Performance Management for the Business, Corporation, or Enterprise

by Brian J. Dooley

The performance management software sector has undergone considerable change during the past several years as it brings together technologies and concepts from enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and business intelligence (BI), but it has struggled to achieve a uniform definition. Today, three major categories are used to describe software in this area: business performance management (BPM), corporate performance management (CPM), and enterprise performance management (EPM). The differences among these concepts have all but disappeared as vendors and consultants have continued pushing the definitions. Although it would be reasonable to argue for an umbrella term, perhaps "integrated performance management," it appears at this point that BPM has a clear majority (though CPM is not too far behind).