Investing in Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software can help finance teams improve processes across consolidation, budgeting, forecasting, planning and reporting. However, securing investment requires more than identifying the limitations of your current systems.

A strong business case needs to demonstrate what needs to change, what the proposed solution will cost and, importantly, what measurable value it could deliver.

For organisations currently relying heavily on spreadsheets, manual data collection or disconnected finance systems, some benefits may be relatively easy to identify. Others, such as better access to information or greater confidence in reporting, can be harder to quantify.

Here are five areas to consider when building the business case for CPM software.

1. Establish the Total Cost of Ownership

Start by understanding the complete cost of introducing and operating the new CPM solution.

The initial software cost is only one part of the investment. Depending on the platform and scope of the project, costs may include:

• Software licences or subscriptions
• Implementation and consultancy
• Solution design and configuration
• Data cleansing and migration
• Integration with existing systems
• Training and knowledge transfer
• Internal project resource
• Change management

It is also important to consider ongoing costs rather than evaluating implementation expenditure in isolation. These might include software licensing, application support, infrastructure, internal administration and future system development.

Looking at costs over several years provides a more realistic Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and allows these costs to be compared with benefits over the same period.

2. Identify Measurable Financial Benefits

The next step is understanding where CPM software could deliver measurable improvements.

Start with the processes the proposed solution is intended to improve. For example, how much time does the finance team currently spend collecting information, maintaining spreadsheets, reconciling different versions of data or manually producing reports?

Potential measurable benefits could include:

• Reduced manual data collection and manipulation
• Less time spent reconciling information
• Faster consolidation and financial close processes
• Shorter budgeting and forecasting cycles
• Reduced report preparation time
• Less manual maintenance of spreadsheets
• Reduced duplication across finance processes
• Ability to manage increasing complexity without equivalent increases in manual workload

These benefits do not necessarily need to translate into headcount reduction.

In many cases, the greater value comes from changing how finance teams use their time. Reducing repetitive data preparation and reconciliation can allow people to spend more time analysing performance, investigating variances and supporting business decisions.

Establishing a baseline is important. If a budgeting cycle currently takes six weeks, for example, record that before implementation. Without a clear picture of the current process, demonstrating improvement afterwards becomes much harder.

3. Account for Benefits That Are Harder to Quantify

Not every benefit of CPM software can be converted neatly into a financial figure.

There may be significant value in improving the quality, consistency and accessibility of financial information even when that benefit cannot be attributed directly to a specific cost saving.

These benefits could include:

• Greater confidence in financial information
• Improved visibility across the organisation
• More consistent reporting
• Better auditability and control
• Reduced reliance on individual spreadsheets
• Improved collaboration between finance and other departments
• Greater ability to model different scenarios
• Faster access to information for decision-makers

Rather than assigning a monetary value to these benefits without a clear rationale, they can be included as qualitative factors within the wider business case.

It is better to present a smaller number of credible financial benefits alongside clearly defined strategic benefits than to inflate the projected ROI using assumptions that are difficult to defend.

4. Calculate ROI and Payback Period

Once the expected costs and measurable benefits have been identified, you can begin evaluating the financial case for investment.

A simple ROI calculation is:

ROI (%) = (Total Benefits − Total Costs) ÷ Total Costs × 100

For example, if a CPM project has a total cost of £200,000 over the period being assessed and is expected to generate £300,000 of measurable benefits:

ROI = (£300,000 − £200,000) ÷ £200,000 × 100 = 50%

However, ROI should not be considered in isolation.

Payback period can be equally useful because it shows how long it could take for the cumulative financial benefits to recover the initial investment.

It is also important to consider when benefits will materialise. Implementation costs are often concentrated towards the beginning of a project, whereas efficiency improvements may build gradually as the system is implemented and users become more familiar with new processes.

Creating conservative, expected and higher-benefit scenarios can provide a more realistic view than relying on a single ROI figure.

5. Consider Future Requirements and Scalability

A business case should not focus exclusively on today's problems.

Finance requirements change as organisations grow, acquire businesses, enter new markets or introduce different reporting and planning requirements.

Consider whether your existing processes and systems will be able to support:

• Additional entities or business units
• Increasing data volumes
• More detailed planning requirements
• More frequent forecasting
• New management reporting requirements
• Changes to accounting and regulatory requirements
• Acquisitions and organisational restructuring
• Greater demand for scenario modelling and analysis

This can change the business case significantly.

A spreadsheet-based process might remain workable today, for example, but become increasingly difficult to manage as the organisation adds entities, reporting requirements or planning complexity.

Upcoming requirements should also be considered where relevant.

For organisations preparing for IFRS 18, for example, changes to the presentation and disclosure of financial information may require updates to reporting structures, mappings and processes. IFRS 18 is effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

The question is therefore not simply whether a new CPM solution improves today's process, but whether it provides a stronger platform for future requirements.

Measuring ROI After Implementation

The business case should not disappear once the project has been approved.

The assumptions made before implementation can provide useful measures for assessing whether the project is delivering the expected results.

Depending on the objectives of the project, organisations could monitor:

• Time required to complete consolidation
• Length of budgeting and forecasting cycles
• Time spent preparing management reports
• Number of manual processes or spreadsheets
• Time spent reconciling data
• Frequency of forecasts
• User adoption
• Time available for analysis

Comparing these measures against the baseline established before implementation provides a clearer picture of the value being delivered.

It can also highlight where further optimisation, training or development could help the organisation get more from its investment.

Building the Business Case for CPM

The strongest CPM business cases start with the business problem rather than the technology.

Before selecting a platform, understand where existing consolidation, planning and reporting processes create unnecessary effort, risk or limitations. From there, organisations can determine which improvements matter most and build a realistic assessment of the costs and benefits.

The objective should not simply be to produce the largest possible ROI percentage. It should be to create a credible case for how CPM technology could improve finance processes and support the organisation's wider requirements.

How HAYNE Solutions Can Help

HAYNE Solutions works with finance teams to understand their existing consolidation, planning and reporting processes, identify opportunities for improvement and determine how technology can support their requirements.  Allied to this we have hands on practical experience of developing business cases for many different organisations that we can utilise to help prepare compelling board paper / investment proposals in support of your project.

With expertise across IBM Controller, IBM Planning Analytics and CCH® Tagetik, we can support organisations from initial requirements and solution selection through implementation, training and ongoing support.

Whether you are beginning to explore CPM software or already developing the business case for a specific project, understanding the potential value before making an investment is an important first step.