PricewaterhouseCoopers is betting big on the growing consultancy market in enterprise performance management (EPM) in India. Ambarish Dasgupta, Leader Consulting, PwC, told Business Line that the global consultancy firm was building a team of around 500 EPM specialists to tap this market.

India Inc is gradually taking to EPM practices. “The manufacturing and IT & ITES sectors have shown a clear inclination to adopt EPM,” Dasgupta said.

Effective planning

EPM is a structured way of ensuring implementation and performance of a strategy through measurable indicators and targets.

It stresses “effective” strategy formulation and business planning, including forecasting, and co-relates these to financial management and supply chain to increase recognisable shareholder value.

“It is essentially a tool-based and an ongoing analysis of data to suit pre-planned growth goals”, he explained. PwC has, to an extent, indigenised its EPM suite, considering different challenges faced by Indian corporate entities.

“For example, Indian financial managers need a different approach to project and hedge currency volatility than their counterparts in the US”, said Soumen Mukherji, Associate Director, PwC.

Business insights

In a recent survey among CFOs in India, 30 per cent recognised “building the capability to provide business insights” as a key strength in the present business context.

“However, the finance function is still trying to come to terms with its new role as the business partner,” said Mukherji.

The survey also found out that 58 per cent of the respondents indicated that their finance team spends less than 20 per cent of its time on value-added analysis and planning. The typical team’s time is largely taken up in data crunching and other routines.

> jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in

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