Performance management (PM) solutions, combined with the associated best-practices and business processes, are rapidly becoming recognized as the best vehicles for the most strategic use of an organization’s information. In fact, Hackett Group research illustrates that companies with world-class enterprise performance management generate 2.4 times three-year equity market returns, including stock price increase and dividends, of typical companies in their industry.*

Through disciplined PM practices, companies can align their operational and financial information, internal processes, and strategic goals to build competitive advantage, increase return on investment, and drive superior business results. PM technology combines data from a multitude of sources and transforms it into actionable performance information that provides a single, consistent, accurate view of corporate processes and performance. This process ensures that reliable performance information reaches the right people in the right way at the right time. With PM, business users throughout the enterprise can consistently make better decisions around three key performance-related questions:

• How are we doing? – Organizations can measure and monitor performance with scorecards and dashboards that track key metrics.
  
  
• Why? - Reporting and analysis capabilities let organizations uncover the reasons behind good and bad performance by exploring the data, gaining context, understanding trends and spotting anomalies.
  
  
• What should we be doing? – Through plans, budgets, and forecasts, a business can set and share realistic and reliable views of the future.

As the appetite for consistent, reliable performance information continues to grow, accompanied by the demands of increasingly stringent compliance legislation, many organizations are recognizing the indisputable importance of data quality. If performance management solutions are to be effective, it is imperative they be built on a foundation of high-quality data that delivers a single version of operational and financial performance. This is a non-negotiable requirement and it is the first metric that is fundamental to successful performance management deployments.