The purpose of business performance management (BPM) is to help organizations execute business strategies. These tools should deliver actionable information in order to enhance the decision-making activities that affect business communication, alignment, and execution.

To construct BPM systems that can effectively achieve these goals, BPM designers must understand the needs of an organization's data consumers. Two sets of individuals in an organization utilize business information -- those who make business decisions themselves and those who prepare business information for these decision-makers. Although they don't make explicit management decisions themselves, this second group of individuals does make decisions about how data is manipulated and how its output is presented, which in turn guides subsequent decision-making. Thus, "data consumers" is a term that more fully captures the range of these information-dependent employees. The data consumption model introduced below identifies the practical needs of each of seven types of data consumers.

The promise of BPM is in its providing a consolidated platform for delivering business intelligence to data consumers. By identifying the diverse needs of these data consumers, this data consumption model can guide the design and implementation of well-integrated BPM solutions. In addition, this model provides BPM designers with a vocabulary for evaluating the information sophistication of an organization. BPM practitioners can thereby utilize this model to build a more compelling business case, ensure better customization, and enjoy a more successful implementation.

The extent to which BPM can meet the needs of an organization's data consumers indicates the system's strength as a management and strategy tool. Otherwise, BPM risks being lumped together with other technology solutions that merely ease the process of data consolidation.

The Data Consumption Model

Seven organizational activities -- categorized into three levels -- constitute the demand for business data. Exhibit 1 lists these activities, while exhibit 2 shows some of the primary linkages between the activities.

In Level 1, data is used strictly for technical and external reporting transactions; it lacks a distinct strategic or managerial decision-making component. ERP systems, as an example, are designed to accommodate Level 1 activities. Level 2 activities provide context for the data in order to produce information and intelligence. The BPM products of tools and application vendors are likely to have an advantage in meeting these data consumption needs. Level 3 represents those activities in which the data is actualized and where decisions are made. This is the focal point of management information, constituting a level of requirements that BPM tools seek to satisfy.

Technical activities. These activities represent the day-to-day activities of the enterprise. Examples include manufacturing, customer service, human resources, sales, and purchasing. These activities may or may not be part of the value chain; they may be core or support functions, and may be associated with either staff or line departments.

The performance of technical activities requires information, either as a primary ingredient for accomplishing the task itself or for maintaining a feedback loop for control. To meet these needs, technical activities typically utilize preestablished systems that are populated with specific information in order to guide immediate practitioner decision-making. For example, a customer service representative may utilize a system that integrates customer account information, lists of past transactions, current shipping information, and cross-sell recommendations fed by a CRM module.

In general, these technical models don't use data from standard management information systems, so rarely do BPM systems need to contribute to technical activities. However, some of the information associated with technical activities is certainly worthwhile for BPM systems to capture. This information reflects customer, operational, or financial issues that data consumers in management, analytic, reporting, planning, or strategic roles have a substantial interest in. Designers of BPM systems should work with data consumers to explore these technical systems and pinpoint the most relevant data elements. They can then design mechanisms for integrating this information with the BPM system.