Corporate Performance Management: An Introduction

The majority of my career has been spent analyzing business processes and managing projects in the area of corporate performance management.  Corporate performance management (CPM), also called business performance management, is the monitoring and analysis of a company’s performance goals.  These performance goals are measured using various metrics and indicators, which allow companies to compare actual performance against pre-selected performance goals. 

CPM encompasses the areas of: strategic planning, budgeting/forecasting, financial reporting, profitability analysis and key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring.  The CPM process is often supported by technology, enabling organizations to better track, measure and report on performance. 

Corporate performance management is a step-by-step process, which includes:

1. Defining the goals of a company or business unit (strategic planning)
2. Attaching KPI's and metrics that will be used to measure those goals (benchmarking) 
3. Gathering the relevant data for those KPI's and metrics (benchmarking)
4. Consolidating and reporting on that data (financial reporting)
5. Comparing and contrasting the actual performance vs. performance goals (the budgeting process)
6. Making operational and strategic decisions in light of that information (The Balanced Scorecard)