Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and AI: consulting and integration

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

AI helps management control teams analyze financial data more thoroughly and quickly: detection of hidden trends, anomaly identification, advanced predictive analyses. With the advent of generative AI, new use cases are emerging, including chatbots capable of querying data directly in natural language, automated generation of financial reports, and the explanation of detected variances with proposed avenues for analysis.

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 approaches, as well as the ability to test and deploy complex scenarios much faster and at a lower cost.

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

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

On the Human Resources side, payroll planning is crucial, as it represents a major financial challenge. EPM makes it possible to model its impact on profitability and optimize workforce management.

Through EPM, Sales Departments can monitor their sales performance and adjust their strategies in line with market developments, ensuring alignment with the company's overall objectives.

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

Marketing Departments benefit from EPM to measure campaign ROI and adapt to changes 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 companies' compliance requirements.

Deploying an EPM tool enables companies to better manage 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 are able to more easily identify growth opportunities and cost optimization levers, which considerably increases their agility.

The main features of an EPM solution are as follows:

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

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