Fusionworks’ CPM Conference (September, 2015): Core Findings for Finance Professionals

I was honored to be invited to speak at Fusionworks’ conference on Corporate Performance Management (CPM) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fusionworks has always been a strong supporter of advancing CPM innovation and of Prophix.

It was a lively event where senior Finance professionals from across sectors – including telecommunications, hospitality and government – shared their evolving business priorities and how they operate in business environments that are dynamic and highly unpredictable.

Despite barriers initially caused by the multiple languages being spoken at the international event, there was an excellent exchange where all the attendees learned from one another about ways to help their organizations achieve their greatest potential.

Over the span of the session, the following themes were confirmed about the focus of Finance professionals:

Finance Professionals Focus on Enhancing Agility
Ambitious organizations from across the globe are enthusiastically embracing solutions that help them make better and faster decisions as well as act upon them. As a result, whether they are motivated by the need to stay ahead of competitors or the drive to lead their industries, every member of the C-suite is taking on the responsibility to ensure their organization is nimble.

Certainly, one of the focal points for enhancing agility is tapping into the wealth of insights captured in function-rich Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. However, for those organizations that find it difficult to sustain the resources required to configure, deploy, and fully leverage ERP solutions, Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software provides an exciting and proven path to growth.

Finance Professionals Focus on Ensuring Control
In exploring new ways to optimize their core processes and their most critical decisions, senior Finance professionals are astute and well-informed on the topic of data security as it relates to their organizations. As a result, their conversations about security are far more sophisticated than ever. At the core of today’s discussions about security is the need to ensure that an organization maintains control over its data because doing so effectively limits and reduces risk.

Finance Professionals Focus on Optimizing I.T
Finance professionals choose CPM software to improve their decision making in part because it allows their IT professionals to focus on solving I.T issues – rather than on how to configure, deploy or use Finance-empowering software. At the same time, because Finance professionals are technically savvy, they have come to expect CPM software that is easy to use, relevant for their organizations, and able to evolve as business conditions change.

On behalf of myself and Prophix, many congratulations to Fusionworks for hosting such a successful and worthwhile event.