The Best Corporate Performance Management Software Solutions

Published on: 10 February 2022
Written by: Tridant

Choosing the right corporate performance management (CPM) software for your business can be a difficult decision. There are many strong systems out there, and what’s considered the best CPM software for one business may not be right for yours.

There are five leading corporate performance management software solutions that we confidently recommend our customers explore. All five of these solutions contain in-memory real-time performance, are solutions developed by finance for finance, and contain a full set of mature features and functions to address all facets of business complexity.

Below is a list of the five recommended leading CPM software's and the key features of each solution.

BlackLine

BlackLine corporate performance management software is designed to cut out unnecessary steps in your workflows and automate your financial close processes and is the only CPM software platform built explicitly to improve accounting and finance practices. BlackLine delivers a unified cloud solution that facilitates your business transformation to continuous accounting.

Features we like

  • Improve integrity. BlackLine’s account reconciliation helps you automate and standardise monthly financial processes. With an intuitive interface and enhanced control over the process, you can quickly compare the data you need and deliver more accurate financial statements.
  • Best-practice close management tools. BlackLine CPM software delivers a suite of powerful close management tools to streamline your processes with task management, eliminate manual handling, ensure compliance, and add value to the entire cycle.
  • Optimise and automate. Improve the speed, accuracy, and reliability of your financials. BlackLine helps your business optimise its workflows by automating those traditionally time-consuming elements involved with account reconciliations. 
  • Unify your accounting. BlackLine CPM software delivers a unified intercompany accounting solution that centrally interfaces with your business’ core ERPs and other systems. Business transactions and agreements can be approved in real time, enabling faster decisions.
  • Transaction matching. One of the most powerful features of this CPM software is its ability to automate and reconcile millions of transactions in just minutes, all from one centralised location.

Anaplan

Anaplan’s Connected Planning Platform is made to boost connection business wide and break down silos. This hyperblock-based software delivers a single, centralised platform that connects teams, systems, and insights. Anaplan enables organisations to work with loosely coupled data, allowing more flexible adaptation to change, and empowering business transformation for the better.  

Features we like

  • A unified system. Anaplan enables you to unify your planning with a single platform that can be accessed by the entire business, and updated in real time.
  • Built in machine learning. Furnished with AI capabilities, Anaplan’s PlanIQ supports users in speeding up decision making by leveraging predictive algorithms.
  • Multi-dimensional modelling. Anaplan doesn’t just model in one straight line: you can undertake scenario modelling and planning that also covers time, location, product, customer, currency, or any other significant business segments.
  • A scalable system. No matter how large your organisation grows, Anaplan CPM software grows with it, ensuring all calculations and data sets remain consistent.
  • Agile integrations. Anaplan’s open API enables integration with a wide range of other cloud systems, enabling even greater insight and decision making so you can plan with confidence.
  • Exceptional security. The environment is built on best-in-class security protocols, which includes BYOK, role-based access control, user management, SSO support with SAML 2.0 compliance, and data encryption at rest.

Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning is powered by a scalable, in-memory engine leveraging Elastic Hypercube Technology, making it a powerful corporate performance management software platform. With a range of tools designed to boost agility and collaboration for finance and workforce businesses, Workday delivers a comprehensive solution that enables better business planning, in even the most uncertain of times.

Features we like

  • Process management mastery. Workday provides an easier way to monitor task completion, while ensuring greater accountability for planners throughout the planning cycle.  
  • Built-in integration. Pre-built integration options allow users to automate data flows from source systems with ease. The Data Designer interface and open APIs enable a seamless connection to the right data, delivering a more thorough analysis.
  • Customisable and interactive dashboards. Workday dashboards can be tailored to your needs, so you can easily communicate the right information, update them in real time, and drill down to better understand business drivers.
  • Better forecasting. Integrated and collaborative financial and sales planning allows for more accurate forecasting. Predictive versions provide baseline forecasts for planners.
  • Improved reporting. Its drag-and-drop system makes this CPM software exceptionally user-friendly, particularly when it comes to the creation of self-service reports. The OfficeConnect integration with Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint expedites reporting processes.
  • Financial consolidation. Workday CPM software empowers your business to move beyond the spreadsheets and take advantage of the speed and transparency of a cloud-based financial consolidation platform with automated intercompany eliminations.

IBM Planning Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics delivers a corporate performance management software that runs on any cloud. It allows businesses to streamline planning by creating a single source of truth for the entire organisation. This centralised solution helps break down business silos and achieve more accurate, collaborative planning and forecasting.

Features we like

  • Intuitive interface. This CPM software operates features in an intuitive web-based interface that users are familiar with, to ensure teams are able to start using it sooner. IBM’s aim is to enable users to manage, analyse, and collaborate on plans quicker, easier, and productively.
  • Familiarity at its core. Speaking of familiar, IBM Planning Analytics provides the option to work in an Excel-inspired interface. You’re able to take advantage of the functionality you’re used to, with the power and scope of cloud CPM software and multi-dimensional cubes.
  • Improved visualisation. Robust dashboards provide easily understandable insight that users all over the business can engage with. Drill down into your data as deep as you need to go, get a more accurate identification of emerging trends and opportunities.
  • Cognos Analytics. Connecting to IBM Cognos Analytics, the IBM CPM software enables real time and interactive data views, which means every user sees the same data, wherever they’re accessing it from. 
  • Made to scale. This CPM software platform is built to scale as your business does, allowing for rapid increases in data volumes, user numbers, and planning models. You retain the same level of performance and flexibility however big you grow.

Workiva

Workiva provides a cloud-based connected and reporting compliance platform that enables the use of connected data and automation of reporting across finance, accounting, risk, and compliance. The software streamlines processes, connects data and teams, and ensures consistency, all within a secure, audit-ready, cloud platform.

Features we like

  • Pre-built data connectors. This platform connects directly to data from multiple sources with complete control, context, and clarity to identify what you’ve been missing. Its pre-built connectors allow you to bring information from ERPs, CRMs, and other systems of record into one place where work gets done, making it easy to tap into all your sources.
  • Data transparency. The ability to drag-and-drop allows you to explore and build data sets, big and small, with no data science degree necessary. Blend financial data with ESG or any other type of data whilst maintaining lineage everywhere data transformations are used.
  • Improved reporting. This CPM software analyses any type of data and provides trusted insights to simplify the most complex reporting, analysis, and related tasks that your staff are usually constantly worried about. Workiva delivers formatted data consistently, rapidly, and repeatedly, improving the efficiency and accuracy of your reporting.
  • Automation. This solution enhances your efficiencies, allowing you to take back your time and spend it on what's really important. Workiva automates tedious, manual tasks such as gathering data, updating numbers and narratives, assigning tasks, managing approvals, and more as well as delivering insights to your reports even faster. Spend less hours scrambling, and more strategising.

Unlock the full potential of your CPM software

Don’t just choose someone else’s “best” corporate performance management software—choose the platform that’s going to help your business thrive.

At Tridant, we help you identify which CPM software is right for your organisation. Contact us today to talk through your business needs, and we can schedule a demo to walk you through the best CPM software for your business.

Choosing The Right Corporate Performance Management Solution For Your Business

Discover how to harness the right corporate performance management software solution to effectively interpret your critical business data, enable smart decision-making, and prime your business for long-term growth and success.

Related Articles

Copyright © Tridant Pty Ltd.

Privacy Policy
chevron-down