Stepping Up Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) with Power BI and Acterys

Summary

In this edition, we will be covering the following items:

1. The challenges managing the enterprise without high-quality reporting and planning tools

2. Understanding the use case for implementing an EPM dashboard

3. Roadmap to creating your own EPM tooling with Power BI and Acterys

Navigating Without a Map: Decision-Making Without EPM Tooling

The leadership team’s primary goal is to develop strategic objectives and drive effective action to achieve the company’s goals. But many companies, large and small, face a daunting challenge: bridging the gap between strategic imperatives and boots-on-the-ground reality. Operating a growing enterprise without the right management tools can be exhausting:

1. No Standardized Definition of Objectives: Strategic initiatives are owned by different executives with different management styles. Some objectives are quantified, and others are not. Different departments may be working on duplicative efforts, while other key initiatives have no clear owner. Teams across the business are working hard on their goals, but work is done in silos and without a cohesive sense of the big picture to ensure cohesiveness of work across the organization.

2. No Centralized Tracking of Data: Senior leadership does not have a clear, centralized picture into operations across departments, locations, and business units. Cross-functional initiatives are very management intensive, with collaboration requiring constant back-and-forth. Data is collected manually in numerous formats and then compiled manually for management reports (MBRs, QBRs).

3. Difficult to Measure Effectiveness of Actions: Without a centralized source of truth tying specific actions and initiatives to specific objectives, it becomes very difficult for management to “steer” the enterprise. What initiatives are driving results? What should the team do more (or less) of? What action items are on track and what is behind schedule?

Finding Your North Star: Enterprise Performance Management Dashboards in Action

Building a high-quality EPM dashboard empowers your leadership team to make data-driven decisions, drive action across the organization, and assess performance. The goal of these tools is to shorten the feedback loop between management decisions and business results. Having a clear roadmap to the process is critical to success:

1. Define Your Ownership Structure: Before any technical work on the solution can begin, your team needs to be clear on “ownership structure”. Your leadership team needs to name the managers and executives who will be responsible for delivering outcomes by department and business unit. These individuals will come together to form a central committee, where initiatives are coordinated, ownership is assigned, and accountability is held.

2. Define Your Goals: Each organizing unit (department, business unit, location, etc.) must define measurable objectives with clear deadlines. These objectives should be cross-calibrated with the rest of the leadership team to ensure:

   1. Every goal is justified and ties to overall strategy

   2. Every goal has an owner and a measurable objective

   3. Where there is shared responsibility, all owners are identified

3. Define and Assign the Inputs: Your team must define the tasks that need to be executed to achieve the objective. Each of these tasks needs to be assigned to an accountable individual.

4. Meet Regularly to Ensure Accountability: Establish a regular cadence of meetings where the leadership team can assess the effectiveness of the actions being taken based on the results delivered. These meetings will shine a light on “un-owned” initiatives and incomplete action items.

Building Your Own EPM Dashboard with Power BI

With the right tools, creating an effective and robust management dashboard can be quite straightforward. The goal is to reverse engineer the management process we are trying to support and work backwards from that desired goal:

1. Create an “Input” Page for Goal Setting and Ownership: Using Power BI and Acterys, your team can create a simple interface to enter major objectives and quantifiable sub-goals directly from the dashboard. All users can have access to one central report but can be limited to entering and viewing only their own objectives. The centralized inputs page can also be used to directly add commentary and status updates to enrich the data. Automated approval workflows allow you to implement controls and governance. This page can be your central planning resource for your management team.

2. Source “Actuals” (Results) Data: Your team can source and connect to actuals data to tie to each target (KPI). This will help to clearly highlight how much progress has been made towards each objective and where there remains work to be done.

3. Generate Management Reports: Analytics pages tie “inputs” (action items) to “outputs” (results). This is where the in-depth analysis can be performed to assess the effectiveness of the actions being taken and tighten the feedback loop between management and operations teams. Quantifiable goals and input actions empower your management team to identify and double-down on the most effective drivers of results.

OKRs: Bringing Structure to Business Goals

Built into your management dashboard, your team can structure goal setting across the organization with effective frameworks like OKRs. OKRs are comprised of objectives and key results:

1. Objectives: These are clear, qualitative goals for the organization.

   1. Example: Increase revenue from existing customers.

2. Key Results: These are specific, measurable outcomes that indicate progress towards the goal.

   1. Example: Increase customer lifetime value (CLTV) by 20%.

3. One Step Further with Action Items: Tie each key result (KR) to a set of action items and owners for each.

   1. Example: Establish proactive customer touchpoints on a quarterly basis.

By tying action items to specific measurable key results, you can set your team up for success, “stacking” up action items and key results until the objective is complete.

Putting it All Together with Power BI: Getting the Big Picture

Creating a robust enterprise performance management dashboard can help your team provide structure and accountability to the goal setting process. By closing the loop between management decisions and action items (and their owners), your leadership team can target the most effective initiatives and replicate them across the organization.

In the Next Newsletter

We will be learning about Power Automate and its use cases for FP&A teams.