The goal of performance management is to help an organisation and its employees achieve high performance. High efficiency means meeting goals and exceeding set expectations related to productivity, quality, customer service, and profit growth.

Two basic technological elements are used to create the performance management system. The first component is infrastructure – a company’s data warehouse and the BI reporting and analysis systems it uses to support business decision making. Applications are the second component – upgrading the existing reporting infrastructure with specialized analytical applications that support specific analytical processes that are critical to the management of company results. Such applications include planning and budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and managing key performance indicators.

Performance management technologies, such as IBM Cognos Controller for financial consolidation systems, and TM1 for planning systems and KPI systems and profitability, are used as resources to define, monitor, visualize, and store methodologies, metrics, and processes. Companies can implement these methods to create an integrated portfolio of processes, architecture, and applications that enable them to respond more quickly to market opportunities and changes.