Corporate Performance Management – Overview

The definition of corporate performance management (CPM) has remained consistent since industry analysts Gartner Research introduced CPM in 2001.

"CPM is an umbrella term that describes all of the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage the performance of an organisation."*

CPM can help organisations answer their fundamental business questions:

• How are we doing?
• Why?
• What should we be doing?

Scorecarding and dashboards, business intelligence, and planning and consolidation technologies answer these questions. The questions connect; CPM requires they not be stand-alone elements. Knowing what happened, without finding out why, is of little use to the business. Knowing why something happened, but being unable to plan and make the necessary changes is likewise of limited value.

* Gartner Research, Magic Quadrants for CMP Suites: No Dramatic Movement in 2004

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