management and Activity based management (Scenario Planning and cost management).