Optimising performance.(role of technologies in organisation)

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." The Charles Darwin mantra is a favourite of Noel Gorvett, group business systems manager at publisher, the Pearson Group, and for him it underscores how technologies that support better, faster decision-making can create a dynamic, agile organisation.

Pearson boasts annual revenues of almost [pounds sterling]4 billion and employs more than 33,000 people across 60 different countries. With that global footprint often resulting in data overload for managers, Gorvett has been leading a programme to transform the organisation's decision-making and reporting capabilities through the roll out of a BPM system.

The first task, was to bring consistency to the sources of Pearson's core business data. From 2002, the company amalgamated 80 separate accounting systems, eliminating differences between the way data is defined and collected.

Gorvett recalls the group had poor systems and processes, inconsistent reporting periods and was swamped by information. "The decentralised, independent finance and IT units impeded collaboration and resulted in a lack of cohesive decision-making," he says.

To create that cohesion, the company set about building PRIME (Pearson Reporting &Information Management Environment), a financial management platform based on technology from BPM software company Hyperion. "Now we have an environment with vertical and horizontal communication rather than separate divisions," says Gorvett.

One of the clear aims of PRIME was a "faster close" of financial results. Prior to the new system, the group was reporting its figures about 20 days after the close of a business period; now it is typically around the sixth of ...