Infosys-Oracle Blog : Enterprise performance Management :Lever to drive growth and operational excellence

Like many of us, I too had heard about EPM being a driver of growth and operational excellence. The catch for me then was ‘how’ can or how are organizations achieving these results.

Too many question and that’s where I started years back. The journey for me was untold until this day as I share my experience - the latest buzz on EPM and the road ahead. In my first blog on this subject let us look at the times gone by in the Business Intelligence - Enterprise Performance Management (BI-EPM) space.

The objective is to set the context for what is to follow in my coming blogs. Over the discussions let’s touch each aspect of EPM (Strategic, Operational, Financial Planning, Consolidation & Reporting, amongst others) to supplement our topic.
THE TRENDS… The stage has been set over the last couple of years. Product vendor consolidation & future roadmap, One-vendor concept, more involvement of Business Users in solution execution and User friendly – self support model framework. Further, quick deployment of solutions leads to higher return on investment (ROI) and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) is expected.

THE DOWNTURN…Today; never before challenging & competitive business environment and global dynamics demand organizations to make quicker and precise decisions - and all this in an efficient and cost effective manner. Organizations need to have a competitive edge by ensuring right & relevant information is readily available at appropriate time. As the dark clouds of recession seem to be clearing, the downturn for several organizations has made them realize how critical it is to build bridges between strategy and operational execution.
So, on one hand we have witnessed a downturn and on the other, trends refined the BI-EPM Roadmap.
As challenges open doors for opportunities, needs result in innovations; BI-EPM platform is today considered as a lever to drive growth and ensure operational excellence. But why such a deep thinking on the EPM front across organizations? Do organizations really know what they want? Will technology be a pillar to drive growth? Should we invest? Will business growth benefit from such initiatives? How should we go about with the execution? Please watch the upcoming blog threads aimed at shedding some light on these Q’s.

I recently happened to meet the Group CFO, CIO and team of one of the services company while presenting an EPM business case. One of the key objectives for an enterprise-wide initiative is reducing planning & budgeting timeline and ensuring accountability of operational managers. The point is: Seeing what organizations are doing, it is evident that a great effort is being spent in architecting the EPM roadmap. Besides, the involvement of senior management does make one think of the benefits that underlie.

At the Oracle Open World, 2009 speaker sessions we have requested one of our clients to specifically give a perspective on the subject.

If you are at the OOW we are pleased to invite you for the session:

Many Parts a Partner – Infosys Solution

Monday,10/12/2009 - 16:00 - 17:00
Moscone West L3,Room 3000

Learn More - http://www.infosys.com/oracle/oracle-openworld-california09/default.asp

Meet us at Booth# 411, Moscone South at OOW'09

--Shyam Harigovind Mundhada