The EPM skills shaping stronger planning and performance teams

Enterprise Performance Management has changed significantly over the past decade.

The technology is more accessible, platforms are more capable and finance teams increasingly expect planning, reporting and analysis to work in a more connected and intuitive way. But the skills required to deliver a strong EPM environment have also broadened.

It is no longer enough to be technically capable in one platform.

Platform knowledge still matters

Deep capability in platforms such as Anaplan, OneStream, Oracle EPM, SAP Analytics Cloud, Board, Pigment, Jedox or Planning Analytics remains highly valuable.

Organisations need people who understand how models are designed, how performance is managed, how data moves between systems and how to make a platform work reliably at scale.

That technical depth is not going away. In many cases, it is what separates a well-designed planning solution from a model that becomes difficult to use, support and change.

But platform experience is only one part of the picture.

Strong EPM people understand Finance

The best EPM consultants, developers and internal finance systems professionals understand the finance process behind the model.

They know why a planning cycle is structured in a particular way. They can challenge an unnecessary level of complexity. They recognise the difference between a useful management view and a report that simply produces more numbers.

This is what allows them to work productively with FP&A teams, finance leaders and business stakeholders. They are not just taking requirements and building what is requested. They are helping the business work through the right question.

Communication is becoming a differentiator

EPM projects sit across Finance, Technology and the wider business. That means the people delivering them need to be comfortable managing different stakeholders, translating technical detail and keeping decisions moving.

A technically excellent person who cannot engage the business will struggle to get adoption. Equally, a strong stakeholder manager without enough platform understanding may find it difficult to make good design decisions.

The most effective people can bridge the two.

They can explain what is possible, what will take time, where the trade-offs sit and what a practical first release should look like. They know when to push back and when to simplify.

The market is moving towards broader capability

As platforms become easier to configure and AI begins to support more routine technical work, the value of broader consulting and business capability increases.

That does not mean the need for technical EPM specialists disappears. It means the strongest people will combine technical depth with finance understanding, delivery experience and the confidence to work directly with clients or senior internal stakeholders.

For employers, this is worth reflecting in the brief.

If the role needs someone to lead workshops, improve planning processes, mentor others and build trust with Finance, those requirements should be treated as central—not secondary to the platform checklist.

Hiring the right balance

Every EPM team needs a mix.

Some roles demand deep hands-on modelling and architecture capability. Others need strong functional knowledge, programme leadership or client-facing consulting skills. The mistake is expecting one person to be everything, or hiring solely around the technology name on a CV.

The best teams are built with a clear view of where the capability sits today, what the transformation roadmap requires and which skills are genuinely missing.

That is how EPM becomes more than a platform implementation. It becomes a stronger planning and performance capability for the business.