Unit4 delivers enterprise scale AI-powered performance management

Injects AI into the core of CPM taking data-driven forecasting to new levels

Unit4, a world leader in enterprise software for service organisations, announces today the release of Unit4 Prevero Corporate Performance Management (CPM) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics to drive new levels of data-driven decision making for forward-looking organisations.

Boards today expect high quality analyses, suggestions, forecasts and budgets and they want them faster and more frequently. Prevero with AI takes advantage of neural networks and deep learning technology to provide business decision makers with a new source of business support. On desktops or mobile devices, exec teams and decision makers across a business will benefit from this new source of business support and ways of collaborating on common sets of meaningful data. As well as taking automation to a much higher level, effectively self-driving and freeing people to focus on more value-add work, it makes decision makers smarter, so they can take a new perspective on their business and become much more forward looking.

The use cases for this technology are many and varied. The first features to be delivered in July 2018 are:

• AI-enhanced forecasts that apply deep learning on available actuals and other data to predict future outcomes. These forecasts deliver high quality results, recognising patterns and non-linear trends of multiple derivatives. The process is much simpler than statistical methods – a single click instead of having to know the right function and parameters.
• Data anomaly detection ensures the CPM system provides automatic feedback while data is input. The system automatically analyses every entry based on available data and when it notices a conflict or a figure that seems out of place, it automatically suggests a correction. Instead of investing time and effort in the manual definition of rules, which will never cover all potential anomalies, the software does the job for you.

With massive increases in the data being generated and stored by business applications, the data sets on which machine learning algorithms can be applied has significantly expanded.  The deep learning capabilities in Unit4 Prevero take advantage of relevant information and help put it into context. The system learns in a similar way to the human brain. It memorises learnings and applies them to new inputs. Organisations benefit from a multi-layer neural network that learns by example and improves the quality of its results over time.

"Organisations are only now starting to understand the huge potential digital infrastructure, AI and deep learning technologies can offer," said Craig Schiff, CEO of advisory firm, BPM Partners. "New digital solutions can help them to manage large amounts of data for greater business insight, and machine learning and deep learning is a natural next step to uncovering insights that can drive competitive advantage. In a few years, finance teams won't have to spend time on transactional tasks that don't add value. Instead they will focus on strategic priorities, supported by the data they need to make sound decisions that could change the course of business and deliver more and better opportunities for their organisation."

"AI, particularly neural networks and deep learning, is a game-changer for CPM," said Matthias Thurner, CTO, Unit4 Prevero. "CPM is crucial today for organisations undergoing digital business transformation, where operational excellence is required across the board and change is the only constant. As organisations are redefined, we are seeing an evolution in what customers want and need from their systems: Ease of use, agility, high quality insights and rapid value-creation."