Understanding the Basics of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)

Are you tired of feeling like your business is just treading water, never making any real progress? If so, you may need a tool that many successful companies use: enterprise performance management (EPM).

Think you’re already doing performance management? It can be better.

EPM can help you track and analyze your company’s performance to make informed decisions and drive growth. When using purpose-built EPM software to help companies succeed, things like planning, business processes, forecasting, and more become easier. If you already see the signs and know you need an EPM to help your performance management process.

But what exactly is an EPM, how do you pick the best one, and how does it work?

Let’s break it down:

Introduction to Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)

Enterprise performance management (EPM) is a holistic approach to managing an organization’s financial and operational performance. It encompasses the processes that help organizations plan, monitor, and control their performance – and provide clarity to human resources leaders, stakeholders, and more.

EPM involves:

• Setting goals and targets.
• Tracking progress against those targets.
• Taking corrective action when necessary.

It also includes analyzing past performance to identify trends and areas for improvement. One of the best things about using an EPM system is that you can use it to forecast and plan for the future using data surrounding business performance. 

Goals of EPM

The ultimate goal of EPM is to improve organizational decision-making and help businesses achieve their desired results through talent management. When done correctly, EPM provides visibility into an organization’s overall performance, enables better decision-making, and improves communication between various stakeholders. The software helps leaders make those connections in ways that simple spreadsheets or word-of-mouth never could. Trakstar Perform, for example, has an Insights dashboard built right into it that collects data about business performance reviews and helps Human Resources leaders spot the signs of trouble within individual departments, roles, or the entire workforce.

Using an enterprise performance management system is not a new concept. Still, it has gained renewed interest in recent years due to the ever-increasing complexity of organizations and the need for more effective ways to manage them. Companies of all sizes can use an EPM to improve performance, retention, engagement, and more.

To get started with one of the best enterprise performance management systems on the market today, schedule a demo of Trakstar Perform.

Benefits of Utilzing an EPM

There are many benefits of enterprise performance management (EPM). EPM can help organizations improve their overall performance by providing visibility into key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying improvement areas, and helping track progress over time. With Trakstar Perform, you can build and integrate your performance review processes with your departments. You won’t need to change how you work or review – we help you make it easier, spot inefficiencies, and improve overall engagement with the process.

To find out more about our integrations, click here.

Additionally, EPM can help improve communication and collaboration between different organizational departments. By providing a centralized platform for sharing information and data, EPM can help to reduce silos and improve decision-making. EPM can also help organizations save money by optimizing resources and improving efficiency.

Essential Elements of an EPM System

An EPM system is a tool businesses use to measure and manage organizational performance. The essential elements of an EPM system include:

• Goal setting and tracking: This module enables businesses to set performance goals and track progress.
• Automation: This element automatically sends reminders about reviews with helpful information to complete them. 
• Analytics and reporting module: This feature allows users to generate reports and analyze collected data. Within Trakstar, we call this the Insights Dashboard.
• A team collaboration feature: 360-degree reviews within Trakstar Perform allow teams to work together on performance management tasks, such as eliminating bias, getting a complete picture of employees, and highlighting areas where collaboration is needed.

Additionally, you’ll find more features. Within Trakstar, you can find an engagement module that helps leaders take the pulse of their workforces, send out engagement surveys, or just check-in with employees.

Implementing an Effective EPM Solution

An effective enterprise performance management (EPM) solution can help your organization drive better decision-making, improve operational efficiency, and optimize resource utilization. But before you can reap these benefits, you need to implement an EPM solution that meets the specific needs of your business.

There are a few key considerations to keep in mind when selecting and implementing an EPM solution:

1. Define your business goals and objectives. What are you looking to achieve with an EPM solution? Do you want to improve financial planning and forecasting? Or do you need help streamlining your budgeting and reporting processes? A clear understanding of your business goals will help you select the right EPM solution.
2. Consider your current IT landscape. What other software solutions are you using? Is your data housed in multiple systems? An EPM solution should be able to integrate with your existing software landscape to avoid creating duplicate data sets or silos of information.
3. Select a vendor with a proven track record. Implementing an EPM solution is a significant investment, so you want to ensure you partner with a vendor with a proven track record of success. Read online reviews and compare different vendors before making a final decision. To see some customers who have succeeded with Trakstar, click here.
4. Plan for training and support. Once you’ve selected an EPM solution, planning for training and support is essential. Your team will need time to learn how to use the new software, so make sure you have it. Trakstar Academy is a great place to start if you are a Trakstar customer.

For more information about implementing your EPM, see this blog written by our implementation team!

Best Practices for Successful EPM Deployment

To ensure a successful EPM deployment, there are best practices that should be followed:

• Define the business need and objectives for EPM. What problems are you trying to solve?
• Assemble the right team and skills. This includes both technical and functional expertise.
• Understand your data. Where is it coming from? How is it structured? This will inform your solution design
• – Test, test, test. Make sure you thoroughly test your EPM solution before going live with it.

For more information about getting manager buy-in for your EPM, click here.

Ready to Invest in Enterprise Performance Management?

An enterprise performance management (EPM) system is essential for businesses to monitor and improve their operations. By leveraging the power of EPM technologies, companies can gain insight into their operations and use this knowledge to identify areas of improvement. With comprehensive data analysis capabilities, EPM systems can help organizations make better decisions that lead to improved efficiency and profitability. For those looking to maximize the potential of their business, understanding the basics of enterprise performance management is a crucial step in ensuring success.
Click here to schedule a demo of Trakstar Perform today to get started.