What is corporate sustainability?
Sustainability means something different everyone. To some, it is an invitation to corporate social and environmental responsibility alongside its financial responsibility to its shareholders. This is the so-called “triple bottom line” concept. To others, it means management of governance or social issues. No matter how you define it, the evaluation of corporate performance and achieving sustainability are important tasks to fulfill. In a 2010 McKinsey survey of CEOs, 50% of the respondents indicated that “corporate sustainability is either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important in a wide range of areas including not only new-product development, reputation building, but overall corporate strategy.” If your corporation is considering using software for sustainability, you have come to the right place.
Yet if a company does not have a workable corporate sustainability strategy to realize its sustainability definition, this all just becomes talk. Unfortunately, most of the public discussion on sustainable performance has missed the most vital component – the link between management’s strategy and realized results is the workforce. Developing sustainable performance in your workforce is critical. Employers should foster proper employee development, transparency, and longevity within their organizations. Fortunately, corporate performance management (CPM) software can help you make it happen. In a 2012 article published in the Harvard Business Review, the authors discuss several key ways to keep your workforce committed to your company’s success thriving in their jobs, and corporate sustainability as a whole.
Stay Up To Date with the Latest Corporate Sustainability Standards (CSS)
Through a statement of CSS (Corporate Sustainability Standards), firms will frequently establish their corporate sustainability commitment. These standards are often measures and policies that aim to exceed – or at least meet – minimum regulatory requirements.
The key is to not confuse CSS with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Though the terms are frequently misused or used in place of each other, they are not alike. According to a 2014 writing by Bansal and Des Jardine: Morality, ethics, and norms permeate CSR. Sustainability, in order to safeguard intergenerational equity, obliges businesses to make intertemporal trade-offs. The bane of sustainability is short-termism.
Use a Software for Sustainability to Improve Your Management Processes
The management processes involved in corporate performance management frequently includes the following:
- Identification of business goals and creation of a business model
- BP&F (budgeting, planning, and forecasting); Budgeting and forecasting software makes things easier to handle
- Closing financial books and merging results on a regular basis
- Capturing results with all external and internal stakeholders
- Business performance analysis compared to previous years, the current plan, and across divisions and products, and more
- Based on results and forecasts, appropriate remodeling
Use CPM Software to Increase Your Decision-Making Capacity
According to the authors, “Employees at every level are energized by the ability to make decisions that affect their work.” Business performance management means exactly that. Employees are empowered to be a part of the decision-making process through the cloud-based technology available today. C-level executives can gain valuable insight from the expertise right in their own company – from the product designers, marketing professionals, and production-line managers – including their input in the planning and decision-making process.
The term “corporate performance management” describes various methodologies and processes involved in aligning the goals and strategies of an organization to the execution of its plans in order to control a company’s success. A subset of BI (business intelligence), CPM involves managing and monitoring the performance of an organization according to KPIs (key performance indicators) including ROI (return on investment), revenue, operational costs, and overhead. CPM is not, however, a precise strategy. A suite of analytical applications must be created by organizations for CPM to be useful. These applications must support metrics, methods, and processes used in corporate performance management. This is how companies will be able to support corporate sustainability goals as a whole.
Share Information with CPM Software
One of the most significant causal factors in the breakdown between strategy and realized results is the lack of communication. “People can contribute more effectively when they understand how their work fits with the organization’s mission and strategy.” CPM software solutions provide real-time exchange of vital information on ideas and strategies across the organization, giving your workforce the information they need to get aligned behind your strategy. Additionally, you can explore using a strategic workforce planning software to determine if it works for you.
Request Useful Feedback
Good corporate performance management software provides users with the ability to model ideas, aggregate the bottom line in dashboards and scorecards for quick visual understanding across the organization, and receive useful feedback – all in real-time. “Feedback creates opportunities for learning and the energy so critical for a culture of thriving. By resolving feelings of uncertainty, feedback keeps people’s work-related activities focused on personal and organizational goals.”
Track CPM Performance Metrics
CPM performance metrics can be organized into a handful of categories to support corporate sustainability goals. Some of these include:
- Strategic – Internal metrics will show how effectively the company performed the strategies that were implemented by management to move toward long-term organizational goals and reach immediate targets.
- Compliance – Legal compliance with environmental rules, financial reporting, and employment regulations must be demonstrated by the company.
- Customers – To every business, customers are a source of income – they are absolutely essential. Key indicators of the performance and health of a business are customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.
- Internal – On a company’s failure or long-term success, a significant impact can be generated as a result of employee experience. The quality of company management can be evaluated through the use of internal metrics.
- Financial – This includes profits, costs, sales, and other financial performance numbers.
With regard to the categories above, some specific metrics examples are as follows:
- Sales growth
- Qualified leads per month
- Employee happiness
- Gross margin
- Net profit margin
- Sales revenue
- Customer retention rate
Follow Core Corporate Sustainability Principles
Here is a handful of principles for corporate sustainability:
- Thinking ahead – Fresh ideas for implementation can be generated by companies who envision the future. These ideas can either increase profits, reduce production costs, or provide a better company image.
- Stakeholder engagement – This is when a company educates its outside stakeholders (suppliers, customers, and the community) and its employees, so that they are moved to act on energy efficiency, waste reduction, and other important matters.
- Transparency – Profits can be increased, and performance improved, if a company provides an engaging environment within the community it serves and within the company itself. How does a company attain this? Answer: With their stakeholders, they must commit to open communications characterized by high levels of clarity, disclosure, and accuracy.
orporate Performance Management Software Benefits in a Nutshell
Corporate performance management software offers numerous benefits, some of which include:
- Simplified calculations
- Complete DA (data analysis)
- Automation of tasks that were previously manual
- Reduced operational costs
- More productive and streamlined workflow
- and more
Help Your Business Grow With Kepion’s Corporate Business Management and Sustainability management Software
Cloud-based CPM software takes traditional EPM software and builds on its benefits. The result? It’s faster and easier to deploy, which increases innovation speed, reduces the cost of ownership, and supports enhanced collaboration throughout the company. It helps accelerate key finance processes, helps organizations automate manual tasks, and assists in deriving better alignment between operations and finance.
There is no longer any need to operate under separate reporting and planning processes. With our CPM solution (Corporate Performance Management Solution), for integrated business planning, you can collaborate on a single approach. It’s designed by businesses for businesses.
Kepion’s corporate performance management software allows marketing, operations, banking & financial services, retail, and HR to configure planning apps that are personalized specifically to how they work. Our Scorecards and Dashboards Software helps you plan for efficiencies, visualize performance, and track your results.
Kepion’s key CPM solutions could be the perfect solution for your corporate sustainability plan. Book a demo today to learn more.