IBM and Business Objects (which acquired Cartesis) call it BPM (Business Performance Management) which is the original acronym that Hyperion coined in 2003 (when it combined Analytic Applications with OLAP). It also stands for Business Performance Measurement, and Business Process Management – quite different from performance management. Oracle (which acquired Hyperion) and Accenture call it EPM (Enterprise Performance Management). Cognos, SAP (which acquired Outlooksoft), and Capgemini call it CPM (Corporate Performance Management). Deloitte calls it IPM (Integrated Performance Management).
Then there is the popular HR term: Performance Management (also WPM – Workforce Performance Management), quite different from what we’re talking about here. I’ve also seen SCPM (Supply Chain Performance Management) and Alistair Shaw of coOptimum has coined the term Team Performance Management (TPM) for a more granular level and says that BPM = CPM + TPM. I was at the 2007 Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in Chicago where Nigel Rayner said that EPM = CPM + Marketing PM, Sales PM, Contact Center PM, Employee PM, Product PM, and IT PM. Unless you adhere to one vendor’s story, the variety of points of view and lack of agreement can get pretty confusing.
What all of these acronyms are trying to convey is the idea of a management operating system -- including the people, processes, and tools & data -- to connect strategy with execution, to optimize resources and returns, and to align what is happening with what we want to happen in an organization.
At the Business Foundation, we use the term “xPM” to refer to the inclusion of all of the above ideas. We think the “x” can mean any letter used above (E, B, C, I) to encompass all of what the vendors do, and it can also mean "eXtended" in that it also encompasses things like Operational Business Intelligence, Enterprise Risk Management, Analytic Applications and other value-added management system solutions. More on this later.
Comments