Boardroom decisions often hinge on getting immediate answers to unexpected challenges—like a supply chain disruption or a sudden market shift. When these moments arise, planning teams are frequently asked critical “what-if” questions that require rapid insight. But instead of answers, stakeholders often hear: “We’ll get back to you.” And by the time they do, the opportunity to act has often passed.
This isn’t a failure of people—it’s a failure of the tools. Most enterprise performance management (EPM) software was built for periodic reporting and static forecasts, not for real-time, dynamic planning. These systems struggle to support flexible modeling or on-the-fly scenario analysis, forcing teams to rely on offline workarounds or complex manual processes. The result is a planning function that can’t keep pace with business needs.
True ad-hoc planning requires more than templates and spreadsheets. It demands instant access to live data, intuitive modeling capabilities, and seamless collaboration—so that when the next big question comes, the answer doesn’t have to wait.
Before you can build a single forecast in most leading Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) software, you must first pay the "planning tax." It's a grueling, multi-stage journey that is the complete opposite of agile.
First comes the model design phase, a weeks-long process with expensive consultants to define every dimension, measure, and business rule from scratch. Then, you embark on a massive IT project to connect your source systems, building and validating data pipelines from your ERP and CRM into this entirely new, separate planning environment. Finally, after all that, you begin the painstaking task of loading and reconciling the data, praying it matches what your executives are already seeing in their BI reports.
By the time this monolithic structure is built, the business has moved on. The urgent question that kickstarted the process is now ancient history. The system, for all its supposed power, is simply too slow for real-world ad-hoc planning.
This disconnects between business velocity and planning software agility often creates a massive point of friction. When an executive needs to understand the P&L impact of a sudden supply chain disruption, they're trying to make a decision before the end of the day, not schedule a review for two weeks' time.
This forces a stark and frustrating reality upon the organization.
| The Executive Need | The Modern EPM Reality |
|---|---|
| "What's the forecast impact if we pull forward our Q3 marketing spend? I need a number for my board call this afternoon." | "We've logged the request. The model needs an adjustment, and we can schedule a review of the results next week." |
| "Our top competitor just cut prices. Model a 10% discount in our key regions so we can respond." | "We'll need to scope the modeling effort. Let's circle back with a timeline." |
The result is inevitable. Faced with these delays, teams retreat to the one tool that can give them an immediate answer: the spreadsheet. Using tools like Microsoft Excel for ad-hoc planning and what-if analysis completely undermines the utility and ROI of the planning software.
What if you could skip the planning tax entirely? The solution is surprisingly intuitive: instead of building a separate planning universe, you should be able to plan directly where your single source of truth already lives – on your BI reports.
This is the revolutionary approach taken by tools like Lumel. It works by layering a powerful, interactive planning and simulation engine as a native app directly on top of your reports.
Instead of recreating business logic, the tool instantly leverages hierarchies, entities, measures, and structures already available with you. A business manager can look at the sales data, identify a risk or opportunity, and immediately take an action on that same screen.
This transforms the user from a passive consumer of data into an active creator of plans. They can put together a new report in minutes, create a new forecast scenario, add a line item for a new initiative, model its impact, and save it as a version of the plan, and run variance analysis all without ever leaving their report. This is what true ad-hoc planning looks like in practice.
True business agility is simply impossible when your planning tools force you into a long-winded construction project before every ad-hoc requirement. This built-in delay is a fatal flaw for any organization that needs to react quickly.
By enabling planning directly on BI reports, you finally deliver on the promise of real-time analysis. You empower your business users, dramatically accelerate decision-making, and maximize the ROI on your existing BI investment.
The next time an urgent question arises, you'll be able to give your CEO an answer, not just a timeline.
Lumel EPM brings real-time, AI-ready planning to your existing data platforms—without ETL or data movement. Watch our launch webinar replay to explore how it transforms budgeting, forecasting, and scenario modeling. The firm was recognized as the best Overall vendor for EPM in 2025.
To follow our experts and receive thought leadership insights on data & analytics, register for one of our webinars. To learn how Lumel Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) supports new product introductions, reach out to us today.
