What Frustrates Me About the EPM Industry and How It Can Be Made Better

(This is the second of 7 articles discussing frustrations with the EPM industry. To be sure you don’t miss out on any articles of interest, please sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://www.epmchannel.com/register-for-our-weekly-digests/.)

I recently read an article on entrepreneurship that featured Richard Branson. In the article, Branson was quoted as saying that the “real opportunity in business is the ability to identify the frustrations in a particular area and have real solutions to remedy those frustrations.”

That started me thinking about the common frustrations that I have seen while working in the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) industry for the last 15 years. Here are seven common frustrations that I see frequently along with some recommended solutions.

Finance 360 Degree Insight Survey

EPM Channel recently completed a 360 degree survey of the Finance function in both large- and mid-sized companies, with 40% of the respondents coming from marketing, operations, and other non-finance fields. This 360 degree view enabled analysts who worked on the survey to compare the responses of both finance and non-finance professionals in order to…

What Frustrates Me About the EPM Industry and How It Can Be Made Better

(This is the first of 7 articles discussing frustrations with the EPM industry. To be sure you don’t miss out on any articles of interest, please sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://www.epmchannel.com/register-for-our-weekly-digests/.)

I recently read an article on entrepreneurship that featured Richard Branson. In the article, Branson was quoted as saying that the “real opportunity in business is the ability to identify the frustrations in a particular area and have real solutions to remedy those frustrations.”

That started me thinking about the common frustrations that I have seen while working in the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) industry for the last 15 years. Here are seven common frustrations that I see frequently along with some recommended solutions.

How to Deal with Continuing Volatility

Since 2008, the global business community has operated under extraordinary circumstances. After years of crises, extreme volatility and unforeseen events, the extraordinary is now the ordinary and the previously unthinkable is a reality. Companies that once prepared detailed, long-range plans—with budgets based on a stable view of the future—now operate in an environment that presents new and unforeseen challenges every day, week and month.

What are the critical issues leading to more uncertainty?

Progress Towards Integrated Financial and Sustainability Reporting

While over 2000 organizations already have registered sustainability reports with the Global Reporting Initiative(GRI), and more than 3000 organizations have submitted their environmental information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), investors are pushing for more consistency and global standards in environmental and sustainability reporting and standards are being defined for integrating sustainability reporting with financial reporting.

Rules for Assuring Poor Performance

In 1773 Benjamin Franklin, one of the USA’s founding fathers, wrote a pamphlet aimed at the royalty of England titled Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One. Satire is one way to get your point across. I apply my own style of satire here to appeal to organizations to cease their hesitation and skepticism and embrace the benefits of applying business analytics and enterprise performance management. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but sometimes there is truth in humor.

The Zeigarnik Effect

We’ve all heard the old adage “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

Many of us put things off indefinitely, especially the most onerous tasks. But often we find that if we just start the task it gets easier to continue and, once we continue, we can finish.

I thought this was just being lazy. But, my 16 year old daughter told me, “No, it’s the Zeigarnik Effect.”

Can You Guess the World’s Fastest Growing Economy? (No, It’s Not China)

If you can make your way into the VIP room on the second floor of the Louis Vuitton outlet in Ulan Bator — it’s near the Burberry store, but the Burberry in Central Tower and not the one at theforthcoming Shangri La resort hotel — you’ll be handed a glass of champagne and asked to gaze upon a special, gem-encrusted saddle made just for this store. It symbolizes “the fusion of the brand’s travel heritage and Mongolia’s tradition of expert horseback riding,” according to a Louis Vuittonpress release, and it includes a special container for carrying caviar across the same Mongolian steppe that bred Genghis Khan.