BPM Has a Forum to call its own.

Business performance management, usually shortened to its initials of BPM, has gotten a lot of attention lately, and now it has an organization all its own: The Business Performance Management Forum. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., the forum was launched in July with an initial membership of 175 corporate executives, consultants and other thought leaders.

The forum's mission, noted an announcement, is "to address the growing challenge of corporate accountability, compliance and performance management in global enterprises." To do that, it will conduct research, share best practices and tackle "a growing realization that companies must dramatically improve their ability to monitor, forecast and report on financial and business performance."

James Bramante, Global and Americas Leader of Financial Management for IBM Business Consulting Services and a member of the forum's advisory board, said in an interview that he isn't aware of any comparable group. While companies have long had a focus on budgeting systems, balanced score-cards and metrics, the problem has been trying to address business performance in a holistic way, he says.

Corporations "are interested in taking strategies and translating them into plans and measurements, to develop a process for monitoring, and determining, "How can I use the information and the data and see where value is being created?'" he says. "There is a real interest in making this a discipline imbedded in the organization." BPM Forum members will include finance, operating and technology executives, he added.

Bramante says the forum will focus on "the whole management process. If you get the technology right, but not the information content, it won't work. Then there are key change-management issues--specific things like compensation, and how they are impacted through the process." Another key issue that needs to be handled more effectively, he says, is measuring intangibles.

Bramante adds: "Business models and the business environment are not static. If you try to solve issues only for the current state, you run into the same problems. That's why BPM is so important."

The forum's first research study, sponsored by Hyperion Solution, queried boards of directors about performance accountability and found considerable concern about the accuracy of company forecasts, access to information and performance benchmarking against competitors. And, tellingly, only 41 percent of directors queried expected "immediate" compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements.