Critical Capabilities for Corporate Performance Management Suites

Transcription

1 G Critical Capabilities for Corporate Performance Management Suites Published: 27 July 2015 Analyst(s): Christopher Iervolino, John E. Van Decker Corporate performance management application leaders evaluating CPM suite vendors will find that provider strengths vary significantly based on the processes and use case supported. Use this research to assess CPM suite vendor offerings, then use competitive bids to evaluate the providers. Key Findings The corporate performance management (CPM) solutions covered in this research vary in terms of breadth of processes supported, ease of use, the level of implementation and ongoing support effort required as well as typical customer size and application complexity. The ability of each solution to support certain types of CPM processes is highly important but usability and modeling (for more advanced and/or integrated planning needs) also have a major impact in determining the business value a solution provides. CPM environments with multiple cloud and on-premises applications are becoming more common as the need for differentiating, flexible, user-friendly solutions takes priority over architectural consistency and the benefits of single-vendor suites. Recommendations Examine the four use cases to determine which most closely describes your organization; then review the scores for the critical capabilities that relate to your potential use of CPM suite solutions during the next three to five years. Consider the top vendors (four to seven maximum) for these capabilities as strong candidates for further review as part of a comprehensive evaluation and selection process. Use this research in conjunction with the "Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites" and "Survey Analysis: References Rate Their CPM Vendors in Gartner's User Survey" and develop a specific document that identifies your functional requirements and objectives.

2 If you currently have a CPM solution, don't be restricted to your incumbent vendor if other offerings in the suite fail to fulfill your needs. Consider additional solutions from other vendors to augment both office of finance process optimization and strategic capability. What You Need to Know Every company's finance department requires CPM solutions that facilitate efficient, compliant and transparent processes and support a more strategic focus. This need can be broken down into several critical capabilities that CPM vendors must satisfy. These factors affect the relative importance of the critical capabilities for each use case described in this document. They include: Financial Close and Reporting Complex Financial Close and Reporting Financial Budgets and Plans Complex Financial Budgets and Plans Disclosure Management XBRL Reporting Disclosure Management Performance Reporting Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade Ease of Implementation Ease of Use Hybrid On-Premises/Cloud Budgets and Plans Corporate Planning and Modelling The degree to which each of the above capabilities is important varies by use case. The use cases described in this research are for: Public or private organizations with less than $250 million in annual revenue Public or private organizations with $250 million to $1 billion in annual revenue Public or private organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue Individual business units within large organizations Page 2 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

3 Analysis Critical Capabilities Use-Case Graphics Gartner, Inc. G Page 3 of 30

4 Figure 1. Product or Service Scores for Public/Private (Less Than $250 Million) Use Case Page 4 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

5 Figure 2. Product or Service Scores for Public/Private ($250 Million to $1 Billion) Use Case Gartner, Inc. G Page 5 of 30

6 Figure 3. Product or Service Scores for Public/Private (More Than $1 Billion) Use Case Page 6 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

7 Figure 4. Product or Service Scores for Individual Business Unit Use Case Gartner, Inc. G Page 7 of 30

8 Vendors Adaptive Insights Adaptive Insights is a pure-play cloud vendor headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It provides solutions for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, financial consolidation, dashboards, modeling, analysis and collaboration. It has separate integration (Adaptive Integration), Microsoft Office connection (Adaptive OfficeConnect) and revenue planning (Adaptive Revenue) products. The vendor also offers Adaptive Discovery, an integrated business intelligence (BI) package, as well as disclosure management support through its partnership with Vintage. Adaptive received high scores for all ease-of-use capabilities and for financial budgets and plans; these are important for small and midsize businesses as well as individual business units within larger organizations. References surveyed indicated Adaptive's growing popularity as a solution for individual business units within larger enterprises, with 39% of Adaptive's respondents reporting an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. While Adaptive supports a range of deployment sizes, 48% of its survey respondents had fewer than 50 users. The number of respondents with larger numbers of users should also be noted, 34% had 50 to 199 users and 14% had between 200 and 499 users. Three percent reported between 500 and 999 users. For all survey respondents, Adaptive's mean number of users was 128. Gartner survey results indicated that all Adaptive's respondents used their solution for budgeting and a very high percentage use it for planning and forecasting (97%). Fifty-nine percent of respondents use it for financial consolidation and reporting. Of those that reported using financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal financial reporting and 53% for external reporting. These respondents, especially those with less than $1 billion in revenue, also reported increasing financial consolidation and reporting application complexity in that 35% used currency conversions and intercompany eliminations. However, only 12% used journals and support statutory consolidations. Also, more than half of the company's respondents reported using its solution for other purposes such as for reporting and operational planning. Anaplan Anaplan is a pure-play SaaS vendor headquartered in San Francisco, California. Anaplan provides a SaaS business modeling and planning platform for finance and other business functions (such as sales, marketing and production) capable of supporting integrated planning models and complex use cases. Anaplan does not have a separate disclosure management offering. Anaplan targets ease of use while providing high performance to allow the business user to create and maintain complex models. This is useful when higher volumes of data are modeled more frequently than finance-focused monthly or quarterly planning processes require. Anaplan received high scores for its ease of use, maintenance and upgrade, and its scores were among the highest for complex financial budgets/plans, and corporate planning and modeling. This combination of critical capability scores is important not only for individual business units within larger organizations but also for midsize and large organizations. Most of Anaplan's respondents used their solution for planning and forecasting (88%) and budgeting (83%). Forty-five percent Page 8 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

9 reported using it for financial consolidation and reporting. Of those that reported using financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and only 16% used it for external reporting. These reference responses, along with Gartner's customer interactions, indicate a common usage in business units and departments of larger organizations. For example, 42% of respondents had over $1 billion in annual revenue and 21% had $10 billion or more. Although Anaplan has examples of customer implementations with many hundreds of users, 59% of respondents had fewer than 50 users and 90% had fewer than 200. Axiom EPM Axiom EPM is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and leverages its relationship with software and consulting firm Kaufman Hall to provide a more aligned product and implementation offering. This relationship appears to be successful given Gartner's survey results, where satisfaction scores are among the highest for ease of implementation and implementation cost. Although the vendor has an industry-specific focus (primarily for healthcare), it also offers cross-industry capabilities for financial services and, most recently, higher education. Axiom EPM's platform supports planning and budgeting with some unique industry-specific capabilities such as patient profitability for healthcare and funds transfer pricing for banking. The vendor also offers capital and workforce planning, strategy management, financial reporting, and profitability modeling. Axiom EPM respondents have consistently given high ratings for both product and implementation. Axiom received high scores for ease of implementation, and scored well for ease of use and for complex financial budgets and plans. These capabilities are applicable for midsize organizations and business units in larger organizations; however, its lack of disclosure management capabilities lowered its score for larger organizations. Of Axiom EPM's respondents, however, 35% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. They also had mean of 202 users per implementation (the vendor also has examples of customer implementations with thousands of users). Most customers surveyed use Axiom for budgeting (94%) followed by planning and forecasting (77%) and financial consolidation and reporting (74%). Of those that reported using Axiom for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and 70% for external reporting. Respondents cited a mix of complexity in their use of the solution for financial consolidation and reporting processes with 13% using it for currency conversion, 26% for intercompany eliminations, 22% for journals, and a higher percentage for statutory consolidations (39%). Board International Board International is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland. The company's CPM offering combines CPM and BI capabilities that can support specialized use cases for planning, simulation and cost analysis. Board targets both midmarket and large organizations, especially those that require more dynamic planning models. Board's product suite includes support for financial consolidation, planning, profitability analysis, strategy management and statutory reporting. Board's in-memory and predictive capabilities allow it to satisfy complex planning and modeling needs. Board does not have a separate disclosure management offering. Some of the company's partners Gartner, Inc. G Page 9 of 30

10 also host its solution on various cloud platforms, a cloud offering based on Amazon Web Services (AWS) is due out later this year. Board received high scores for corporate planning and modeling, and scored well for complex financial budgets and plans as well as ease of implementation. These capabilities are applicable for midsize organizations and business units in larger organizations; however, its lack of a disclosure management capabilities lowered its score for larger organizations. Despite this, 31% of Board's client respondents had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. They also had a mean of 257 users per customer and Board has examples of customer implementations with many hundreds of users. Most surveyed customers use Board for budgeting (88%) followed by planning and forecasting (76%) and financial consolidation and reporting (56%). Of those that reported using Board for financial consolidation and reporting, 89% supported internal reporting and 47% supported external reporting. Respondents cited a mix of complexity in support of financial consolidation and reporting processes with 21% using it for currency conversion, 53% for intercompany eliminations, 21% for journals, and a higher percentage of respondents for statutory consolidations (53%). Almost half of Board's respondents reported using its solution for other purposes such as operational planning and modeling. Host Analytics Host Analytics is a pure-play SaaS vendor headquartered in Redwood City, California. The vendor's CPM suite provides broad support of office of finance and strategic CPM processes. Host Analytics' products include Planning Cloud, Close Management Cloud, Reporting Cloud and Analytics Cloud. The vendor has no separate disclosure management offering. Instead, it includes disclosure management capabilities within its Reporting Cloud offering that can generate XBRL-compliant documents and automate controls. Host Analytics' critical capability scores for complex budgeting and planning CPM increased this year given the addition of its Host Analytics Modeling Cloud, the result of a technology partnership with MongoDB. This solution was introduced earlier this year and Host Analytics is currently expanding its analytics and formula capabilities to support a variety of modeling needs. Host Analytics also supports profitability modeling and strategy management with scorecards, dashboards and initiative planning support. Host Analytics received high scores for all ease-of-use capabilities and for financial close and reporting. Its scores were also respectable for complex financial close and reporting compared to some of the larger vendors. Host Analytics also received good scores for financial budgets and plans, as well as corporate planning and modeling. This combination of ratings is important for small and midsize businesses but also benefits larger organizations and individual business units within them. Clients with an average annual revenue of over $1 billion made up 41% of Host Analytics respondents. This result, along with Gartner customer interactions, indicates a growing level of usage with larger organizations. Respondents had a mean of 90 users, indicating more extensive use within the office of finance than throughout the organization; however, Host Analytics has customer examples with many hundreds of users. Page 10 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

11 Most respondents used Host Analytics for budgeting (95%) followed by planning and forecasting (90%) and financial consolidation and reporting (60%). Of those that reported using the company for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and 83% for external. Respondents indicated a growing complexity in support of financial consolidation and reporting processes with 42% using it for currency conversion, 42% for intercompany eliminations and 17% for journals. However, only 8% of respondents used the solution for statutory consolidation support. IBM IBM's CPM suite includes solutions for budgeting and planning, profitability modeling and optimization, strategy management, and financial consolidation and close management for large and midsize organizations (Cognos Express). IBM's TM1-based solutions support complex planning and forecasting needs, especially when sophisticated modeling, data visualizations and high levels of user interface customization are required. IBM customers tend to use their CPM suites to support more strategic requirements. The IBM TM1 platform supports strategy management and scorecarding capabilities, and IBM Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM) is available both onpremises and in the cloud. The Cognos platform employs in-memory computing to support large data volumes and embeds IBM SPSS capabilities for predictive analysis. Cognos TM1 (release 10.1) increased performance with additional multithreading and 10.2 (due out later this year) includes additional smart caching and contention locking improvements. All IBM CPM applications are available hosted on the IBM Cloud. IBM has a relatively small but growing number of TM1 cloud customers. IBM received high scores for corporate planning and modeling as well as for complex financial budgets and plans, and disclosure management. These capabilities are primarily applicable for large organizations, but its planning and modeling capabilities are also of benefit to business units within larger organizations as well as midsize ones. Of IBM's survey respondents, 48% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. Client respondents also cited a mean of 415 users, this is in the top quartile for all vendors in this study. Respondents also had relatively high levels of customer implementations with many hundreds to thousands of users. Most respondents used IBM's solutions for budgeting (78%) followed by planning and forecasting (83%) and financial consolidation and reporting (74%). Of those that reported using IBM for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and 65% for external. These results, along with Gartner inquiry feedback, demonstrate IBM's tendency to support larger organizations for complex planning and modeling. Infor Infor is headquartered in New York City. Infor delivers a broad CPM suite and has a widespread global customer base. Infor's CPM users also commonly use its EPM offerings. Infor has two separate CPM offerings, CPM and Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management (Infor d/ EPM). Infor continues to support the CPM 10.4 product line (v was released in June 2014); however, Infor d/epm represents the vendor's main CPM suite product set going forward. Cloud Gartner, Inc. G Page 11 of 30

12 availability for Infor d/epm through AWS is also available. Infor d/epm was released in March 2014; this offering duplicates functionality from Infor's current CPM suite, but leverages both its ERP and BI in-memory platform to provide new capabilities such as real-time consolidations and statistical forecasting. It also integrates with Infor Ming.le, the company's collaboration platform. However, all Infor customers surveyed used its CPM (as opposed to Infor d/epm) suite. Infor offers additional solutions under the Infor d/epm umbrella including sales and operations planning (for manufacturing), project cost ledger (for project-based cost accounting) and workforce budgeting. The Infor d/epm suite lacks disclosure and close management capabilities. Infor's scores were, on the whole, slightly above average for financial budgets and plans, modeling and financial close and reporting. Its capabilities are applicable for midsize organizations and business units in larger organizations, but a lack of disclosure management capabilities, especially related to performance reporting, lowered its overall scores. Of Infor's reference respondents, 48% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion, and a mean of 510 users. This is in the top quartile for all vendors in this study; however, additional survey responses and Gartner customer interactions suggest that this number is a bit high, and may include users of its ERP offerings. Most respondents used Infor's solutions for financial consolidation and reporting (90%) followed by planning and forecasting (85%) and budgeting (80%). Of those that reported using Infor for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and 89% for external. In addition, a relatively high percentage of respondents reported using functionality indicative of more complex financial reporting processes, such as currency conversion (50%), intercompany eliminations (61%), journals (44%) and statutory consolidations (56%). These respondents, along with Gartner inquiry feedback, indicate a higher reliance on Infor's CPM solution for office-of-finance processes (with the exception of disclosure management) as opposed to supporting complex planning and modeling needs. Longview Solutions Longview Solutions is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Longview offers a traditional CPM suite, which includes a tax provisioning and tax data management solution. Longview Corporate Performance Management and the Longview Tax solution share the same architectural platform. The company's CPM offerings also include Longview Consolidation, Longview Planning, Longview Profitability Analytics, Longview Tax Provisioning & Reporting, Longview Tax Data Management, Longview Tax Planning, Longview Integration Suite and DisclosureNet. Longview can also manage transactional data to address additional needs such as transfer pricing and financial and tax task management. Longview is unique in its ability to support data provisioning and tax planning capabilities in conjunction with its traditional CPM suite. This is especially useful to customers with complex multijurisdictional tax reporting challenges. Longview offers a cloud-based version of its CPM suite leveraging SunGard Enterprise Cloud Services. On 31 March 2015, Longview announced its merger with Germany-based BI vendor Arcplan, and has subsequently released Simply Finance, an analytic solution for Longview Consolidation or any financial consolidation solution. Page 12 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

13 Longview's scores were above average for simple and complex financial close and reporting, and simple and complex financial budgeting and planning. These capabilities are important for both midsize and large organizations. Seventy-four percent of Longview's customer respondents had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. They also had a mean of 634 users (this includes users for non-cpm processes such as tax planning). These results are the highest of any vendor surveyed, including IBM, Oracle and SAP. Most respondents used their solutions for budgeting, planning and forecasting (82%) and financial consolidation and reporting (65%). Of those that reported using Longview for financial consolidation and reporting, 91% used it for internal reporting and 77% for external. In addition, a fairly high percentage of respondents reported using functionality indicative of more complex financial reporting processes such as intercompany eliminations (55%), journals (50%) and statutory consolidations (64%). Currency conversion was supported by 36%. Oracle Oracle's EPM platform supports a broad range of CPM processes, including financial consolidation and reporting with Hyperion Financial Management and Hyperion Financial Close Management (which includes an account reconciliation module). It also offers Hyperion Disclosure Management, Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, and Hyperion Strategic Finance. Additional products exist for extraction, transformation and load (Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management) metadata management (Hyperion Data Relationship Management) between Hyperion's EPM modules and other data sources. The vendor also offers its Oracle Hyperion Tax Provision product. Oracle has also offered its Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service since February of 2014 and recently introduced its Enterprise Performance Reporting cloud product in May of Oracle's on-premises CPM suite supports a wide variety of complex use cases and addresses the needs of large organizations. Compared to its on-premises offerings, Oracle's Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service is easier to use, due to new a new user interface, and simplified navigation and administration. It is appropriate for simpler use cases where extensive analytics, modeling and workflow support are not required (smaller organizations or for departments or business units in larger organizations, for example). No in-production customers were surveyed by Gartner for this study and no additional customer feedback has been received. Oracle claims an average user count of about 60 users per implementation. Oracle received high scores for complex financial close and reporting, complex financial budgets and plans, as well as for corporate planning and modeling and disclosure management. These capabilities are primarily applicable for large organizations but its Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service product may also be useful to individual business units within these organizations. Of Oracle's reference respondents, 61% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion, and a mean of 543 users, the second highest number in this study. Most Oracle respondents used their solutions for planning and forecasting (87%), budgeting (83%) and financial consolidation and reporting (83%). Of those that reported using Oracle for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% used it for internal reporting and 76% for external. In addition to the broad support of these processes, a high percentage of respondents reported using Gartner, Inc. G Page 13 of 30

14 functionality indicative of more complex financial consolidation and reporting processes such as currency conversion (72%), intercompany eliminations (72%), journals (76%) and statutory consolidations (64%). These results, along with feedback received through Gartner customer interactions, demonstrate a high degree of process complexity support for financial consolidation and reporting on-premises applications. prevero Prevero is headquartered in Munich. The company offers a CPM suite with BI capabilities, as well as separate solutions for planning, consolidation and treasury. Its suite includes support for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, financial consolidation, dashboards, modeling and analysis, as well as project portfolio planning and several industry-specific offerings. In 1Q15, prevero purchased BI vendor MIK; however, no related CPM analytics capabilities have been announced to date. Prevero's MemoLytics IMC engine supports complex models and predictive planning capabilities. When combined with application building and modeling functions designed for business users, prevero tends to be used for a variety of CPM and non-cpm needs within its customer base, such as for sales planning and materials pricing. The vendor has also developed industry-specific offerings for utilities, sports and airports. Prevero received good scores for corporate planning and modeling, and complex financial budgets, as well as all ease-of-use capabilities. These are applicable to business units in larger organizations and midsize organizations. The company's lack of disclosure management capabilities lowered its score for larger organizations. However, 20% of prevero's reference respondents had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion and they had an overall mean of 149 users. All prevero respondents reported using their solutions for planning and forecasting (100%), the next popular use was for budgeting (93%) and then financial consolidation and reporting (76%). Compared to other vendors in this study, prevero respondents did not use their solution for complex financial consolidation and reporting. Only 33% used it for internal reporting, 21% for external reporting, and a relatively a low percentage of respondents reported using prevero to support currency conversion (7%), intercompany eliminations (10%), journals (9%) and statutory consolidations (15%). More than half of respondents reported using their solution for other purposes, such as operational planning and modeling. These results, along with feedback from Gartner customer interactions, demonstrate prevero's tendency to be used for strategic CPM processes such as planning and modeling. Prophix Prophix is headquartered in Ontario, Canada. Prophix supports budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, analysis and consolidations. The vendor's offering also includes its Model Manager and Detailed Planning Manager capabilities that support additional planning detail, such as for sales, manufacturing, marketing, HR and IT data. Prophix has a disclosure management solution through its partner Certent. The Prophix suite is built on the Microsoft SQL Server 2014 platform, and uses Microsoft Excel and SharePoint. It is well-suited for midsize organizations with a Microsoft strategy. Prophix customers report good ease of use from an end-user, implementation and administration standpoint. Page 14 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

15 Prophix received high scores for ease of use and was above average for all ease-of-use capabilities, as well as for financial budgets and plans, and financial close and reporting. These are especially important for small and midsize companies, as well as individual business units within larger organizations. Of our Prophix Software reference respondents, 8% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion and they had a mean of 87 users. These results are consistent with the vendor's strategic direction to address the CPM needs of midmarket organizations. All respondents reported using their solutions for budgeting. The next popular use was for planning and forecasting (85%) and then financial consolidation and reporting (82%). Of those that reported using Prophix for financial consolidation and reporting, 93% tended to use their solution for internal reporting and 63% for external. Compared to other vendors in this study, fewer respondents reported using Prophix to support currency conversion (30%), intercompany eliminations (30%) and journals (15%). However, 30% of respondents indicated that they supported statutory consolidations using Prophix. These results, along with feedback from Gartner customer interactions, demonstrate that Prophix is used most often to support more simple consolidations; however, it has the design flexibility for a variety of uses. For example, almost half of respondents reported using the solution for other purposes such as operational planning. SAP SAP has a broad portfolio of applications and is typically used by large, complex global organizations, especially those standardizing on a SAP ERP and/or BI platform. Its flagship budgeting, planning and forecasting, and financial close offering, SAP Business Planning and Consolidation version for SAP NetWeaver, combines the most common CPM needs of the office of finance into a single product. This eases data and metadata management between these two related processes. SAP's other key CPM products include SAP Strategy Management, SAP Profitability and Cost Management, and SAP Disclosure Management. SAP's enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions support an extensive breadth and depth of CPM functionality. In addition, SAP Business Planning and Consolidation for NetWeaver has been optimized for Hana in-memory platform to speed planning, forecasting and reporting processes. SAP Profitability and Cost Management, and SAP Financial Consolidation also support Hana. Also, unique among other ERP/CPM vendors, when configured with SAP Accounting in S/4HANA, the product delivers new, real-time integrated planning capabilities directly on SAP ERP data. SAP's on-premises CPM suite has demonstrated its ability to support a wide variety of complex use cases, and address the needs of large organizations. SAP's new Cloud for Planning solution provides greater ease of use, new embedded analytics, collaboration capabilities, and calendardriven workflow/task support by using SAP's in-memory Hana cloud platform. However, this solution was introduced recently (in February 2015) and no customers were surveyed or interviewed for this Gartner research. SAP received high scores for complex financial budgets and plans, corporate planning and modeling, complex financial close and reporting, and disclosure management. These capabilities are primarily applicable for large organizations, especially those using the company's ERP offerings. Gartner, Inc. G Page 15 of 30

16 SAP's Cloud for Planning solution may also be useful to individual business units within these organizations, as well as midsize companies. Of SAP's reference respondents, 64% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion and a mean of 349 users. Most SAP respondents used their solutions for planning and forecasting (81%), budgeting (67%) and financial consolidation and reporting (63%). Of those that reported using SAP for financial consolidation and reporting, 76% used it for internal reporting and 59% for external. A fairly high percentage of these respondents reported using functionality indicative of more complex financial reporting processes such as currency conversion (53%), intercompany eliminations (65%), journals (65%) and statutory consolidations (59%). In addition, over 40% of SAP customers surveyed reported using its solution for other purposes such as operational planning and modeling. These results, along with Gartner inquiry feedback, indicate the ability to support high degrees of process complexity. SAS Institute SAS Institute is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. The SAS performance management suite is composed of four integrated offerings: SAS Financial Management, SAS Strategy Management, SAS Cost and Profitability Management, and SAS Capital Planning and Management. The vendor's analytics and in-memory computing competencies are most often used by organizations with complex analytics performance management needs. SAS does not offer a separate disclosure management solution. SAS embeds analytics capabilities such as correlation analysis of cost drivers and scorecard metrics, predictive forecasting, and the ability to incorporate macroeconomic data into forecast projections. The accompanying visualizations and wizards make these capabilities more accessible to finance users. The company's Capital Planning and Management offering also integrates financial and risk-planning processes at both office-of-finance and operational levels of detail. It also supports industry-specific internal capital planning requirements. The vendor's focus on performance management and strong modeling capabilities are characteristic of SAS Institute's more extensive strategic CPM initiatives. SAS Institute received high scores for budgeting and planning, complex budgeting and planning, and corporate modeling, but its scores were lowered by a lack of close management and disclosure management capabilities. Although SAS Institute's respondents varied in size, a relatively large number of them were either government or nonprofit entities (36%, the highest in this study). Survey respondents had a mean of 120 users. Most respondents reported using SAS solutions for financial consolidation and reporting (73%), followed by planning and forecasting (67%) and budgeting (60%). Of those that reported using SAS for financial consolidation and reporting, 55% reported using it for external reporting. Gartner customer feedback suggests that a relatively high percentage of SAS customers use its solution to support profitability and cost modeling. Page 16 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

17 Solver Solver is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It provides close integration (including transactional reporting and drill-down capability) with Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage X3, Sage 500, Sage 300, Intacct, Acumatica, NetSuite, and SAP Business One. Solver's CPM and BI offering BI360 is built on a Microsoft platform and utilizes a Microsoft SQL database that can track transactional data both for CPM and operational reporting. Through its partnerships with document management vendors PaperSave and DocLink, drill-downs can be performed via hyperlinks to document images, such as those used by ERP sales and payable modules. Solver provides disclosure management capabilities through its new partnership with Certent (formerly Rivet Software) for XBRL, benchmarking data and Microsoft Office integration for reports and presentations. Solver received above average scores for all ease-of-use capabilities as well as for financial budgets and plans. Solver also received good scores for financial close and reporting. These are especially important for small and midsize businesses. However, 20% of Solver's reference respondents had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion (the largest grouping of respondents [57%] were evenly split into three segments ranging from $100 million to $1 billion). These respondents also had a mean of 140 users. The majority of Solver respondents reported using the company's solutions for financial consolidation and reporting (92%), for budgeting (62%) and for planning and forecasting (58%). Of those that reported using Solver for financial consolidation and reporting, 100% reported using it for internal reporting and 83% for external. Solver's respondents also reported a mix of complexity in support of financial consolidation and reporting processes with 29% using it for currency conversion, 33% for intercompany eliminations, 13% for journals and a higher percentage of respondents for statutory consolidations (42%). Tagetik Tagetik is headquartered in Lucca, Italy. Tagetik's solutions support both office-of-finance and strategic CPM initiatives but the company is particularly strong in statutory reporting and close management capabilities. Tagetik's CPM suite supports budgeting, forecasting, reporting, financial consolidation, dashboards, modeling and analysis, as well as close and disclosure management. Tagetik's solution can be deployed either as SaaS with Tagetik Cloud (using AWS or Microsoft Azure architecture) or on-premises. Dashboarding and pivoting capabilities are included, while PowerPoint integration and a separate analytics offering (Tagetik Analytics) are available as options. Tagetik also has packaged connectors for the Qlik Analytic Platform and Microsoft PowerBI, as well as industryspecific capabilities for manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, banking and insurance sectors. Tagetik received among the highest scores for financial close and reporting, complex financial close and reporting, disclosure management, and for all ease-of-use capabilities. These capabilities are Gartner, Inc. G Page 17 of 30

18 applicable for both midsize and large organizations. Of Tagetik's reference respondents, 57% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion, and a mean of 350 users. These results compare favorably with the respondents of other large vendors in this study. Most Tagetik respondents reported using their solutions for financial consolidation and reporting (87%), budgeting (77%) and planning and forecasting (73%). Of those that reported using Tagetik for financial consolidation and reporting, 81% used it for internal reporting and 77% for external. In addition, a high percentage of respondents reported using functionality indicative of more complex financial close and reporting processes such as currency conversion (58%), intercompany eliminations (69%), journals (58%) and statutory consolidations (54%). These results, along with feedback from Gartner customer interactions, indicate the ability to support a high degree of complexity, especially for financial close and reporting processes in conjunction with a high degree of satisfaction. Talentia Software Talentia is headquartered in Paris, and provides both finance and human capital management solutions. The vendor can support complex statutory consolidation and reporting requirements, and most of its customers leverage its CPM solution for financial consolidation and reporting. Talentia's combination of CPM and human capital management solutions allows for more integrated financial planning and reporting between the finance and HR areas. The vendor offers both on-premises and cloud-based solutions, as well as industry-specific solutions for banking, insurance and real estate. Talentia's strongest scores were for financial close and reporting, and complex financial close and reporting. Of Talentia's reference respondents, 16% had an average annual revenue of over $1 billion. The company's largest grouping of respondents (38%) was in the $250 million to $500 million range. These respondents also had a mean of 44 users. The overwhelming majority (94%) of Talentia customers surveyed use its solutions for financial consolidation and reporting. Fewer use them for budgeting (44%) and planning and forecasting (38%). Of those that reported using Talentia for financial consolidation and reporting, 80% reported using it for internal reporting and 53% for external. In addition, a relatively high percentage of respondents reported using functionality indicative of more complex financial reporting processes such as intercompany eliminations (73%) and statutory consolidations (67%). These results demonstrate a focus on complex financial close and reporting capabilities. Tidemark Tidemark is a pure-play cloud vendor headquartered in Redwood City, California. The company provides integrated financial and operational planning, and related performance analytics. The company's solutions also support labor and expense planning, profitability analysis, and financial consolidation and reporting, as well as a planning solution for higher education. Tidemark can support high-volume, structured transactional and unstructured data. Its planning capabilities are also supported by diagnostic and predictive analytics, allowing it to support more complex models and planning use cases. Although Tidemark does not support full disclosure management, it provides a unique collaborative reporting solution with its Tidemark Storylines offering. This supports a performance reporting workflow with expanded narratives and actionable visualizations. Page 18 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

19 Tidemark scored well for financial budgets and plans, the performance reporting component of disclosure management, corporate planning and modeling, as well as ease of maintenance and upgrade, and ease of use. Tidemark references had the lowest level of participation in this study. The respondents reported a range of organization sizes with the largest portion, (25%) in the $500 million to $1 billion range. Most customers surveyed use Tidemark for budgeting (80%) followed by planning and forecasting (70%). Only 30% of these respondents use Tidemark to support financial consolidation and reporting. Of those, 100% did so for internal reporting and 33% for external. Respondents reported a low level of financial consolidation and reporting application complexity, and no respondents reported using Tidemark solutions to support currency conversion, intercompany eliminations, journals or statutory consolidations. These results demonstrate a focus on complex financial close and reporting process capabilities. Feedback from Gartner interactions supports these results, indicating that Tidemark's primary use case is in support of planning and budgeting initiatives. Context This research analyzes how successfully the selected vendors (see the Inclusion Criteria section) support core CPM processes, as well as their strategic use and ease of adoption. This analysis differentiates the appropriateness of each vendor's solution based on organization size. This generally reflects use-case complexity, and the related need for more diverse functionality and application customization. In addition, the use of each vendor's solution is evaluated for a particular business unit within a larger organization that is, as a departmental solution for organizations with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. Product/Service Class Definition Support for budgeting and planning, as well as financial consolidation, comprise the roots of CPM. CPM can be viewed as both tactical to optimize financial reporting processes and strategic to plan and model in order to support enterprise performance optimization. These applications bring rigor, accuracy and transparency to financial management processes, address compliance needs, and help the office of finance ensure the accuracy of reporting results. They also support more strategic needs such as corporate planning and modeling, performance reporting, and strategy management. Critical Capabilities Definition Financial Close & Reporting This is the creation of an enterprise view of financial information for management and external reporting with structured financial statements. Gartner, Inc. G Page 19 of 30

20 Consolidation and close capability allows for transparent, accurate and timely external reporting, insightful management reporting, and variance analysis from targets. Results can be reported at consolidated, regional or business-unit levels and a detailed audit trail of activity is maintained. Complex Financial Close & Reporting This includes the aforementioned financial close and reporting capabilities, as well as the support of larger, more complex organizations to reconcile, consolidate and summarize financial data based on different accounting standards and government regulations. It also includes the ability to support complex transaction processing rules to automate intercompany transaction management (elimination and matching), as well as currency translation and revaluation capabilities. This encompasses the ability to support generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) presentation rules, such as U.S. GAAP, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), to enable the preparation of statutory financial statements with appropriate commentary and supplementary notes. Expanded capabilities may be provided within financial close solutions or through separate offerings to provide additional close management functionality. These capabilities primarily include improved close control process management, reconciliation management, intercompany activity management, journal entry control, financial control testing, and tax data provisioning. Financial Budgets/Plans The ability to support control-oriented budgeting, and strategic planning processes. This includes support for financial budgeting processes in which targets are set for revenue, expenditure and cash generation. This also includes the ability to act as a fixed control mechanism and use financial classifications found in the general ledger to classify financial goals and targets. This also includes the ability to support planning and forecasting using a modeling engine optimized for the office of finance's use by, for example, including profit-and-loss balance sheet and cash-flow forecasting capabilities. This feature distinguishes CPM from other analytics applications that also create plans and forecasts (such as applications for operations planning, or marketing campaign planning). These capabilities support the creation, review and approval of financially focused plans and forecasts, as well as their associated workflows. They should support driver-based planning and maintain an audit trail of all associated activities. Complex Financial Budgets/Plans This includes the aforementioned budgeting, planning and forecasting capabilities as well as the ability to support more advanced modeling and analytics, with a broader set of users and expanded data stores. These applications help the office of finance to link to related operational planning capabilities, such as workforce, sales, capital, demand, IT financial planning and tax planning. These solutions create more-accurate predictions based on experience, can model alternative outcomes if business conditions change, and often incorporate in-memory computing, advanced statistical techniques Page 20 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

21 and other features to help support more collaborative enterprisewide planning, predict performance, and guide strategy. Disclosure Management XBRL The ability to support the external disclosure process and publish compliant XBRL documents targeting the functionality described below, and generally provided through a separate disclosure management offering. These solutions include the ability to support collaboration capabilities between the company and the financial statement publisher by providing business rules, workflow, and audit trails to improve the ability to meet regulatory, compliance and governance programs. This includes the support of financial reporting technologies, such as extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). Disclosure Manage Performance Rep Disclosure management performance reporting is the ability to support the internal and external disclosure process from a performance reporting standpoint, including related collaboration, workflow support and document management. Capabilities target the functionality described below and are generally provided through a separate disclosure management offering. These solutions are used to create internal and external management performance reporting packages. They are also used to create report packages (board books, for example) and to aid related collaboration efforts supporting their production and consumption. They should enable narrative reporting, provide workflow support, and include audit and document management capabilities in the support of enterprise performance management. Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade This capability describes the ability of a solution to be maintained and upgraded with a minimum of effort, specialized skills, and cost. SaaS-based applications that include upgrade capabilities have an advantage within this capability. This includes the ability to provide a common platform (for on-premises solutions) in which finance users can play a major (or sole) role in maintaining and upgrading the solution. It also refers to the ability of the solution to provide version updates with minimal application administration effort, as well as greater cost predictability and ease of use. The degree of multitenancy, percentage of cloudbased customers and the vendor's experience supporting a cloud-based solution are also key factors in determining a solution's capability in this area (see "How to Evaluate CPM Cloud Solutions"). Gartner, Inc. G Page 21 of 30

22 Ease of Implementation This refers to the solution's ability to be designed and implemented rapidly and with a minimum of specialized skills and outside consulting expertise. Ease of Use This refers to solution use from both an ongoing administrative and end-user standpoint. It includes end-user satisfaction, ease of adoption, effectiveness and ease of support. Hybrid On-Prem Cloud Budgets/Plans This refers to the vendor's ability to provide both on-premises and cloud options as well as the ability to integrate both into hybrid solutions. The choice to use both on-premises and cloud solutions is dependent on an organization's interest in adopting cloud solutions at different times and/or to support different processes. This capability involves providing a separate cloud solution or a cloud version of an on-premises product with version update and performance monitoring capabilities. Corporate Planning & Modeling This capability extends complex financial planning to include other corporate planning and modeling efforts in support short-term and long-term planning. Users within the office of finance need models that are easier to build and maintain, allow for more frequent modifications of financial assumptions, and leverage additional internal and external data sources. More extensive data allows additional statistical techniques to be used, requires more extensive in-memory computing capabilities, and can necessitate the involvement of a wider community of users (including those outside of finance). This capability supports complex, initiativespecific planning, cost and profitability modeling, and provides decision support. Use Cases Public/Private (Less Than $250 Million) Small organizations that are publicly traded or privately held with less than $250 million in annual revenue. Public/Private ($250 Million to $1 Billion) Midsize organizations that are publicly traded or privately held with $250 million to $1 billion in annual revenue. Public/Private (More Than $1 Billion) Large organizations that are publicly traded or privately held with over $1 billion in annual revenue. Page 22 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

23 Individual Business Unit Individual business units within a large publicly traded or privately held organization. Vendors Added and Dropped Added Axiom EPM Solver Talentia Tidemark Dropped None Inclusion Criteria Market presence Vendor has at least 25 live customers using its CPM products. License and maintenance revenue was at least $10 million from CPM applications at the end of Vendor has live customers in two or more of the following regions: North America, South America, EMEA, Asia/Pacific and Japan. Vendor provides cross-industry office-of-finance and strategic CPM capabilities for midsize or large companies, large public-sector/nongovernmental organizations with multiple, diverse departments, or business units within these larger organizations. Product capabilities Vendor's CPM suite supports (at a minimum): Financial budgeting and planning Financial consolidation and reporting Vendor viability Vendor must be viable, and must not be in the process of filing for bankruptcy. Gartner, Inc. G Page 23 of 30

24 Table 1. Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use Cases Critical Capabilities Public/Private (Less Than $250 Million) Public/Private ($250 Million to $1 Billion) Public/Private (More Than $1 Billion) Individual Business Unit Financial Close & Reporting 15% 14% 5% 3% Complex Financial Close & Reporting 0% 5% 15% 0% Financial Budgets/Plans 25% 15% 10% 15% Complex Financial Budgets/Plans 0% 10% 25% 9% Disclosure Management XBRL 0% 2% 5% 0% Disclosure Manage Performance Rep 3% 4% 5% 3% Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade 15% 10% 5% 15% Ease of Implementation 20% 15% 5% 15% Ease of Use 17% 10% 5% 10% Hybrid On-Prem Cloud Budgets/ Plans 0% 0% 0% 10% Corporate Planning & Modeling 5% 15% 20% 20% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% Source: Gartner (July 2015) As of June 2015 This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products/ services. Each capability is then weighed in terms of its relative importance for specific product/ service use cases. Critical Capabilities Rating Each of the products/services has been evaluated on the critical capabilities on a scale of 1 to 5; a score of 1 = Poor (most or all defined requirements are not achieved), while 5 = Outstanding (significantly exceeds requirements). Page 24 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

25 Table 2. Product/Service Rating on Critical Capabilities Critical Capabilities Adaptive Insights Anaplan Axiom EPM Board International Host Analytics IBM Infor Longview Solutions Oracle prevero Prophix SAP SAS Institute Solver Tagetik Talentia Software Tidemark Financial Close & Reporting Complex Financial Close & Reporting Financial Budgets/Plans Complex Financial Budgets/Plans Disclosure Management XBRL Disclosure Manage Performance Rep Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade Ease of Implementation Ease of Use Hybrid On-Prem Cloud Budgets/Plans Corporate Planning & Modeling Source: Gartner (July 2015) As of June 2015 Gartner, Inc. G Page 25 of 30

26 Table 3 shows the product/service scores for each use case. The scores, which are generated by multiplying the use case weightings by the product/service ratings, summarize how well the critical capabilities are met for each use case. Page 26 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

27 Table 3. Product Score in Use Cases Use Cases Adaptive Insights Anaplan Axiom EPM Board International Host Analytics IBM Infor Longview Solutions Oracle prevero Prophix SAP SAS Institute Solver Tagetik Talentia Software Tidemark Public/Private (Less Than $250 Million) Public/Private ($250 Million to $1 Billion) Public/Private (More Than $1 Billion) Individual Business Unit Source: Gartner (July 2015) As of June 2015 Gartner, Inc. G Page 27 of 30

28 To determine an overall score for each product/service in the use cases, multiply the ratings in Table 2 by the weightings shown in Table 1. Gartner Recommended Reading Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription. "How Products and Services Are Evaluated in Gartner Critical Capabilities" "Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites" "User Survey Analysis: Customers Rate Their CPM Vendors" "In-Memory Computing Reinvents Integrated Financial Planning" "Defining Workforce Analytics" Evidence As part of this research, Gartner conducted a survey of organizations using CPM products from September 2014 to November The survey participants were customer references nominated by each of the 17 CPM suite vendors featured in "Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites." These surveyed customers were asked 20 specific questions about their experiences with their CPM vendors and solutions; Gartner obtained 449 full responses. In addition to the survey results, Critical Capabilities research is also the result of the significant consideration of extensive information evaluated from ongoing Gartner CPM reference visits and calls. These interactions serve as a critical component of vendor evaluation. Critical Capabilities Methodology This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products or services. Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific product or service use cases. Next, products/services are rated in terms of how well they achieve each of the critical capabilities. A score that summarizes how well they meet the critical capabilities for each use case is then calculated for each product/service. "Critical capabilities" are attributes that differentiate products/services in a class in terms of their quality and performance. Gartner recommends that users consider the set of critical capabilities as some of the most important criteria for acquisition decisions. In defining the product/service category for evaluation, the analyst first identifies the leading uses for the products/services in this market. What needs are end-users looking to fulfill, when considering products/services in this market? Use cases should match Page 28 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G

29 common client deployment scenarios. These distinct client scenarios define the Use Cases. The analyst then identifies the critical capabilities. These capabilities are generalized groups of features commonly required by this class of products/services. Each capability is assigned a level of importance in fulfilling that particular need; some sets of features are more important than others, depending on the use case being evaluated. Each vendor s product or service is evaluated in terms of how well it delivers each capability, on a five-point scale. These ratings are displayed side-by-side for all vendors, allowing easy comparisons between the different sets of features. Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0: 1 = Poor or Absent: most or all defined requirements for a capability are not achieved 2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved 3 = Good: meets requirements 4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements 5 = Outstanding: significantly exceeds requirements To determine an overall score for each product in the use cases, the product ratings are multiplied by the weightings to come up with the product score in use cases. The critical capabilities Gartner has selected do not represent all capabilities for any product; therefore, may not represent those most important for a specific use situation or business objective. Clients should use a critical capabilities analysis as one of several sources of input about a product before making a product/service decision. Gartner, Inc. G Page 29 of 30

30 GARTNER HEADQUARTERS Corporate Headquarters 56 Top Gallant Road Stamford, CT USA Regional Headquarters AUSTRALIA BRAZIL JAPAN UNITED KINGDOM For a complete list of worldwide locations, visit Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner s prior written permission. If you are authorized to access this publication, your use of it is subject to the Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services posted on gartner.com. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity. Page 30 of 30 Gartner, Inc. G