Vendor Landscape Matrix Spotlight Edition

Transcription

1 A BPM Partners Research Note Vendor Landscape Matrix Spotlight Edition Spotlight on Adaptive Insights February 2015

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3 2015 BPM Partners, Inc. All material contained in this document remains the property of BPM Partners and cannot be published or duplicated without the express written consent of BPM Partners, Inc. Vendor Landscape Matrix 1

4 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 3 The BPM Vendor Landscape Matrix Explained... 4 BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix for Performance Management - October Vendor Details... 7 Key to Vendor Checkboxes... 8 The Extended Vendors... 9 Adaptive Insights... 9 Customer Satisfaction Comparison Supporting Research About BPM Partners February 2015

5 Executive Summary The Business Performance Management (BPM) vendor landscape continues to evolve. Many of the established vendors have introduced significant new capabilities, features, and modules. Some vendors now even roll out product enhancements on a quarterly basis. New vendors continue to appear on the scene with well thought-out and innovative products delivered by experienced teams. The pace of acquisition has slowed somewhat resulting in more vendors to choose from than in quite some time. This year s report includes several new vendors and also excludes some that were previously included, due to their diminished activity in the performance management marketplace. The purpose of the BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix is to provide a point-in-time snapshot of all the core players, their status in the market, and the focus of their offerings. This is accomplished with a summary grid, along with vendor by vendor commentary, attribute checkmarks, and customer satisfaction ratings collected as part of the annual BPM Pulse Survey. This document will be updated periodically to reflect the most current information available. We believe that this information should enable organizations to focus their vendor selection activities around those vendors most likely to meet their needs, saving time and money in the process. This information is not intended to replace the thorough due diligence, analysis, and detailed evaluations and comparisons that we recommend be conducted as part of any BPM vendor selection process. All of the data contained in this document has been independently researched and compiled by BPM Partners, Inc. The customer satisfaction data is from the 2014 BPM Pulse Survey which ran from April 2014 through May 2014, except where noted otherwise. NOTE: This is an abridged edition of BPM Partners' Vendor Landscape Matrix only containing information for the Spotlight Vendor. For the full report please see the About BPM Partners section at the end of this document. Vendor Landscape Matrix 3

6 The BPM Vendor Landscape Matrix Explained This grid is only for Business Performance Management (BPM) Vendors. It is therefore important to understand how we define BPM: BPM is a set of integrated, closed-loop management and analytic processes, supported by technology, that address financial as well as operational activities. BPM is an enabler for businesses in defining strategic goals, and then measuring and managing performance against those goals. Core BPM processes include financial and operational planning, consolidation and reporting, modeling, analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs) linked to organizational strategy. Operational Analytics focus on the performance of key business areas including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Manufacturing, R&D, IT, and HR. From a technology perspective more vendors are embracing SaaS (software-asa-service), and there are also several solutions designed from the ground up to take advantage of the cloud. The larger vendors are porting their performance management applications to high-performance in-memory calculation platforms. Mobile access, mostly on the consumption of data side, is beginning to gain traction. Big Data is an area that is just starting to be talked about in the performance management world. On the application side of things there is a continuing focus on ever more granular profitability analysis, predictive capabilities, and external benchmarking. More vendors have added financial consolidation capabilities and most of them are coupling it with disclosure management and collaboration. Several additional vendors have introduced vertically focused solutions and pre-packaged operational analytics (usually for sales). The common theme is bridging operations and finance. We currently track over 100 vendors that provide software to address one or more aspects of business performance management and business intelligence. The majority of these vendors are not included in this matrix. Inclusion in the Vendor Landscape Matrix is based solely on BPM Partners evaluation of vendor activity in the field as it relates to performance management. Only the most active vendors competing for and successfully delivering BPM solutions in the U.S. market are included in this grid. We no longer include stand-alone business intelligence tools vendors. It is our experience that most performance management customers today are looking for applications focused vendors, or those that combine applications and tools. 4 February 2015

7 BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix for Performance Management - October 2014 This matrix objectively places the active BPM vendors according to the scope of their current offerings, and their relative momentum in the market. It is updated each year. Within a particular box, vendors are organized alphabetically. The horizontal axis identifies vendors by their current market momentum, usually determined by number of customers, market presence and growth rate. Vendors in the left most column are either relatively new to the market or self funded which often leads to more controlled and slower growth. The vendors in the right-most column typically have 100 or more customers using their performance management solutions and are continuing to win business on a regular basis. The middle column contains vendors who have demonstrated good traction and momentum but have yet to hit critical mass in terms of the number of installed customers. The vertical axis reflects the focus of a particular vendor s offerings: Specialized - offers one or more of the basic components of performance management such as budgeting, planning, modeling, financial consolidation, disclosure management, reporting, dashboards Comprehensive - bridges finance and operations by providing most, if not all, of the basic financial components and adding operational elements such as operational analytics for sales, HR, services, IT, etc., operational planning, profitability analysis and optimization Extended - offers a comprehensive set of performance management applications and in addition markets and sells transactional systems that provide source data, such as ERP, Vendor Landscape Matrix 5

8 and/or pure business intelligence capabilities that enable the development of complementary applications The BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix is intended to provide objective, informative placement of the various vendors. One of the key design elements in this approach is that there is no good or bad place to be on the grid. Which group of vendors is the best fit for any given company is a function of that company s specific requirements. Companies focused on just certain aspects of performance management may find their solution in a vendor with specialized offerings. If a company is looking to eventually implement all aspects of BPM then a comprehensive solution might be in order. Those companies who are looking to add a complementary business intelligence (BI) capability or are interested in purchasing performance management from their ERP vendor may be interested in looking at the vendors with extended offerings. An important note regarding the developing vs. established vendors: while the established vendors offer proven solutions with theoretically less risk, the developing vendors tend to be more innovative, more cost-effective, and more likely to offer personalized service and a chance to directly influence product direction. The decision on type of vendor to select then becomes a matter of company needs and corporate culture. 6 February 2015

9 Vendor Details For each vendor included in the matrix we have included brief comments, usually highlighting what s new or unique about the vendor. Where available we have also included customer satisfaction ratings for 14 key attributes as well as an overall score. This data comes directly from the 2014 BPM Pulse Survey which had responses from over 250 companies. Respondents who rated vendors/products self-identified themselves as users of the vendors/products being rated. They were asked to rate their vendor and product satisfaction on a 5 point scale with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. The attributes being rated (and their grid codes) were: Overall satisfaction Sales process (Sales) Price/value (Price) Product functionality (Func) Ease of use (Use) Ease of implementation (Impl) Product performance (Speed) Product quality (Quality) Product documentation (Doc) Customer support/hotline (Supp) Vendor-run training (Train) Vendor-run consulting (Conslt) Innovation and product enhancement (Inno) Partner network (Part) User Groups and customer input (User) Our interpretation of these ratings is represented as follows: Vendors that did not get assessed in the 2014 BPM Pulse Survey, or did not have sufficient data to provide an accurate rating are noted with insufficient data. If they had sufficient data in a recent prior survey year then that data is included and so noted. In addition, we have included a set of vendor checkboxes to highlight specific product and vendor capabilities. The key to the current set of checkboxes follows: Vendor Landscape Matrix 7

10 Key to Vendor Checkboxes Financial PM Advanced Market Profile Bud Plan Dash Rept Con Coll Pred Vert Cloud Mob Financial Performance Management Budgeting (Bud): The product offers top-down and bottom-up budgeting, as well as planning and forecasting. Modeling/Strategic Planning (Plan): The product has built-in functionality to develop and maintain models as well as create the strategic plan. Dashboard (Dash): The vendor provides a graphical interface that can display a collection of key performance indicators (a scorecard) with gauges, stoplights, and charts. Dashboards may be graphical display tools or prebuilt applications. Reporting & Analytics (Rept): The product offers a robust report development tool for ad hoc queries as well as production reporting in addition to any prebuilt reports. Consolidation (Con): The software sums data from multiple ledgers, incorporating currency conversion and intercompany eliminations as needed. Advanced Collaboration (Coll): Collaboration beyond the basics of document sharing and workflow status Predictive Analytics (Pred): Built-in predictive analytics engine accessed by menu choice or specialized module Market Profile Vertical Solutions (Vert): The vendor offers industry-specific capabilities or content integrated in a software application. This functionality can be the vendor's sole focus, or it can be in addition to more generic offerings. Cloud: The vendor offers a hosted/saas version of their product (indicated with an 'H' after the checkmark), or a true cloud solution. An 'S' indicates that only selected modules are cloud-enabled. Mobile Access (Mob): The vendor supports mobile access. Consumption only access is indicated with a 'C' after the checkmark. An 'S' indicates that only selected modules support mobile access. 8 February 2015

11 The Extended Vendors Adaptive Insights Adaptive Insights (formerly Adaptive Planning) provides easy to use, cloud-based performance management solutions designed for organizations ranging from small and mid-sized companies to enterprise class corporations, which currently comprise about 25% of their business. This solution is a strong alternative to spreadsheet-based and onpremise planning and reporting processes. This product is a fully integrated cloud-based business intelligence and performance management solution. Adaptive Discovery provides data visualization, operational analytics, predictive functionality, and dashboards. A native ios dashboard is also available. Additional capabilities include a process tracker and advanced collaboration functionality. Recent enhancements include a new UI for sheets, advanced modeling, and version dependent structures. Also recently added Adaptive OfficeConnect provides dynamic integration to Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Enables business users to create highly formatted financial and management reports in Office, and update them with Adaptive data. New close-to-disclose partnership with Vintage Filings. There are pre-developed models for several industries including insurance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Available direct from Adaptive Insights in North America, the U.K., Australia/New Zealand, Japan, and via a large global partner network including NetSuite, which offers a specialized version of Adaptive Insights. With relatively low per user per year pricing, a rapid implementation, and without need for hardware or IT support, Adaptive Insights offers a robust solution with a low total cost of ownership. Capabilities Financial PM Advanced Market Profile Bud Plan Dash Rept Con Coll Pred Vert Cloud Mob CS Customer Satisfaction Overall: 4.53 Sales Price Func Use Impl Speed Quality Doc Supp Train Conslt Inno Part User Fit Mid-sized and larger organizations, looking for a budgeting, reporting, consolidation, reporting and analysis solution with a low total cost of ownership. Vendor Landscape Matrix 9

12 Customer Satisfaction Comparison The chart below compares Adaptive Insights to several other BPM Core Vendors that offer a full suite of performance applications in addition to ERP and/or business intelligence capabilities. Detailed Customer Satisfaction Scores for BPM Partners Core Vendors Adaptive Insights 4.5 Score IBM/Cognos Oracle/Hyperion SAP 2.75 (C) 2015 BPM Partners, Inc. Note: The latest Oracle and SAP data is from the 2012 BPM Pulse Survey and the IBM Cognos data is from Compared to the other BPM Partners Core Vendors shown here, Adaptive Insights had the highest rating for 9 out of 11 attributes. Adaptive Insights achieved its highest ratings in the areas of product functionality and product quality. The overall satisfaction score of 4.53 is one of the highest scored by any of the large BPM vendor this year. 10 February 2015

13 Supporting Research Let s review BPM Partners 2014 BPM Pulse Survey of 250 companies to better understand the trends supporting the adoption of solutions such as Adaptive Insights. Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey With nearly 40% of companies in progress with their performance management initiatives, and another 30% with plans in place, the message is clear: performance management is a priority for most organizations today. As we have tracked this over the years we have seen that the group with no plans has continued to shrink. The fact that only a small percentage of companies have indicated that their performance management initiative is complete should not be surprising. Since performance management is actually a broad collection of strategic, financial, and operational solutions, companies who have implemented and received the benefits of one or more components have now moved on to the next phases of their project. Vendor Landscape Matrix 11

14 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey A majority of survey respondents, almost 55%, have implemented a performance management system to address their budgeting needs. As expected at this point in time, the bulk have onpremise systems since they have existed for much longer than the modern cloud alternatives. However, with the rapid growth we see in adoption of cloud solutions we believe this mix will certainly change in the near-term. Also, 45% of survey respondents are still trying to force-fit standalone spreadsheets into a budgeting system or using outdated in-house or ERP approaches. There is significant opportunity here for companies to take advantage of the current crop of top-tier performance management solutions to dramatically improve their budgeting processes. 12 February 2015

15 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey While this question about budgeting dissatisfaction was asked of all survey takers, the majority of responses came from those who have not yet implemented a performance management solution. Clearly, the biggest issues are the time and labor involved in the process. The next most frequent responses relate to various difficulties that are typical when trying to use spreadsheets, ERP systems, or custom solutions for budgeting. One final note, 35% or so are concerned that their current budgeting approach is not tied to a performance reporting solution. This is a key point - after all that time and energy is expended to create a budget, what good is it if no one is able to track their actual performance against it? Vendor Landscape Matrix 13

16 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Since the time required was a key complaint about the budgeting process, let's take a closer look. The majority of respondents, around 65%, spend 2-3 months working on their budgets. This is not terrible, but if they don't already have a performance management system they probably can further tighten up the process by getting one. The biggest potential for improvement though comes from the almost 25% who spend 4, 5, or more months on this process. It is important to keep in mind that lack of an appropriate technology solution is not the only reason the budget takes so long. Many companies have business processes associated with preparing the budget that have not been reviewed and optimized in many years. Automating an inefficient process, while providing some time savings, is not going to suddenly make the overall process efficient. For those companies, a business process review should go hand in hand with the implementation of a performance management solution. 14 February 2015

17 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Another area identified as a major reason for budgeting dissatisfaction was lack of collaboration/communications. Obviously every department needs to be in synch as they develop the budget, but would people actually take advantage of collaboration capabilities if they were provided? Just under three-quarters of the organizations participating in the survey indicated that they would in fact use collaboration capabilities if it was available. While most vendors claim to offer collaboration functionality, the majority only do so at a basic level. Clearly there is a need for solutions that offer a more robust collaboration feature set. Vendor Landscape Matrix 15

18 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey When performance management vendors first introduced collaboration capabilities they focused on consolidation and disclosure management, the so-called last mile of finance. While collaboration is an essential element of that process, it is not the only aspect of performance management that stands to benefit from collaboration. As a matter of fact, survey respondents highlighted several other areas of performance management where they believe collaboration is even more important, such as budgeting (as previously discussed) and forecasting. 16 February 2015

19 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Once the budget is in place, true value is derived from tracking actual performance against it, particularly in terms of key performance indicators. How is this best accomplished, especially as you try to share information outside of the Finance department? 72% of respondents would like to have a true graphical performance dashboard for this purpose. In addition, almost 24% view this capability as essential. Only a small fraction would prefer to present this data some other way. Vendor Landscape Matrix 17

20 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Once the need for a performance management solution has been established the question then becomes - where will you get this solution from? There are many options to choose from. Most major ERP vendors have acquired successful stand-alone performance management solutions over the years and 22% of respondents would look to them first. Another 9% would look to these same large vendors even if they were not their ERP provider. The vast majority of companies (65%) are looking to application suite vendors that are primarily focused on performance management and related solutions. What no one is doing today (<1%) is having their IT department build custom performance management solutions from a set of business intelligence tools. 18 February 2015

21 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Once you have determined the type of vendor you would like to get your performance management solution from, there is another major consideration: cloud or on-premise? In this year's survey, 74% of respondents are considering (or have purchased) cloud-based solutions for performance management. This number has been steadily increasing over the years since we first included this question in our survey. Interesting to note that a new sub-option we added this year (ONLY cloud) already has almost 9% of respondents choosing this path. We expect to see this slice of responses steadily grow. Vendor Landscape Matrix 19

22 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Why are so many companies considering cloud-based performance management solutions? We asked survey respondents to rank these 7 common reasons with 1 being the most important. When we averaged the rankings 'lower initial costs' came out on top, followed closely by 'minimal IT resource use'. Of less interest was 'mobile access' and 'ability to integrate with other cloud solutions'. Keep in mind that those at the bottom of the list are only there in relation to the other choices. In other words, they may still be important, just not as important as the items directly related to dollars and resources. 20 February 2015

23 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey In this year's survey we added a new question regarding the benefits of cloud solutions, asked only of those respondents who already own a cloud-based performance management solution. The results are slightly different from the previous cloud benefits ranking question asked of everyone. Over 80% of this group see the ability to easily access their system from almost anywhere as a key benefit. Just under 80% like the ease with which they receive product updates as well as the overall ease of use. Surprisingly, business ownership was only cited by slightly less than half of respondents. Perhaps on a day to day usage basis that benefit is not as obvious as it was during initial implementation and rollout. Vendor Landscape Matrix 21

24 Source: BPM Partners' 2014 BPM Pulse Survey Now, let's look at the overall benefits of implementing a performance management system. This question was only asked of survey respondents who were far enough along with their initiatives to begin reaping the benefits. Although it may read like a vendor's marketing brochure, these are real responses from real users of performance management. First and foremost for around 65% is 'easier access to information'. While companies use performance management to improve the budgeting process or streamline the close, they sometimes forget that performance management systems can become the fastest and easiest way for employees to gain access to all types of information that may not have been readily available to them in the past. From a pure dollars and cents perspective 40% of respondents see cost savings from implementing these systems, while almost 25% see improved cash flow and cash management. This list makes it clear: organizations can receive a wide range of benefits by implementing a performance management system. 22 February 2015

25 BPM Partners Core Vendor BPM Partners presents an annual vendor overview and market trends webcast. During this webcast the list of 'core vendors' for the year are revealed. Inclusion on this list is determined by depth of product functionality, sales and customer success, and meeting performance management market needs. This list is a good starting place for anyone looking for performance management solutions. Adaptive Insights has once again received high ratings from its customers. Of particular note is the fact that some of the best scores are for robust product functionality coupled with high product quality. This is a direct result of the investment they have made in broadening their product capabilities and makes Adaptive Insights a compelling option for companies of all sizes." Vendor Landscape Matrix 23

26 About BPM Partners BPM Partners is the leading independent authority on business performance management (BPM) and business intelligence solutions. The company helps organizations address their budgeting, planning, financial reporting, regulatory compliance, profitability optimization, key performance indicator (KPI) development, and operational performance challenges with vendor-neutral experts who can guide companies through their BPM initiatives from start to finish while both reducing risk and minimizing costs. BPM Partners has specialized packages that lead clients through project justification, requirements definition, vendor selection and deployment of departmental or enterprise-wide BPM or business intelligence (BI) systems. For further details, go to Follow BPM Partners on For further information on many of the vendors included in this document (analyst reports, articles, blogs, news, etc.) visit BPM Partners' PerformancePlace. For the complete Vendor Landscape Matrix containing information on 17 different vendors: 24 February 2015