SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Column5 Consulting is pleased to announce its new benchmarking service for SAP's Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) customers! The company has created a customized way for businesses to effectively track and measure how they compare to other organizations in their use of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), providing them with key insights into how EPM delivers value through maximizing investments in people, process, and technology. Leveraging the comparative data, Column5 seeks to clearly illustrate the quality of an organization's deployment of SAP's BPC.

One of the leaders of the program, Rick Bryant (Senior Director-Center of Excellence), explained how important this service will be to companies of all sizes, saying, "One thing is clear when talking to customers about Enterprise Performance Management; everyone wants to know the same things. For example, how are others leveraging EPM solutions? What are the best practices? What is the appropriate ROI to be expected? The answer you get to any one of these questions depends on who you ask. And that is the challenge. There are no right answers to these questions, but there are insights to be gained from asking them. Today, there is no such forum for EPM practitioners to share information and learn from each other. Our goal with this new offering is to help companies do just that; gain a better understanding of how other companies are using and getting value out of their investments in Enterprise Performance Management so that they can make educated decisions on what EPM improvements will have the biggest impact. It is not about making blanket statements about what constitutes an ideal EPM process, but rather it is about providing the data points so that a company can decide what is best for them. "

The benchmarking service will kick off with two BPC focused studies aimed at delivering a comprehensive view of BPC. The first study will focus on BPC usage and the second focuses on performance.

The BPC Benchmarking Survey – Usage will concentrate on how companies are using BPC, what business processes is it used for, what functionality are they using, how BPC integrates with other solutions that can enhance the overall EPM process, how the application is maintained, how much it costs to maintain on a yearly basis, and more. This survey will also look to establish Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) benchmarks for BPC.

The BPC Benchmarking Survey – Performance will focus on the performance of BPC, with an attention to reporting and data submission performance. Column5 will look to identify what the key contributors to good and bad performance are across the customer base, as well as to establish benchmarks for performance based on these factors.

These surveys will be followed by an in-depth Enterprise Performance Management study, which is being authorized by Column5 and its partners at EPM International. Bryant states, "As someone who has worked with BPC for over fourteen years, I am excited to conduct a series of studies focused exclusively on BPC. To my knowledge there has never been such a study conducted, and I am sure the thousands of BPC customers out there would love to know, definitively, what their peers are doing with BPC." The questions on these surveys are strategically targeted - short, but comprehensive.

Through the BPC studies, Column5 will present a detailed picture of the environment, including processes and strategies being used. They will then create an extensive data set from the survey information that will be used to hone future benchmarking services. After the survey's completion, companies who participated will be given a copy of the whitepapers to view the results. The first survey is open for companies to participate in now, and the benchmarking service and survey results will be available in February 2015, coinciding with the company's EPM Leadership Summit. 

Column5 encourages all eligible organizations to participate. All individuals who participate in this study will be entered to win a free pass to the annual Column5 EPM Leadership Summit, being held at the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas from February 24-27, 2015, where the BPC survey results will be announced!

Click here to participate in the surveys.

CONTACT: Jami Giovannini, 480-779-6991, jgiovannini@column5.com

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SOURCE Column5 Consulting

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