Investing in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM) software is becoming more and more critical to enterprise success, more so in difficult times. Organisations are being ultra cautious in all areas of IT expenditure, and many might question the value of investing in BI technology solutions. A new report by IT research and advisory organisation, Butler Group, questions exactly how any enterprise intends to survive without it.

The report titled ‘Business Intelligence – Corporate Performance Management’ points to the important role that BI and CPM software play in illuminating and informing the business. Holding off investment for another year is not really an option, says Butler Group, especially when the drivers are diverse, ranging from strategic to operational to legal. In many markets and vertical sectors, the requirements for some kind of BI and CPM capability are very real and pressing.

Born out of the need to proactively manage performance for business optimisation, CPM can play an important role in controlling costs, optimising resources, and ensuring that business units are adding value. BI has a crucial part to play in performance management, by presenting information in a timely and easily consumed fashion, and in providing the ability to reason and understand the meaning behind performance information through discovery, analysis, and ad hoc querying.

“Good decision making and performance management are key to business value generation but neither are easy in today’s complex world,” says Sarah Burnett, senior research analyst at Butler Group and lead author of the report. “The corporate focus on IT costs is often driven by the enterprise-wide mandate to ‘do more with less’ and growing demands for compliance and governance-led transparency. BI and CPM solutions help firms answer three key business questions: ‘How are we doing?’, ‘Why are we doing this?’, and ‘What should we be doing next?’”