How enterprise performance management becomes a strategic business partner

Enterprise performance management (EPM) has long been seen as a back-office technical function. But now it’s emerging as a hotly competitive space. In fact, by 2020 at least 25% of organizations will achieve more collaborative, continuous and consistent financial planning and performance management by closely linking key operational and financial planning processes, according to a Gartner report¹. The takeaway is clear: Companies that aren’t part of this sweeping transformation won’t be agile enough to adapt to changing business conditions.

What stands in their way? Access to technology is part of the story, but the bigger challenge is that EPM processes lack standardization – and that undermines automation efforts. Some companies have yet to recognize the links between advanced EPM, operational excellence, and world-class customer experiences.

Other enterprises have a different issue. They’re mired in disparate data sources and systems, and planning cycles geared more towards historical reporting than anticipating future trends or scenarios. In both cases, these conditions frustrate senior executives as they work to provide their leaders with value-added insights.

Our approach

Out of the back office and into the light

Genpact can change these scenarios. We turn EPM teams into true business partners by providing the intelligent insights your company needs to make strategic decisions. We start by designing an EPM center of excellence (CoE). Then we work with the CoE to deliver services focused on growth.

Typically, this means navigating the journey from traditional financial reporting to robust enterprise performance analysis and, ultimately, forward-looking planning.

Three core assets help us accelerate this journey:

• A combination of EPM knowledge grounded in process expertise, linked to digital technology, and analytics tools that make it easier to uncover and act on insights
• Genpact Cora, our AI-based platform that accelerates digital transformation, automates processes, improves agility, and delivers timely reports and insights into business performance
• A consulting-led approach that includes the performance and governance frameworks needed to deliver world-class EPM

Our solution

Genpact navigating to next-generation EPM

We approach EPM transformation as a comprehensive program, with the flexibility to start modular projects at any time (figure 1).

Core elements of advanced enterprise performance management

We offer a suite of services and modular products that deliver next-generation EPM operations.

Financial close and reporting

• We provide financial close, consolidation, disclosure management, regulatory reporting, filing, and management reporting. Our reporting services give you a clear record of organizational performance and help you focus on the areas that matter most.
• Intelligent Reporting Assistant
  This AI-based financial reporting solution gathers and analyzes structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources, it uses machine learning and AI to provide real-time predictive insights into business performance with automated commentary creation.

Enterprise performance analytics services

• We support teams with financial statements and analyze performance, variance, customer retention, and revenue. We also deliver risk analysis, strategy management scorecards and tracking, and analyze key corporate initiatives.
• Enterprise Performance Optimizer
  This SaaS solution gives you real-time insights into business performance through data engineering, analytics, and advanced visualization.
• Working Capital Optimizer
  By integrating automation, AI, and predictive analytics you can identify opportunities to boost liquidity. Our technology delivers accurate, consistent insights across accounts payable, inventory levels, and accounts receivable based on peer-group bench-marking

Financial planning and forecasting services

• As you make business plans, we uncover the risks and opportunities with predictive analytics, machine learning, and scenario modeling. We deliver budgeting, rolling forecasts, revenue forecasting, long-range strategic planning, capital and workforce planning, and scenario planning for activities such as mergers and acquisitions.
• With our proprietary financial planning and forecasting digital technology based on machine learning, we help you transform financial planning by running an accurate, accelerated, and agile forecasting process.

EPM technology services

• As the EPM market grows, more organizations adopt cloud-based solutions for greater agility, value, and efficiency. We help teams move away from on-premises technology adopt the cloud.
• In addition to our suite of EPM technologies, we have strategic alliances with leading technology players. Work with us to select, design, build, and roll out EPM solutions and make sure your processes, technology, data, and people work together harmoniously. We work with Oracle, SAP, Anaplan, OneStream Solutions, and Host Analytics.

EPM data solutions

• Data is the heartbeat of any organization. By viewing data as a strategic asset your organization will move towards achieving significant competitive advantage. We unlock business value with a sound data strategy, architecture, and governance. We design, implement, configure, and manage your data ecosystems, creating agility, stability, and speed for intelligent decision-making.

EPM operating model design

• To help EPM become a strategic partner to the business with fast, actionable insights, we design and deliver effective operating models with service delivery focused on growth.

Impact

A center of excellence that delivers on its name

Our vision of a state-of-the-art EPM CoE does much more than automating manual tasks and slashing cycle times. It creates many opportunities. Analysts can introduce new data types, spot emerging trends, generate business insights, and provide decision makers with rich visualization through self-service dashboards and real-time reporting. In short, analysts can generate and share insights with the right people at the right time to ensure confident and effective decision-making.

Companies that reimagine EPM can expect to:

• Reduce time spent collecting data by up to 50%, freeing EPM specialists to generate insights that lead to better informed strategic decisions
• Reduce the time needed to create more transparent reports by 40-50%
• Standardize 90%–100% of EPM and management reports
• Improve EPM productivity by 50%–70%
• Deliver financial forecasts with a margin of error of less than 0.5%
• Reduce the forecast-generation cycle by 90%

Why Genpact?

An effective EPM program is built on a foundation of process excellence, technology enablement, data management, digital-first thinking, and a scalable operating model. We provide an end-to-end capability across all areas including service delivery. With over 4,000 EPM experts, we deliver services at scale for more than 100 global enterprises. We work across high-value, complex processes in F&A and other enterprise functions.