By Spokesperson, Futuresense

With the first month of 2022 already over, organisations are actively chasing their annual targets and trying to meet their business goals. However, in most cases, the projections, targets and goals they are working towards were decided last year, and may no longer be relevant or accurate.

If there’s one lesson the business world has learned over the past two years, it’s that companies can’t afford to plan annually anymore because things can change very fast – and far more frequently than in the past. Agility has become a competitive differentiator, and many organisations are looking at ways that their financial processes can not only enable business agility, but be responsive in their own right.

EPM has become the silent hero in the business, enabling the kind of flexibility and agility that companies need to stay competitive. With every organisation at a different stage in their EPM journey, here are a few things to keep an eye on to ensure their EPM solution delivers results throughout 2022:

Is it tailored to the organisation’s needs?

While standardisation is important to make streamlining processes easy, an effective EPM implementation must be able to respond to individual requirements. When the EPM solution is customised, specific business functions can be added to the software, allowing the company to gain the benefit of a range of capabilities that are tailored to how the business operates.

Similarly, some organisations fall into the trap of selecting an EPM solution that only meets their immediate needs and doesn’t support future requirements. As the business grows and evolves, more users will likely need access to EPM capabilities, or the company may need functions they previously didn’t.

Make sure your EPM solution has been designed for your organisation, and will deliver now and in the future.

Is there enough focus on the data?

Implementing any technology solution effectively requires more than just buying a few software licences, and this is especially true for EPM. Not only does it require integration into other business systems, it relies on accurate, clean data to ensure effective, actionable results.

The accuracy of the outputs directly corresponds to the accuracy of the inputs, and too many organisations find that their data needs some work – even when they think it is clean and up to date. For organisations that still rely on multiple systems for their reporting or planning cycles, this situation is often even worse, with multiple duplicated data sets creating an easy way for errors to creep in.

Make sure your data is aligned across transactional systems and analytical applications to ensure accuracy and quality throughout the record-to-report process.

Are the right partnerships in place?

Regardless of how far into their EPM journey an organisation is, they will need a vendor offering the latest technology as well as an implementation partner that has an equally deep understanding of the strategy and the goals of the organisation as well as the technology. The success of an EPM solution isn’t just measured in the ease of the initial deployment, but also organisation’s ability to continue to succeed in the coming years. This means that the business must not only be prepared for newer versions of the software, but also changes created by the evolution of their strategic goals.

With the right partners in place, the evolution of the EPM solution alongside the organisation’s growth becomes much easier. It is important for organisations to find partners that will help them to maximise returns on their investment and align with the long-term goals of the company.

When these considerations inform an organisation’s EPM strategy, implementation, and ongoing operation, companies will lower their risk while ensuring success.