Dans cette vidéo, découvrez comment les outils EPM (Enterprise Management Performance) vous accompagnent dans votre construction budgétaire, notamment grâce à l’automatisation, à l’IA et au prédictif. Vincent Suon, Manager de projets Finance chez Micropole, vous en dit plus sur cette composante phare du pilotage de la performance. Retrouvez également une démonstration réalisée par Maela Cochet – Consultante EPM chez Micropole, qui vous guidera dans la simplification et l’optimisation du processus de prédiction des ventes
This video demonstration is just a glimpse of all the features that EPM tools can bring to your performance management. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like an in-depth demonstration tailored to your needs. 
How can EPM tools automate your budget construction?
Automation, machine learning and AI are revolutionizing financial performance management and budget construction. They enable finance departments free up valuable time and resources by delegating repetitive, time-consuming tasks to automated systems: EPM tools. Data collection, validation and consolidationwhich are often the source of human error and delays, become faster and more reliable. The risk of errors is considerably reduced, improving operational efficiency and ensuring more accurate and consistent results.
Transparency and traceability of budgetary processes
By automating workflows, EPM tools enable companies to track every stage of the budgeting process in real time, facilitating internal and external audits. This increased transparency also enables greater compliance with financial regulations and reporting standards, ensuring that all budget data is accurate and verifiable.
Integration, centralization and collaboration
Automation, through an EPM tool, enables better integration and centralization of financial data. Information from different departments can be consolidated into a single platform, providing a complete and up-to-date overview of the company's financial situation. This centralization of data facilitates collaboration between teams, eliminates information silos and ensures that all stakeholders are working with the same up-to-date data.
One of the key challenges in budgeting is to improve collaboration between the company's various departments. EPM tools promote better communication and greater transparency by centralizing financial data and making it accessible to all departments. This enhanced collaboration facilitates the alignment of strategic and operational objectives, guaranteeing consistency in budget preparation.
Flexibility and agility
Automating budget construction also improves a company's flexibility and responsiveness. Automated systems can quickly adjust forecasts and budgets in line with new information or changing market conditions. This ability to rapidly adapt budget plans brings valuable agility and the ability to bounce back quickly if a change in strategy is required.
Integrating advanced technologies such as machine learning or AI helps identify trends by bringing real-time analysis, dynamic reporting and interactive visualizations, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making. This intelligence enables companies to forecast their revenues and expenses more accurately, thus optimizing their financial performance.
Forecasting and budget planning
Integrating predictive capabilities into budget planning enables accurate anticipation of future revenue and spending requirements. Using predictive models, companies can simulate various economic scenarios and assess the potential impact of different strategies. This proactive approach helps to minimize risks and maximize opportunities, providing a solid basis for informed decision-making.
Thanks to all these features, finance teams can concentrate on higher value-added tasks, such as strategic analysis and decision-making, while ensuring agile, responsive budget management.
What questions should be asked when deploying an EPM tool?
Deploying an EPM tool is strategic: to develop the right functionalities and use cases, you need to ask yourself a few questions. You can also enlist the support of qualified experts with in-depth knowledge of the functional domain, enabling you to develop an ideal model tailored to your company's specific needs.
Review of guiding questions :
- What are the priority issues you're seeking to resolve?
Focusing on issues rather than objectives enables you to think more broadly, and avoids jumping straight to solutions. Make a list of your priorities according to their impact on company performance.
- What processes do you need to define, specific to your issues?
These will serve as a basis for evaluating EPM tools and making an informed choice of the vendor best suited to your needs. You need to compare them through POCs (Proof of Concept). - How mature are you with regard to these processes?
Assess your current maturity with regard to performance management and financial processes to identify where improvements are needed. - How much of the process do you want to integrate into your EPM tool?
Your processes can be integrated as a whole, or in part. - Have you carried out a complete project scoping study?
Carrying out a scoping study enables you to identify areas of concern and risk, and to provide visibility. - How do you plan to support stakeholders in terms of change management?
A change management strategy is essential for large-scale projects: when a new tool is deployed, resistance may arise. The aim is to overcome this resistance by putting in place a strategy to reassure the employees concerned. - What are my data sources?
Identify all existing data sources, such as ERP systems, CRMs, spreadsheets and internal databases, to ensure complete and accurate integration of information. Your IT department may also have a role to play in helping you set up automatic data flows. - What analyses should my EPM tool generate?
Clearly define the types of analyses and reports that the EPM tool should generate, such as various reports, financial forecasts, dashboards... - What roles need to be defined?
Defining roles will enable the project to move forward. You can use the RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to define the roles and responsibilities of each collaborator involved. - Do you need expert support?
I can't describe what I need. If you're looking for support, we recommend that you choose a player who works with the various EPM software publishers. The aim is to have a certain neutrality and an objective opinion that the vendor itself or a pure-player would not have.
These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself before embarking on performance management with an EPM tool. Please note that these questions are not exhaustive, and may vary depending on the nature of your EPM project. For expert support in making your project a success, don't hesitate to contact us!
We now invite you to discover the demonstration of Maela Cochet, EPM Consultant at Micropole, and to think about how these principles can be applied in your own organization. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions! Good vision 
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