Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and AI: Advisory & Integration

Machine Learning AI optimizes and automates budget forecasting. It reduces the workload of management control teams, accelerates the production of budget scenarios (optimistic, central and pessimistic) and improves planning reliability through the integration of internal and external data. Finance functions gain both speed and precision in their decision-making.

AI helps management control teams analyze financial data more precisely and more quickly: detecting hidden trends, identifying anomalies, and running advanced predictive analyses. With the arrival of generative AI, new use cases are emerging: chatbots capable of querying data directly in natural language, automated generation of financial reports, and explanation of detected variances with suggested analysis pathways.

AI transforms the way EPM models are built and maintained. It enables the automated translation of business rules into formulas, continuous model optimization to improve performance and robustness, reduced maintenance through low-code/no-code, and the ability to test and deploy complex scenarios much faster and at lower cost.

Finance functions are often at the heart of EPM projects, with needs around data reliability and harmonization to improve budgeting, forecasting and performance analysis processes. EPM centralizes information and ensures its accessibility across the entire organization.

For Supply Chain, EPM enables effective management by preventing stockouts, controlling costs, improving service quality while optimizing inventory and protecting revenue

On the Human Resources side, workforce cost planning is critical, as it represents a major financial challenge. EPM enables modeling of its impact on profitability and optimization of headcount management.

Through EPM, Sales functions can manage their sales performance and adjust their strategies in response to market developments, ensuring alignment with the organization's overall objectives.

For IT functions, EPM facilitates cost management, project prioritization and real-time IT performance monitoring, contributing to stronger security and optimization of technology resources.

Marketing functions benefit from EPM to measure campaign ROI and adapt to shifts in consumer preferences, while supporting revenue growth.

EPM tools also play a key role in addressing CSR challenges by facilitating the monitoring of ESG indicators and their integration into financial and non-financial reporting. With the entry into force of the CSRD, they offer a solution for bringing organizations into compliance.

Deploying an EPM tool enables organizations to better steer their strategy by aligning their financial and operational objectives. It improves visibility into performance, facilitates decision-making and optimizes financial management and operational planning processes. By using an EPM solution, companies gain the ability to more easily identify growth opportunities and cost optimization levers, significantly increasing their agility.

The main features of an EPM solution are:

• Planning and budgeting
• Financial consolidation
• Reporting and performance analysis
• Key performance indicator (KPI) management
• Financial and operational simulation and modeling
• Process automation

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is an integrated management system that automates the organization's operational processes (accounting, human resources, production, etc.), while EPM is focused on performance and strategic decision-making, drawing in particular on data from the ERP.