 | | | | | | | | | Corporate performance management software moves beyond mere dashboards
| Christina Torode, Senior News Writer
Corporate performance management software is often just an executive dashboard front end to a data warehouse. Its value is that it lets executives see where they've been. But increasingly, these systems are taking on forecasting and modeling capabilities that, like a GPS system, can help steer the company to where it needs to go in a timely manner. Companies are already pushing corporate performance management (CPM) systems beyond executive dashboards to enable rapid changes in the business. Take Virgin Megastore in Los Angeles. The entertainment retailer built a data warehouse back in 2004 but recently launched a CPM system that tracks a range of performance indicators such as customer traffic, overall store sales and inventory. "We didn't try to create beautiful, fancy dashboards like you would for the CEO level," said Robert Fort, CIO at Virgin Entertainment Group Inc. "We realized that data is actionable at all levels of an organization. If we put data in the hands of the people on the floor, they can influence and change their results throughout the day."
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