At the same time, according to Nigel Rayner of Gartner, those companies that "effectively deploy a Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solution will outperform their industry peers".

Rayner defines CPM as "an umbrella term for the methodologies, metrics, processes and systems used to monitor and manage an Enterprise's business performance".

Early attempts to understand what was going on inside an organisation were largely reporting tools based on financial ledgers.  These were useful but one-dimensional in only reflecting financial performance.

Later came systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management.  These provide a different perspective from financially based reports but are still limited in that they are largely transactional and provide a view of just one aspect of an organisation's performance.

Where CPM differs is in providing tools for the complete Management Cycle.  At the Planning stage, they provide the means of testing different strategic options, combining financial and non-financial information from a variety of sources.

At the Budgeting stage, CPM provides the means for distributed users to share information and consolidate, review and amend iterations of the plan quickly and efficiently.

Post-execution of the budgets and plans, CPM allows you to report the results soon after the event - knowing what you did last month is of little use in today's fast-moving markets.  Also, pre-defined reports are inadequate to identify and explain trends - CPM gives you "drill down" and "drill through" capability to see information in different ways.