Selecting a Scalable, High-Performance EPM System

When you’re first getting started, ensure that your EPM system is designed for high performance and scalability and that you won’t outgrow your next EPM system.

A mistake that many organizations make is selecting an entry-level EPM solution that meets current requirements but provides limited functionality and scalability to meet future ones.  The system is quickly outgrown. Thus, the organization needs to replace it and implement another solution, which takes up valuable time, resources, and budget.

In some more recent articles, I’ve highlighted how the adoption of cloud-based EPM solutions is rapidly increasing.  In an article titled “Cloud-Based EPM – The Time Has Come,” I discussed the benefits organizations are gaining from cloud-based EPM solutions:

• Deployments are faster.
• Costs are lower.
• Innovations come faster.
• The cloud is more secure than on-premises systems.

And more recently, I highlighted how Nucleus Research found that the cloud delivers 1.7 times more ROI than on-premises applications. The advantages and business case for cloud-based EPM are clear.  But what should you look for in a cloud-based EPM suite to ensure your organization doesn’t outgrow the solution?  What type of architecture ensures the scalability and availability of the solution?

 A Scalable, High-Performance, Cloud-Based Architecture

Planful recently published a white paper that documents the key architectural and technology advantages of our cloud-based EPM suite. These advantages deliver the required performance and scalability that our customers demand to meet current and future needs.  Here’s a brief summary:

• Three-Tier, Multitenant Cloud Architecture – all customers share a single, common code line and scalable, elastic infrastructure.  This approach also ensures that version upgrades and service fixes are applied simultaneously to the production environment for all customers
• High-Performance Data Management Layer – here we employ a “fit-for-purpose” approach using multiple database technologies.  Relational, OLAP, and NoSQL databases are leveraged to ensure high performance and scalability for transactional processing, analytics, and modeling.
• Comprehensive Reporting – reporting that supports a broad range of users and needs, such as financial statements, board books, interactive dashboards, and Excel integration.  All of this with a single, integrated toolset and a common data source.
• Intuitive User Interface Layer – user interface designed to support the ongoing needs of Finance and line-of-business users. Interface is easy to learn and provides high productivity and fast adoption.
• Powerful Data Integration – data can be sourced from on-premises as well as cloud-based ERP, HCM, CRM, and other systems.
• High-Availability Cloud Architecture– solution backed by a money-back uptime and performance SLA guarantee for key processes, with real-time transaction monitoring and automated notification services to customers.

Planful provides cloud-based EPM solutions for organizations, ranging from fast-growing startups to large multi-nationals. Given the range of customers served, the technology and architecture of Planful Cloud EPM Suite is designed to provide ease of use for Finance users. It also provides high performance and scalability to support both current and future requirements of customer organizations.

It is designed to ensure that customers don’t outgrow the solution. They will continue to experience the same level of response time and performance as they add more users to the system, as their user and data volumes grow, and as their use-cases expand.