I've been blog-tagged!

Well, last week I received an email from Frank Buytendijk. What could it be? A new million-dollar lead for our Hyperion Practice? He won the lottery and wanted to share a million or so with us? Nothing of that, it was something more shocking. I had been tagged by Frank. Blog-tagged to be precise. I had never heard of blog-tagging before but a quick look at the Wikipedia learned me the first definition (in the Wikipedia) was from september 2006.
The idea is, just like at cocktail parties to share something that most people wouldn't know about you. I tried to track back the line to the first blogger who started this intiatieve. I found out it was Jeff Pulver. However it turned out not to be that easy to track whole line. A short investigation produced the following result.
The link from Frank Buytendijk (Hyperion) goes back to Andy Bitterer from Gartner. Andy received his invitation from Dave Yockelson who is a member from the META Group. From there on I lost track. However a nice overview of bloggers who played this game can be found at The Blog Tag Tree. Unfortunately the list is not up to date.

Okay, now let's start with a list of five things about our CPM-practitioners most people don't know (or don't want to know ha ha ha). You can use this photo to obtain a visual of the cpm-practitioner or just have a look at his blogger profile.

1. Let's first start with myself. Before I joined Deloitte I was in the Graduate Programe Economics & Finance at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. As you all know, studying cost a lot of money so I needed a job on the side! I applied for a job at the Baja Beach Club. What can I say about it? Just check the link and you will find out why it's so hilarious. In the picture mentioned before I am the guy to the left on the lower row.
2. Let's move on to Bart van Onzen. Funny thing about Bart is he likes R&B clubs, however he doesn't like the R&B music itself. So it's for each of you to decide what he likes. It has something to do with girls (sorry Bart). Bart is the fourth guy from the left at the upper row.
3. Rutger van den Berg has a couple of funny things, however, I will not mention all of them. Some things are not really professional (or I am wrong Rutger ha ha ha). When Rutger was a student he wore a mullet (long hair till his shoulders - Business upfront, Party in the Back!). Before Rutger was a student he worked for the Secret Service (back then he was just fifteen). He retired from active duty at the age of twenty. The reason he retired was his addiction to chocolate, which can be a pain in the ass during a stake-out! Rutger is the first guy from the right at the upper row.
4. Now we are talking about addictions, it's time to introduce Damien Wiegman. Damien always looks like he just came back from holiday. Completely (well, completely I don't know actually!) tanned and always ready for a party. The tanning center is really happy to have him as a customer. Damien addiction is for sure the tanning studio. Damien is the second guy from the left at the lower row. As you can see on the picture he took a head-shot during the paintball session.
5. Last but not least is Edwin van den Broek. I know Edwin from the time I just started at Deloitte. At that time he was driving an small car (Opel Corsa), he was working at big project at Delta Nuts (a energy company in Middelburg) and living in Utrecht. He was renovating his house so he decided to drive back and forward each day. At night time he was renovating his house and with a few hours sleep he went back to Middelburg. So Edwin was driving a little bit less than 400 km each day. You can check out his route description at Google Maps. Edwin is the guy to the left at the lower row.

So enough funny details about our CPM-practitioners. Now it's my time to tag some bloggers.

1. Ron Tolido
2. Dan Bricklin
3. Martin Kloos (dutch only)
4. Big Four Alumni
5. Roberdan

Okay guys: TAG! You're it now...

14th International XBRL Conference – Philadelphia, PA

Nearly 500 attendees from diverse segments of the business, government, and academic communities met in Philadelphia last week for the 14th International XBRL Conference, evidence of the positive momentum and great interest in XBRL among regulators, accounting standard setters, analysts and the public and private sectors across the globe. The city of Philadelphia set an appropriate backdrop for a theme of revolutionary times, relevant today to the XBRL phenomenon and its potential global impact on capital markets, financial and business reporting, and business transformation.

Deloitte is playing an active and increasing role in XBRL on a global scale because of its importance to our clients and the potential effect that it will have on the external audit and other services that we provide. We were a platinum sponsor of the Philadelphia conference with significant presence, including presentations from leadership, technical training, and Deloitte representation from North America, Europe, and Australia.

Key Speakers
Bob Kueppers, Deputy CEO, Deloitte USA LLP, joined a host of financial industry luminaries to address the plenary session, including leaders of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), International Federation of Accountants (IAFC), Bank of Spain and, from the United States: the SEC, FDIC, FASB, FAF, and the AICPA. Bob believes that XBRL can play a key role in helping companies meet the challenges of managing their businesses and evolving reporting and regulatory requirements. “(XBRL) facilitates reporting information for multiple purposes, which is critical in the current environment of multi-GAAP reporting, overlapping regulatory requirements and dynamic internal reporting needs. It provides the platform for truly integrated reporting, bringing financial, risk and control, and operational information together.”

Bob spoke about the impact of XBRL on the profession. “We need to make sure we understand and are prepared for the potential effect of XBRL in conducting audits, by asking ourselves: What will we be auditing in the future? (We know we will be providing assurance on financial statements filed in XBRL – what about other business information?) How will we execute our audits in an XBRL reporting environment? How can the ability to transfer XBRL data without manual re-entry be used to improve the audit trail? How can the power and flexibility of XBRL be used to develop better audit tools? In the future, will auditors be auditing the financial statements OR will we be auditing the process by which statements are prepared?”

Bob also called for the profession and all stakeholders to “take the lead in driving XBRL forward, playing an active role in shaping the future of business reporting, and dramatically shorten the time that it takes for investors, regulators, public companies and the accounting profession to reap the benefits of these powerful new ideas. “

A transcript of Bob’s speech can be found at: https://www.deloitteresources.com/pgContent.aspx?cid=240053

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox was the keynote speaker at the conference. The SEC has been redoubling efforts to get U.S. companies to use XBRL in financial statements. Chairman Cox reiterated that the SEC is working to accelerate the development of U.S. GAAP taxonomies and is committed to their completion by mid-2007. This major undertaking, in which Deloitte is becoming involved, will result in a fully functional U.S. GAAP taxonomy that will support financial statement filings by this time next year.

Reconciling differences between U.S. and international accounting standards is another area where Cox expects interactive data to be helpful. “It's easy to imagine more that the world can do with this powerful new capability… It is already possible to imagine that XBRL taxonomies — written without bias toward any particular set of accounting rules — could be used to instantly translate any given set of financial data from one accounting system to another.”

Chairman Cox also commented on the effects of XBRL on our profession. “I want to commend the XBRL International Assurance Working Group, which met at the World Congress of Accountants in Istanbul last month, and will meet again here on Thursday. The Working Group is absolutely right to consider how the adoption of XBRL might improve the audit process. Just last month, in a report issued at the Global Public Policy Symposium in Paris, six of the world's top accounting firms extolled the benefits of XBRL, and firmly stated their belief that its adoption will significantly lower both internal and external audit costs.” (This report can be found at: http://www.xbrl.org/Announcements/Interactive-Data-Assurance-2006-11-10.pdf)
A full transcript of Chairman Cox’s speech can be found at http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2006/spch120506cc.htm

The Deloitte Exhibit
At the Deloitte conference booth we provided practical demonstrations to showcase the technology we’re already using around XBRL. Two tools were featured. The Deloitte Radar (DDAR) pilot tool which benchmarks financial information using XBRL data, and begins to bring the idea of XBRL as an integral part of the audit approach. One of our member firms, Deloitte Australia, is developing and presented a tool to support an online service that will be made available to small and medium sized companies in Australia. Through this tool, companies provide their financial data that is then converted to XBRL to meet a variety of external filing requirements or for internal consolidation.

XBRL Technical Training
Yossef Newman, Deloitte Project Manager for XBRL and Jeff Hansen, AERS, delivered a full day technical training program, "Preparing XBRL Financial Reports". This XBRL International certified course introduced participants to basic XBRL concepts and common XBRL report editing tools, and included hands on exercises in the preparation of XBRL based financial reports.

For more information regarding the 14th International XBRL Conference, please visit the website at http://conference.xbrl.org/ The 15th International XBRL Conference is scheduled to be held in Munich, Germany in June 2007.

Deloitte’s leadership role in this important gathering is noteworthy, and consistent with the position we are taking, both in the U.S. and globally, in the XBRL initiative. Though we can’t be sure of the pace of its adoption, the conference underscored for me the fact that we are at a critical point in time where we must recognize the importance of XBRL to our business. The impact that it might have on reshaping our business models for auditing and the services that we provide to both attest and non-attest clients requires a rapid response and increasing involvement on our part. When we also consider the demands that are potentially at hand from the regulators, and the needs of our clients who are pursuing various uses of XBRL, our mandate for action becomes clear.

CPM in the Financial Services Industry

Last week I attended the Deloitte FSI Practitioners Day, a meeting of Deloitte professionals working in the Financial Services Industry. I was invited to make a presentation on the relevance of CPM for companies in the financial services industry (banking, insurance, hedge funds, pension funds etc.). I posed the statement that CPM in today’s business environment is mission-critical for the financial services industry. A number of observations led me to this conclusion.

First of all, despite the number of challenges facing the industry, opportunities for growth are plentiful – particularly through expansion in new markets, technology and personalization to enhance customer relationships and new products and advisory services to meet the needs of retiring baby-boomers.

To grow, the financial services industry needs to address a number of issues. First, spurred by falling cross-border investment barriers, financial services companies will expand abroad by acquiring or merging with companies in other countries. Banks are moving away from traditional outsourcing toward captive operations or a mix of captive and outsourced functions. China will be a critical market, but presents geopolitical risks and structural market challenges. Second, slow growth in existing markets will push financial services companies to reconnect with customers through a combination of state-of-the-art technology and personal service. Third, in an increasingly strict regulatory environment, financial services companies must adopt a principles-driven approach to policies, standards and systems to ensure compliance. Fourth, financial services companies now view operational and reputational risk to be greater concerns than market, credit and liquidity risk. Data privacy and security have become hot issues and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Fifth, an aging population will continue to drive the development of financial products and services targeted to older customers.

To survive in this dynamic, turbulent and competitive environment, companies in the financial services industry need to create a sustainable competitive advantage. This requires the right size. Size offers a way to capture economies of scale and deliver products more efficiently. US banking consolidation may have largely run its course, but Europe’s has barely begun, and the potential for cross-border consolidation has risen dramatically. Second, service matters – and technology offers a cost-efficient way to offer customers more convenience, value and the “mass personalization” necessary to build loyalty. Third, to improve compliance quality while holding down costs, financial services companies must be able to combine a top-down principles-based approach with enough flexibility to adapt to local regulations. Related to the compliance issue is the need to guard against operational glitches that could damage the bank’s reputation. Finally, financial services companies are facing an imperative to develop specialized products and advisory services aimed at an older population.

In short, to be succesful, financial services companies need to have a clear strategic focus based on challenging growth objectives, cost reduction initiatives, operational excellence, and customer centricity.

The CFO will play an important role in developing and executing this strategy. The traditional roles of the CFO are to balance capabilities, costs and service levels to fulfill the finance organisation’s responsibilities, and to protect and preserve the assets of the organisation. CFO’s today however, feel more pressure than ever to provide financial leadership in determining strategic business direction and align financial strategies, and to stimulate behaviors across the organisation to achieve strategic and financial objectives.

One of the key ways for the CFO to play his role as a strategist and catalyst is corporate performance management. By improving the connection between strategic initiatives and business plans, and by enhancing the planning process to increase collaboration in budgeting and forecasting, CFO’s provide strategic leadership. They act as catalysts of organizational change by promoting predictive analysis instead of backward looking, and by creating an integrated performance scorecarding and reporting process. It’s because of this contribution to the CFO’s role as strategist and catalyst, that CPM is becoming mission-critical for the financial services industry.

The Future Of Company Reporting Looks Bright!

Last week at the Global Public Policy Symposium in Paris, the CEOs from the largest professional services firms presented a united vision proposal for the profession and the future of financial reporting.

The paper was developed in an effort to focus discussion on issues that directly affect the services provided by professional services firms. The symposium participants included the senior leadership from BDO International, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, as well as an array of regulatory officials and investors from around the world.


As you might imagine, the vision paper and symposium attracted heavy media coverage. The CEOs signed an op-ed piece about their shared vision that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. All CEOs participated in media interviews for CNN International business, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. By working together, the CEOs are helping to shape public opinion about issues that will map the future of company reporting.

I think this is good news if you take Corporate Performance Management seriously. Why? Well first of all, because this will help to improve the quality and usefulness of company reporting. Thanks to Internet and digitization, information will become more of a commodity product, that stakeholders can customize and consume the way they want it. For example, some investors may want to know about the earnings, cash flows, and perhaps other variables for a company currently and over some past period. Others may want each of these variables compared to other companies in the same industry or a similar “peer group”, or compared to averages for the market as a whole (or some portion thereof).

Second, it is directed at improving the frequency of company reporting. Why, in a world where most public companies’ financial records are, or soon will be, in digitized form, should investors and other parties have to wait a full quarter to receive pertinent financial information? Technology allows far more frequent reporting, even daily, although with different levels of assurance about its accuracy than for financial statements that are subject to regular audits.

Last but not least, this vision is aimed at providing more qualitative and non-financial information that helps stakeholders to understand how businesses perform in the future. Yet financial statements are backward looking documents. They tell how a company has performed in some recent period. Perhaps some of the information contained in the financials is indicative of future performance, but much of it is not.

Instead, non-financial measures like innovative success, customer satisfaction, product or service defects or awards, and employee satisfaction would provide powerful incentives to corporate executives to manage their companies in ways that benefit not only their shareholders, but their employees, customers and the wider economies in which they conduct business. In particular, companies that look likely to prosper but in fact may be in trouble would have stronger incentives to take corrective action sooner than otherwise. Conversely, companies whose prospects are really brighter than current financial data may indicate may not be penalized by investors, and thus find it easier to borrow funds for expansion, to retain or expand their customer base, and to retain or recruit new employees.

In short, the new reporting model should be more useful to stakeholders, more frequent, and help in predicting future company performance. It will impact the way executives manage their businesses, lead to a convergence of internal management information and external reporting, and will leverage existing CPM systems and developing technologies like XBRL.

If the leaders of the big international audit networks succeed in bringing their vision to life, this might very well be the next wave after compliance and IFRS. And this time, it appears to be one that will really benefit both internal and external information producers and consumers. And I think that’s really good news!

CPM: mission critical for your organization?

From 1 until 3 November Cannes (France) was the venue of the Outlooksoft European User Forum 2006. Within the sunny and beautiful surroundings of the Cote d' Azur there were numerous opportunities to meet Outlooksoft customers, Outlooksoft partners and Outlooksoft employees. Central theme during the conference was the presentation of Outlooksoft’s latest product: Outlooksoft 5 .

Outlooksoft 5 promises to offer ever increasing powerful CPM solutions based on continuous technological innovations and active incorporation of customer feedback. Unique focus is given on the planning and the predictive analytics that Outlooksoft 5 offers to its clients. Or as Outlooksoft CEO Phil Wilmington formulates it: “The ability to be a predictable enterprise in today’s market is mission critical.”

But what does this mean mission critical? A company’s mission states why the company exists (raison d’être) and what it wants to achieve on the short to mid term. Hence, a mission has something to do with a company’s strategy and its performance. So CPM is critical for the performance of organizations? Let’s find out!

In today’s global, turbulent and dynamic marketplace more and more flexibility and transparency is asked of organizations. Shareholders want to receive maximal value for their investments. Governments and legal bodies ask for increasing accountability of past and present results. Market barriers decline resulting in increasing competition. Customers expect ever more value for their money.
To cope with the increasing complexity of the marketplace managers feel the need for timely and relevant information which enables them to make the right decision on the right time. Achieving a sustainable competitive advantage demands insight and forward visibility to the business.

With the integration of financial and operational information, compliance orientated features, workflow controls, predictive analysis capabilities and the integration of Business Process Flow (BPF) technology CPM solutions are more and more meeting the demands of the competitive marketplace. CPM should not only address retrospective financial accountability and compliance. The capability to transform financial, operational and strategic information into reliable and timely predictive analysis will revolutionize the way organizations compete.

Successful CPM implementations align and streamline processes and systems starting with the company’s strategy. Goal of the implementation should be to offer a tailored and unique solution meeting the demands of the local marketplace and the company’s ambitions. Investing in the necessary systems and CPM tools is therefore just one part of the implementation. More important is how you organize and translate your information needs across the processes and systems. Hence, a successful CPM implementation does not just mean joining the bandwagon.
Unique solutions will offer organizations the opportunities for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. When implemented successfully CPM can help companies achieve goals, quantify success, effectively allocate resources, chart the continuing course and give accurate predictions for future investments. CPM can offer the critical information to outperform your competitors.

Is CPM mission critical for your organization? I reckon it is!

Corporate Performance Management Conference: TakeAways

Last thursday we attended the Annual Corporate Performance Management Conference which was held last in Noordwijkerhout last thursday. After arriving fashionably late and a rebuke of the organisation (thanks Danja!) the congres turned out to be a great succes. Our Deloitte stand had a big part in this succes.

A few takeaways sticked in our memory which we would gladly share with you.

• At Trespa they keep their managers eager by displaying, every day, a KPI dashboard which directly relates to their bonus. And if the dashboard is offline for a second the managers start complaining (even in the weekends)!
• Why do you need 98 KPI's to manage a company while you can fly a Boeing by just ten indicators? However you will need correct data to support your KPI's! Did you ever fly with a Boeing with an altimeter (altitude indicator) saying 3000 feet while you were flying 30 feets above the grounds? Arnold Pureveen (De Alliantie) likes to call it the Duck Theory (whatever that may mean). We like to say: "Just KISS" (KISS: Keep It Simple and Sound).
• 'Just do it' is not only known as Nike's motto it is also the corporate CPM phylosophy of Arcelor Mittal. When they take-over new companies they just say: ''deliver the necessary information; incompleteness and incorrectness is of later concern''. This makes it possible for Mittal to fully integrate new companies in their Planning & Control cycle within a month. This effective strategy only works for large companies where small companies have no material impact.
• Child Care is a hot issue in the dutch society. A few years ago it was more or less like a 'soft' sector in Holland. Nowadays big controllers and financial directors are switching to this sector to give it the necessary professionalism. A great example is Wim Westerink from SKON. First the financial man at Mexx Europe, now one of the leading persons behind one of the biggest (within a few months the biggest if we may believe Wim Westerink) child care organisation in the Netherlands.
• The winner of the CPM Award 2006 is Tjero Zomer (CFO at Transavia.com). Performance Management is one of the main foundations of the operational management at Transavia. This year Transavia closed their books (including IFRS adjustments) within five days. This is a textbook example of what we call at Deloitte 'A Fast Close' and a perfect benchmark for other companies in the sector.
• Due to a fever Dennis van der Geest was unable to attend. Cor, his father replaced him. Cor has been very succesful as a coach for different judokas. He gave the audience his point of view on 'how to manage performance'. He illustrated this by lively examples and made clear that to be successful you need a leader that can inspire.

How to implement CPM projects succesfully?

The Standish Group reported in 1994 (the Chaos-report) that a third of all ICT-related implementations failed or were cancelled. Recent research (Ernst & Young) shows that six out of ten ICT-related projects go wrong, despite the fact that organizations have learned to work thematically and Prince2 has been generally accepted as the project management methodology.

That many CPM-implementation projects do not deliver on time, within approved budget and expected quality is no surprise to me, what is more surprinsingly is the fact that the problem is seen as a managerial problem (Prince2). I believe that the main problem is caused by a lack of understanding of the impact and preconditions of any kind of ICT-implementation project. The characteristics of any ICT-implementation project is that they are once-only, commitment sensitive and that they have a major impact on the way 'things are done'. In our CPM practice we do not soley trust on Prince2; we also believe that for a successful implementation the client has to go through different stages of what we call the 'Implementation Compass’.
The Implementation Compass is based on the following four parts: the house, the clockwork, the clockface and the direction indicator. Leadership is 'the house' for every implementation project. It is the basis for present and future success. Leadership has to be present in every stage of the implementation project. Without leadership the project will surely fail. Program management is the clockwork. It connects the house (leadership) with the clock face (the position within the implementation project). The clock face dictates the position within the implementation project. It gives the steps that have to be taken. The direction indicator shows which activities per stage have to be undertaken by the client. A short summay of the Implementation Compass is given below.

Leadership is not the same as project or program management. Leadership exists out of a number of steps that are necessary to realize change succesfully. Leadership defines how the future looks like, aligns people with that vision and inspires people to achieve that vision despite the obstacles.

To align Leadership with the four stages of an implementation project, program management can be necessary when the implementation project is strategic or when the change is extensive or has to be achieved under time pressure.

Ambition level (from East to South). The business case has to give a clear answer on what the advantages are, not only measured in financial terms but also in qualitative tems. It should also state the vision on CPM over the next 3 - 5 years. The next step is to test the whole business case on achievability (a sanity check) per year and phase. The last step is communication. Always make sure that everyone involved directly and indirectly is informed on the advantages and expectations (explain the Why and What).

Software selection (from South to West). In this stage it is necessary to measure what the track record is of the suppliers on the short list. How proven is their technology and what is the response time and qualtity of support? And finally always make sure to make profound legal contracts with supplier and internal ICT-department. In these contracts make clear what the tasks, responsibilities and authorizations are for all involved parties. Make also sure what the consequences financially are for all parties involved in the situation of no compliance to the agreement.

Project Organisation (from West to North). The project organisation has to achieve the intended advantages of the business case. The client has to create a task force kind of project team, for every role determine the tasks and responsibilities and appoint champions with enough reputation to get things done.

Implementation (from North to East). Implementation knows the following standard phases. Scope, planning and functional and technical design, building and testing, training and support go-live. During the implementation, configuration of the application management organisation is an aspect that needs special attention. The specific point where you put the "border" between the system-related responsibilities of accounting and those of IT is to a large extent arbitrary and can therefore vary from one implementation to the next, but the key criteria we use are:
1. The faster the response required, the more the support needs to sit with accounting.
2. The more technical the type of issue, the more it needs to sit with IT.

For all stages within the Implementation Compass we have developed multiple check lists that are easy use. We use it as an evaluation tool for CPM implementations, but also as a tool to guide the client through this difficult change process.

Author: Edwin van den Broek (edvandenbroek@deloitte.nl)

What does the P in CPM really stand for?

At the start of any CPM initiative, the future tends to look bright for everybody involved. There is great vision and leadership, major benefits to be achieved, and the best possible software to support the initiative.

After a few months however, the initial enthusiasm usually begins to decrease. Senior executives have new issues to worry about, project team members are swamped with everyday routines, and the software appears to be unable to fulfil all requirements. The project that was so well managed in the beginning is now merely muddling through. New requirements are creeping into scope, the software is being tweaked to the max and beyond, and the original strong vision seems to be long forgotten.

But a few project trips, some executive pep talk, several stiff conversations, and a lot of hard work later, the project is finally ready to 'go live'. All is well that ends well! Or is it? Finance staff now seems to be having a lot of issues getting their data into the new system. Remote locations can't even connect. Producing reports is taking longer then ever before. The system keeps crashing for no apparent reason. It is slowly becoming clear what the P in CPM really stands for...managing the performance of the CPM system.

The first step is usually to perform some stress and performance testing, remove a few obvious bottlenecks and simpy upgrade the hardware. Most of the times this is not enough. As the systems grows over time, new performance issues arise that prove even more difficult to resolve. Improving performance is a war that has to be fought on several frontlines at the same time. More than a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure, it involves hard decisions on the architecture of the whole CPM system, trading off functionality with performance, changes to the process and organization underlying the CPM system, and, yes, some more stiff conversations.

In hindsight it is always easy to explain the poor performance. It usually comes down to taking more time to think things through at the start. Are all the must-have requirements really that critical? What else do we want from the system after the initial implementation? What is the simplest way to start? Why don’t we say goodbye to some of the dysfunctional practices that have developed over the years? These are not easy questions to answer. But answering them is critical to the ultimate success of the CPM initiative.

To end this blog on a positive note: there are a lot of experienced people out there that can help you in answering these questions, and making your CPM future look brighter.

Corporate Performance Management. Not just an ordinary blog!

Let's hope this posting will last a bit longer than the previous two. After all, it turned out not to be that easy to start a blog about Corporate Performance Management (CPM) written by consultants from Deloitte The Netherlands. Just to set everything straight. All the information in this blog is written from our personal point of view and does not always have to match with the Deloitte point of view.

First, let’s do a short introduction on Corporate Performance Management. The definition of corporate performance management (CPM) has remained consistent since industry analysts Gartner Research introduced CPM in 2001. "CPM is an umbrella term that describes all of the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage the performance of an organization." More about the definition of CPM can be found in: "Gartner Research, Magic Quadrants for CMP Suites:No Dramatic Movement in 2004". But for now I will not further introduce the concept of CPM. There are a lot of great websites which explain fully the concept and processes of CPM.

At Deloitte the term CPM is not commonly used. Deloitte likes to call it Integrated Performance Management. However I would like to use the term CPM (instead of BPM – Business Performance Management; EPM – Enterprise Performance Management or, like they call it at Deloitte, IPM) because nowadays most people simply use the term CPM. Probably in a couple of years there will be an other definition. We will see.

So, what’s this blog all about. Well, as you all (probably) know at Deloitte we have a great global CPM practice. In the UK and Canada, Deloitte is a visionary and leading partner with respect to CPM implementations. Also in The Netherlands the CPM practice is growing fast the last couple of years. We like to describe ourselves as “Business Consultants with the Ability to Execute”. We have a great vision with respect how to manage your performance within an organisation. However, besides writing nice reports, we also have the knowledge and the skills to translate this vision into an high performance system which can support CPM processes. And this are not just empty words, we are also recognized by the market for our approach.

Goal is to publish a posting every week which is written by a CPM-consultant from our practice. Postings can be about new trends or articles, but also just ordinary, funny, real-life stories we experience every day at our clients. Because it’s really true. Consultancy @ Deloitte: the best job there is!

Please feel free to leave comments on this blog or to contact one of the authors by email.