CIO UK — Businesses claim to have improved their management processes and the way in which IT supports them, more than a year after the recession began to bite hard.

Business Process Management (BPM) Definition and Solutions

That is according to the Oracle (ORCL) Enterprise Performance Management Index, a report that uses a variety of factors to score businesses on a scale of one to 10, where 10 represents perfect performance management.

The report assessed organisations' views of the quality of their processes and information governing the stakeholder environment, market model, business model, business plan, business operations and business results.

Businesses in the UK scored 6.94, marking an improvement on last year's mediocre 5.17 figure. Globally, firms reached a 7.04 score, a significant improvement from a year ago where the average was 5.13. For the report, 800 large organisations were interviewed including 100 in the UK.

The growth of businesses' confidence, in their processes and in the improved way IT works with the rest of the organisation, has allowed many firms having taken steps to improve efficiency during the recession, the report said.

Companies reported "significant improvements" in their strategic planning and reporting processes, and that they favoured business intelligence systems for reporting.

Frank Buytendijk, VP at Oracle, highlighted that the findings showed increased confidence rather than "material advances", but he added that the more positive outlook does create the conditions "for real improvement to take place".

"Comparing it to a rise in consumer confidence preceding a spending increase, this increase in performance confidence will precede new projects and improved ways of working," he said.

Nevertheless, many businesses admitted they were "too internally focused", with some weak operational integration between departments.