Integrated Planning and Business Intelligence DACH...BARC Score Integrated Planning and Business Intelligence DACH 5 objects and images on a screen, formatted reports also support

BARC Score

Integrated Planning and Business Intelligence DACH

Portfolios for planning, reporting and analysis

Authors: Christian Fuchs, Larissa Seidler, Patrick Keller, Carsten Bange, Robert Tischler

Publication: March 22, 2017

Abstract

Planning is an important element of management control to align operational business with strategic

corporate objectives. However, successful planning processes require comprehensive business in-

telligence (BI) functionality. This BARC Score focuses on the market for integrated planning and BI

products and portfolios in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) due to the im-

portance of both topics in combination for many companies, especially in the mid-market. Based on

data points from The Planning Survey, The BI Survey and numerous analyst interactions, vendors

are rated on a variety of criteria.

This document is not to be shared, distributed or reproduced in any way without prior permission of BARC

http://barc-research.com/planning-survey-16/

http://barc-research.com/bi-survey-16/

BARC Score Integrated Planning and Business Intelligence DACH 2

Table of contents

Overview ............................................................................................................................................. 3

Inclusion Criteria ................................................................................................................................. 3

Evaluation Criteria .............................................................................................................................. 4

Portfolio Capabilities ....................................................................................................................... 4

Market Execution ............................................................................................................................ 6

Score .................................................................................................................................................. 8

Score Regions ................................................................................................................................ 9

Evaluated Products .......................................................................................................................... 10

Vendor Evaluations .......................................................................................................................... 11

Bissantz ......................................................................................................................................... 12

BOARD International .................................................................................................................... 13

CoPlanner ..................................................................................................................................... 14

Corporate Planning ....................................................................................................................... 15

Cubeware ...................................................................................................................................... 17

cubus ............................................................................................................................................. 19

evidanza ........................................................................................................................................ 20

IBM ................................................................................................................................................ 21

IDL ................................................................................................................................................. 23

Infor ............................................................................................................................................... 24

Jedox ............................................................................................................................................. 25

Longview ....................................................................................................................................... 26

LucaNet ......................................................................................................................................... 27

Oracle ............................................................................................................................................ 29

prevero .......................................................................................................................................... 31

SAP ............................................................................................................................................... 32

Tagetik .......................................................................................................................................... 34

Other Vendors .................................................................................................................................. 36

Related Research Documents ......................................................................................................... 39


Overview

The market for planning and business intelligence (BI) products in the DACH region is highly competi-

tive. Besides a few international software generalists offering their planning and BI portfolios worldwide,

there are many local specialists challenging the big vendors. This report focuses on the German-speak-

ing planning and BI “DACH” market (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and analyzes the strengths and

challenges of all the leading vendors as well as many smaller vendors that often have less visibility, but

equally offer outstanding value to their customers.

Planning and BI initiatives always include more than just the front end products. The technical architec-

ture also includes data warehouses and data marts (e.g. for planning), data integration and data quality

components, dictionaries, repositories, and many other technologies. Organizations should have a

proper BI strategy that goes well beyond an architecture blueprint to include non-technical requirements,

alignment with corporate strategy, organizational models, outcome-based priority settings, and a proper

roadmap.

Still, when it comes to kicking off or expanding a planning and BI program, the initial focus almost always

lies on the required toolsets. While this may not be the ideal starting point, at some stage a platform,

portfolio or product decision has to be made. This document will help with the selection process by

evaluating the market leaders and most commonly used product sets.

Inclusion Criteria

There are two principal inclusion criteria for this BARC Score: the first is associated with each vendor’s

products and the other is linked to the financial results relating to those products. Functionality for plan-

ning (including write-back of planning data to a central database and other advanced planning features

like workflows, simulation, etc.) is the entrance ticket to be evaluated in this BARC Score. Moreover, a

vendor has to supply additional functionality for all four technologies from the following platform portfolio

in a solution not merely focused on one industry or use case:

Formatted Reporting

Ad Hoc Query and Reporting

Analysis

Dashboarding

In addition, the vendor has to generate a minimum of 3 million EUR in license revenue per year with the

above product set in German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

Vendors with an open source business model are evaluated by their total revenue because those com-

panies do not charge a license for their products, but an annual subscription fee.


Evaluation Criteria

Every vendor is evaluated on two dimensions: “Portfolio Capabilities” and “Market Execution”. Each

represents one axis on the Score. These two dimensions include the following sub-criteria.

Portfolio Capabilities

The portfolio capabilities criteria selected to rank the planning and BI vendors in this Score include the

following technologies and their corresponding weighting. In general, portfolio capabilities reflect func-

tional (planning, formatted reporting, ad hoc query, analysis, dashboarding and predictive analytics) and

architectural criteria. A special emphasis is placed on the integration of planning and BI functionality

within the vendors’ product portfolios. An additional important evaluation criterion is ease of use for

business users.

Please note: Only vendor-distinct functionality is rated in our vendor portfolio ratings, not that

of integrated OEM products or partner solutions.

Planning

Planning describes the task of creating data with a future time reference. An essential software require-

ment here is to write back planning data from planning forms in the front end to a planning data model

in a central database. The planning model consists of planning structures (master data), key figures and

planning logic, and combines different operational and financial plans. Both the planning forms and

planning model are created using a planning solution. The coordination of the various planning activities

and planners involved is handled by process control functionality (workflow). For plan data entry, specific

planning functionality (e.g. data allocation, simulation and comments) is provided.

Ad Hoc Query and Reporting

In many cases, users require more interactivity than they receive from formatted reports. Ad hoc report-

ing is geared to non-professional report developers and provides basic filtering and navigation features

(e.g. drill down, ranking and conditional formatting).

Integration

Because planning is generally not possible without reporting (e.g. results reports or reports on interme-

diate results) or analysis (e.g. analyses of planned and actual values), the seamless integration of plan-

ning and BI functionality is essential to support planning processes optimally. Having functionality for

both planning and BI in one product on one integrated database is certainly preferable to an integration,

for example, at database level between different products with the need for ETL processes to transfer

data.

Architecture

The overall architecture of each vendor’s product portfolio is also evaluated. This includes the integration

of the various components, from the perspective of the front end and user experience as well as at

infrastructure levels, including data access, models and metadata. In addition, support for different plat-

forms as well as overall performance and caching mechanisms are considered in this evaluation.

Formatted Reporting

Formatted standard reports are usually page-oriented reports run on regular schedules. These include

static reports, which usually appeal to the widest audience in a company because they are simple to

use, and prompted reports, which enable users to filter reports based on predefined parameters. Aside

from pixel-perfect displays, which provide developers with precise control over how they place report


objects and images on a screen, formatted reports also support rich printing options, dynamic page

sizing and a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) development interface.

Virtually every BI product is able to provide some type of reports. The importance of page orientation,

scheduling and other advanced reporting features, however, varies depending on the customer’s re-

quirements.

Ease of use for business users

Ease of use considers the general user-friendliness of a planning and BI product for business users in

areas like model design, screen generation, report development, administration in business depart-

ments, etc. This criterion is included because ease of use for business users is often a very important

criterion in software selection processes.

Analysis

Data analysis differs from basic reporting in that it probes much more deeply into (operational) data and

generates new information, which can be interpreted and acted upon by the business. Further analyses

can be carried out using mathematical methods. Traditional online analytical processing (OLAP) pro-

vides dimensional (versus reporting) data views which make it easy for users to drill down, drill across

and pivot dimensions as well as apply sophisticated calculations without scripting. Certain analysis prod-

ucts also offer methods to support set-based, visual or discovery-oriented data analysis.

Dashboarding

Dashboards are also referred to as cockpits, scorecards or BI applications. They provide graphical views

of key performance indicators and the ability to drill down to details. Some dashboards offer self-service

functions so end users can create their own layouts without any outside help. Others (especially BI

applications with guided navigation) require support from technically savvy business users or program-

mers. Scorecards often incorporate strategy maps and applications to manage improvement initiatives.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics and data mining use various methods and (statistical) algorithms of classification

and time series analysis to forecast events and behaviors. A general goal is to identify relationships

between data and generate insights for existing data as well as new data using mathematical models.

Users have to be well trained in order to use these methods and to gain the expected insights from the

data.

Criteria Weighting

We don’t consider all components of a planning and BI portfolio to be equally important in this Score.

This is not a reference to the generated value of an individual technology, but indicates the current

customer focus and buying pattern.


Table 1: Portfolio Capabilities – Weighting of Criteria

Criteria Weighting

Planning High

Ad Hoc Query and Reporting High

Integration High

Architecture High

Formatted Reporting Medium

Ease of Use for Business Users Medium

Analysis Medium

Dashboarding Low

Predictive Analytics Low

Market Execution

On the “Market Execution” axis, we rate the planning and BI vendors in this Score using the following

criteria and corresponding weightings.

Product Strategy

This is the most important of all the criteria. Vendors are rated on their product development track record,

product roadmap and innovation, as well as the company portfolio’s alignment with current market trends

and demands.

Customer Satisfaction

In this year’s Score we included the customer satisfaction KPIs from The Planning Survey and

The BI Survey. These take into account product satisfaction, vendor support and implementer support

ratings reported by customers. The ratings of vendors that provide more than a single product are com-

bined into a single rating. Vendors not included in The Planning Survey or The BI Survey (due to a lim-

ited number of survey responses from their customers) receive an average rating. This average rating

stands for “satisfied” and does not negatively affect the score.

Ecosystem

In this category, we evaluate the extended ecosystem in which the vendor participates. This includes

business partner networks, hardware or cloud infrastructure providers, consulting firms and systems

integrators, and other technology alliances.


Financial Strength

This criterion covers the financial position of the vendor, from market capitalization, cash position and

EBITDA to profitability, burn rate and investment rounds. For vendors that are private companies or

don’t break out the numbers for individual product lines, estimated figures are used.

Organizational Strength

Vendors are rated on their organizational stability, which is influenced by consistency of corporate strat-

egy, continuity of executive leadership, but also staff turnover, reorganization and layoffs.

Marketing Strategy

A vendor’s marketing strategy is evaluated by rating its corporate and product messaging, the com-

pany’s presence in printed media, advertising and social networks, as well as its ability to run events,

such as conferences, seminar roadshows and webinars.

Sales Strategy

To rate a vendor’s sales strategy, we look at the various channels through which the company goes to

market: with both direct and indirect sales teams, through distributors, value-added resellers (VARs),

online channels as well as OEM relationships. We also evaluate the vendor’s product pricing and sales

models, such as perpetual licensing, support subscription, open source and freemium.

Criteria Weighting

The following weightings have been applied for the market execution criteria:

Table 2: Market Execution – Weighting of Criteria

Criteria Weighting

Product Strategy High

Customer Satisfaction Medium

Ecosystem Medium

Financial Strength Medium

Organizational Strength Low

Marketing Strategy Low

Sales Strategy Low


Score

Calculating the individual ratings for all criteria and all vendors produces two scores per company: the

portfolio capabilities score and the market execution score, each being plotted on the corresponding

axis and thus resulting in the vendor’s dot on the following BARC Score graphic (see Figure 1).

Please note: Only vendor-distinct functionality is rated in our vendor portfolio ratings, not that

of integrated OEM products or partner solutions.

Figure 1: BARC Score Integrated Planning and BI DACH – Portfolios for planning, reporting

and analysis


Score Regions

Vendors can be positioned in one of five regions, depending on their total score on each of the two axes.

Dominators

Dominators are vendors that drive both technology and market adoption in a highly influential manner.

They possess both a broad portfolio of market-leading products with a strong brand as well as a robust

commercial prowess through best-in-class sales and marketing programs, an extensive ecosystem of

business partners and alliances, and a rock-solid financial position. Dominators are considered a con-

tender in virtually every planned implementation.

Market Leaders

Market Leaders are well established vendors that drive strong market adoption, supported by technology

innovation and strategic acquisitions and by leveraging robust account management and a solid track

record. Their portfolio enjoys high brand awareness in the market, covers an extensive range of tech-

nologies and services with only few gaps. Market Leaders typically have a large market share, making

them a viable contender in almost all implementation scenarios.

Challengers

Challengers come in various shapes and sizes. They can be large vendors tapping into a new market

by acquisition and pushing their way in with force, small innovative companies with a promising portfolio

but limited sales and marketing resources, or vendors that attempt to disrupt a market with a new tech-

nology approach or different business model.

Specialists

Specialists are smaller vendors with a portfolio focused on a specific market segment. Vendors can be

either limited in their technical capabilities by concentrating on certain features and functions, or the

company isn’t a global enterprise and focuses on particular geographic regions.

Entrants

Entrants are usually startups that have limited reach and visibility in the market. Their product capabili-

ties are incomplete when compared to the competition, and the vendor’s long-term market potential is

still unproven.


Evaluated Products

The following products and versions are evaluated in this BARC Score.

Vendor Product(s) Version

Bissantz DeltaMaster 6.1

BOARD International BOARD 10

CoPlanner CoPlanner 9.4

Corporate Planning CP-Suite including Corporate Planner 5

Cubeware Solutions Platform C8 8

cubus Outperform 8.1

evidanza Evidanza MaC

IBM IBM Planning Analytics (formerly TM1)

Cognos Analytics

11

11

IDL CPM- and BI-Suite 2016

Infor Infor BI 11

Jedox Jedox Suite 7

Longview Longview Plan

Longview Analytics 2017

LucaNet LucaNet.Planner 10

Oracle

Hyperion Planning

Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service

BI Suite

BI Cloud Service

11.1.2.4

11

prevero prevero 10

SAP

BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation

BusinessObjects Enterprise

BusinessObjects Cloud

10.1

4.2

Tagetik Tagetik 5.2


Vendor Evaluations

In the following section, we discuss each vendor and highlight their strengths and weaknesses based

on customer surveys and market research by the authors.

Each vendor description includes vendor-related information, products covered in the BARC Score, and

strengths and weaknesses.


Bissantz

Nuremberg, Germany

www.bissantz.com

Bissantz, a software vendor based in Nuremberg, Germany, was founded in 1996 as the technology

spin-off of a FORWISS research team. The company initially specialized in solutions for sophisticated

data analysis tasks in business environments. Today, it has approximately 100 employees based in

three locations in Germany. The company has over 500 customers primarily in Germany, Austria and

Switzerland, winning 50 new customers in 2016. Bissantz targets mid-sized companies and large cor-

porations across all industries to support them in controlling and planning business performance.

DeltaMaster, Bissantz’s flagship product, offers flexible and integrated functionality for (advanced) data

analysis (including statistical and data mining methods) as well as planning, ad hoc reporting and dash-

boards. The strengths of the solution lie in its analytic capabilities, which include good support for pro-

active analyses as well as automated and predefined analytic methods with comprehensive visualization

functions. Besides its BI functionality, DeltaMaster can be used to create individual planning applications

with capabilities for top-down and bottom-up planning. The product supports business departments in

building detailed operational budgets. DeltaMaster contains little predefined content (e.g. for integrated

financial planning) and has the characteristics of a development environment that requires no program-

ming.

As a pure front end, DeltaMaster supports direct connections to popular multidimensional databases

such as Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Infor BI OLAP Server, IBM Cognos TM1, Oracle

OLAP, Oracle Essbase, SAP BW and SAP HANA. Planning applications are typically based on Mi-

crosoft SQL Server or Analysis Services. However, write-back to Infor BI OLAP Server, IBM Cognos

TM1, and SAP HANA is also possible.

Strengths

Integrated BI product for (advanced) analysis, ad hoc reporting, dashboards and planning

Vast range of analysis and visualization functionality as well as innovative chart types for data-

dense reports and dashboards

Flexibility in creating individual planning applications with options for top-down as well as bot-

tom-up planning, including comprehensive capabilities for commenting

Statistical and predefined data mining methods that can be applied by users without expert

knowledge

According to the results of The BI Survey 16, Bissantz’s customers are largely satisfied with the

vendor and the level of support it offers

Weaknesses

No predefined business content for planning tasks (e.g. integrated financial planning)

Limited workflow functionality for controlling planning processes (e.g. planning calendar, task

management with status monitoring, visual display of planning processes, and approval pro-

cesses through database modeling only, not as standard functionality)

No Excel add-in. Only export of data to Microsoft Excel provided.

High flexibility can lead to complexity (e.g. for implementing and creating complex planning and

BI applications with DeltaMaster)

Little focus on reports with page/print orientation or high levels of individual formatting


BOARD International

Chiasso, Switzerland

www.board.com

BOARD was founded in 1994 and employs more than 220 people worldwide. Both its head office and

software development headquarters with approximately 30 employees are located in Chiasso, Switzer-

land. BOARD has 23 offices worldwide and a partner network in over 30 countries. Around 3,000 cus-

tomers worldwide use BOARD to implement both planning and BI projects.

BOARD is a one-product-company and provides a combined product consisting of a front end and a

proprietary multidimensional database. It is a flexible development environment for creating planning,

dashboarding, reporting, analysis and predictive analytics applications. BOARD offers strong function-

ality, especially for planning and simulation use cases, and provides a consistent environment for ad-

ministration, development and utilization. Due to its tightly integrated front and back ends, the proprietary

BOARD database allows only limited access for third-party front ends.

BOARD’s product strategy is based on an “all-in-one” philosophy. The goal is to deliver an easy to use

and technically homogeneous environment in support of BI and Corporate Performance Management.

BOARD’s vision is to enable business users to implement solutions without significant IT support, based

on an easy-to-use toolkit with no technical programming needed. Its cloud offering, based on Microsoft

Azure, and self-service capabilities (called Data Fast Track) were two of the key enhancements in ver-

sion 10. With Data Fast Track, business users can quickly create new data models for self-service data

discovery.

BOARD receives good feedback from its customers for its self-service capabilities, performance and

especially its ease of use and flexibility for users in BARC’s BI Survey 16.

Strengths

Flexible, integrated BI product for developing planning, dashboarding, reporting, analysis and

advanced analysis applications

Graphical, business user-oriented development environment for creating (complex) planning

and BI applications without technical programming skills

Tightly integrated system architecture of multidimensional in-memory database and front ends

Functionality for bottom-up (including workflow management functionality) and top-down plan-

ning approaches

Self-service dashboard creation by end users through assembly of predefined BI objects (so-

called PinBOARDs)

Weaknesses

Limited access for third-party front ends to proprietary BOARD database

Limited capabilities for formatted print reporting, as the vendor focuses on on-screen application

delivery

Limited predefined business content provided by BOARD itself (e.g. for integrated financial plan-

ning) as the vendor focuses on enabling individually tailored solutions. However, BOARD has

created the first templates for its cloud customers with more to follow.

The product's flexibility can lead to more complex handling for inexperienced users when im-

plementing and building intricate applications


CoPlanner

Graz, Austria

www.coplanner.com

CoPlanner was founded in 1989 in Graz, Austria, with the aim of supporting enterprises in implementing

integrated BI systems by offering comprehensive business and technical expertise. The vendor currently

employs approximately 50-60 people and has, according to its own accounts, 500 customers with

2,500 implementations, primarily in Austria and Germany.

CoPlanner is a one-product-company. Since 2003, it has provided its BI and planning product CoPlan-

ner, which is available in different specifications for small, medium and large companies. Data is physi-

cally stored in Microsoft SQL Server. Additionally the vendor uses in-memory data storage on the

CoPlanner server, which is synchronized simultaneously with the relational database. The product is a

flexible development environment for all kinds of planning approaches (top-down, bottom-up, or combi-

nations of both). Business power users typically use it to create wizard-based individual planning appli-

cations requiring only minimal IT support (e.g. for data integration tasks or linking of sub-budgets in the

data model via SQL).

CoPlanner customers usually start off with planning projects but often have additional requirements for

reporting, analysis or financial consolidation. For standard formatted reporting use cases, CoPlanner

provides an integrated, business user-friendly reporting module, which allows for creating on-screen

reports as well as formatted print reports. Comprehensive options for formatting and layouting tabular

as well as graphical reports are available. Moreover, for ad hoc query and individual analyses, CoPlan-

ner Analyzer or a feature-rich Excel add-in are available. Add-ins for PowerPoint and Word are also

provided.

The core of the product is CoPlanner’s comprehensive planning functionality. The development envi-

ronment provides flexible modeling of individual planning applications and integrated financial planning

(balance sheet, profit and loss statement, liquidity) as standard. In typical implementations, CoPlanner

is used by 30 to 40 concurrent users. However, there are also implementations with much smaller and

larger numbers of users.

Strengths

Business user oriented integrated product for planning, reporting, analysis and financial consol-

idation with flexible modeling of individual planning applications and comprehensive planning

functionality

Predefined model for integrated financial planning (balance sheet, P&L, cash flow)

Feature-rich Excel add-in with cell-based and formula-based (dynamic) mode

Integrated engine to present relationally stored data multidimensionally, including the option of

third-party product access

Weaknesses

Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services is typically used for data integration tasks – it’s not

very business user-friendly and usually requires IT support

Limited capabilities for predictive analytics and advanced analysis

Comparatively small vendor with a strong presence in Austria


Corporate Planning

Hamburg, Germany

www.corporate-planning.com

CP Corporate Planning AG (CP) is a software vendor and consultancy based in Hamburg, Germany.

The company, which was founded in 1989, currently has approximately 130 employees worldwide. CP

has regional and international offices in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.

The company is one of the largest planning software vendors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

CP offers solutions for operational management, integrated financial planning, financial consolidation

and strategic management. A few years ago, CP combined its separate products into an integrated suite

called CP-Suite with comprehensive functionality for users, including workflows, roles and rights. All

modules have a common user interface and are based on an integrated database in Microsoft SQL

Server. 3,900 customers worldwide use various modules of CP-Suite.

Corporate Planner, the planning product in CP-Suite, is targeted at business departments. The solution

can be deployed both as a single desktop application as well as an enterprise solution for CPM and

financial consolidation with over 100 individual planners as users. Across its entire customer base, Cor-

porate Planner is used by an average of 10+ users per installation, yet it also supports installations with

significantly larger numbers of users.

Among CP’s strengths are its intricate dialog boxes, wizards, comprehensive planning functionality and

predefined reports and analyses that support business power users in a variety of tasks. The product

provides centralized top-down planning, decentralized bottom-up planning as well as a combination of

both approaches. For reporting, Corporate Planner offers various report types with many different pos-

sibilities. A comprehensive library of predefined business analyses is also available (e.g. variance, ABC

and portfolio analysis), which users can run directly on their data. However, because CP doesn’t regard

itself as a typical BI product for individual analyses, a so-called BI-Exit is available for accessing CP

data with third-party front ends: Connectivity BI and Connectivity Qlik can be used to transfer data from

CP-Server (including logics, calculations, etc.) into separate databases (e.g. for using Microsoft Power

BI) and the Qlik-specific proprietary data structures that QlikView and Qlik Sense require. In the latest

version, a new CP-Sales module provides functionality for sales controlling with enhanced flexibility for

navigation in data and improved dashboarding capabilities. These new developments are a first step to

enhancing CP’s BI functionality for dashboarding, ad hoc queries and analysis.

Strengths

Integrated BI suite for operational management, integrated financial planning, financial consol-

idation and strategic management

Business user oriented product with usually low installation effort and short implementation cy-

cles

Predefined planning functions and business analyses included as standard functionality

Flexible capabilities for top-down and bottom-up planning. Predefined model for financial plan-

ning.

Weaknesses

Limited suitability for environments with large numbers of users (>100 concurrent users) and

complex structures

Limited flexibility due to high degree of prefabrication and restricted capabilities for reporting

and (ad hoc) analyses – Complements third-party products (typically Qlik) and BI-Exit (Connec-

tivity BI). In the latest version, functionality for BI has been extended. However, initially these


functions are only available in the CP-Sales module and are not generally available to all cus-

tomers.

Limited functionality for formatted print-oriented reporting (the vendor recommends its own

Word add-in for this purpose)


Cubeware

Rosenheim, Germany

www.cubeware.com

Founded in 1997 and based in Rosenheim, Germany, Cubeware currently has 125 employees in five

German offices as well as subsidiaries in the DACH region; San Jose, USA; and Bangalore, India (ad-

ditional off-shore development). In July 2008 Cubeware was acquired by Cranes, a vendor based in

India. Primrose Investments GmbH now owns Cubeware, having acquired it from Cranes Group in 2016.

Cubeware’s BI platform CSP C8 was first released in September 2014. Its main components are BI front

ends C8 Cockpit, C8 Mobile and C8 Snack; the application server C8 Server; and C8 Importer, a prod-

uct for data integration and modeling. All products are developed by Cubeware itself and are primarily

sold directly by the vendor in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where they are used by approximately

4,000 customers. Cubeware technology is also used worldwide through partner channels and various

OEM versions.

C8 Cockpit, the main BI front end component of CSP C8, is an integrated BI product for dashboards, ad

hoc reporting, analysis and planning. The product, which is targeted at business power users, can run

on various multidimensional databases (Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, IBM Cognos TM1, In-

for BI OLAP Server, Oracle Essbase and SAP BW). Direct access to relational data is provided using

ODBC and OLE-DB connectivity. A fine-tuned combination of CSP C8 and IBM Cognos TM1 (named

CW1 database powered by IBM) became available in November 2016, combining Cubeware’s products

with IBM’s in-memory technology and Excel integration.

CSP C8 is aimed at usage scenarios in a range of business departments without any industry-specific

focus. C8 Cockpit, a visual environment for building and displaying screen-based reports, analyses and

dashboards, offers good layout, graphic and interactive capabilities. In terms of planning, Cubeware

positions itself as a vendor of operational planning and detailed budget planning solutions. The vendor

extends the financial planning solutions of partners like IDL and Denzhorn with BI and data management

functionality.

Strengths

Integrated BI product for dashboards, ad hoc reporting, (OLAP) analysis and planning with var-

ious front ends

Runs on various multidimensional databases and is targeted at business power users

Visual environment for building interactive, screen-based BI and planning applications with good

layout functions and good ad hoc reporting features targeted at business users

Data integration and modeling functions in C8 Importer are designed for business users with

certified SAP connectivity

Weaknesses

Compared to its competitors, it has limited planning capabilities (e.g. lacks advanced workflow

functionality such as task management; planning calendars do not come as standard; offline

planning is only possible with workarounds; and no detailed business content - such as logic,

data models and wizards for data entry - is available from the vendor itself)

Limited functionality for formatted, print-oriented reporting

No proprietary Excel add-in, although the Excel add-ins of underlying databases can be used if

required (e.g. Perspectives/CAFE Excel add-ins with CW1 database powered by IBM)


Limited support for advanced statistical analysis. However, integration with R is provided using

C8 Importer.


cubus

Herrenberg, Germany

www.cubus.eu

Founded in 1992 and based near Stuttgart, Germany, cubus AG currently has approximately 35 em-

ployees. According to its own accounts, more than 350 companies use its software.

Its product, cubus outperform, is an integrated performance management solution with functionality for

planning, simulation, strategy implementation (balanced scorecard) and project portfolio management.

For ad hoc reporting and dynamic OLAP analyses on the Web, cubus EV Analytics (formerly

IBM Cognos Executive Viewer) is integrated in outperform. The product offers predefined business con-

tent, data models and logic. Aimed at business power users, outperform has a Web-based user interface

resembling Excel.

outperform provides a flexible platform for building individual, complex business logic for planning ap-

plications. The solution has no specific market or industry focus and is used by companies of various

sizes and industries. outperform, however, does have predefined models and logic for integrated profit

and financial planning (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow), revenue and sales planning, human resource

planning, cost center planning, cost allocations, investment planning and project portfolio management.

Customers can completely adapt and extend the models and logic to meet their specific requirements.

Following initial implementation, business power users can work well with the solution. cubus EV ex-

tends outperform’s range of functions with comprehensive functionality for OLAP analysis, ad hoc re-

porting and data visualization.

outperform uses multidimensional (Oracle Essbase, IBM Cognos TM1 or Microsoft SQL Server Analysis

Services) and relational databases (Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server) for data storage. cubus has been

rated as the most popular third-party client product for Oracle Essbase for the last two years in The BI

Survey, underlining the fact that most cubus customers use the Oracle database rather than the Mi-

crosoft SQL Server Analysis Services or IBM Cognos TM1 database options.

Strengths

Integrated platform for planning, balanced scorecard and project portfolio management with

predefined business content, models and logic

Excel-like interface and Web functionality, suitable for business users

cubus consultants possess strong business expertise

cubus achieves excellent vendor support and implementer support ratings in The BI Survey 16.

Good vendor support invariably leads to customer satisfaction.

Weaknesses

Small vendor with international presence through partners

Limited functionality for print reports

Creating planning forms with the Excel add-in is rather complex yet offers a broad scope of

functionality to experienced users

Availability of Office add-ins with write-back functionality depends on the database technology

used (available with Oracle Essbase and IBM Cognos TM1 only)


evidanza

Regensburg, Germany

www.evidanza.de

evidanza was established in 2004 as a software vendor developing its own BI and planning solutions,

most of which are based on Microsoft technologies. The company is based in Regensburg, Germany,

has about 25 employees and currently serves approximately 250 clients in larger mid-sized companies.

The vendor has a network of national and international partners.

evidanza targets its product to clients requiring an integrated reporting, analysis and planning solution

with additional functionality for collaboration as well as governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The

evidanza platform offers flexible capabilities for building individual top-down and bottom-up planning and

BI applications with no specific market or industry focus. evidanza provides strong functionality, partic-

ularly for print reporting and use of corporate designs.

evidanza can access any source system using the ETL product Microsoft SQL Server Integration Ser-

vices. However, administration and particularly ETL in evidanza is relatively technical and requires sup-

port from IT or tech-savvy business users. Comprehensive wizards support modeling of business and

structural models as well as planning structures in SQL Server. Business departments can manage

ongoing operations as well as build planning models, sub-budgets and budget templates on their own.

In particular, to speed up the storage of mass data within planning processes, evidanza has developed

its own proprietary in-memory database called speedBase. speedBase is optimized for parallel data-

base access by many users for the specific case of data collection (multi-user storage optimization).

evidanza is capable of addressing numerous requirements across the BI and performance management

spectrum. This broad approach gives customers the convenience of being able to standardize on evi-

danza. The vendor’s multi-client strategy offers many different ways to access the solution wherever

users want – including desktop, browser, tablets, ERP systems and SharePoint.

Strengths

Integrated platform for reporting, analysis and planning with supplementary modules

Flexibility for building individual planning solutions including complex, multidimensional applica-

tions for top-down and bottom-up planning

Multi-client strategy with many different ways to access the solution

Wizards support modeling of business and structural models as well as planning structures in

SQL Server

Good functionality for print reporting

Weaknesses

Small German vendor with limited resources

No Microsoft Office integration (i.e. no Excel add-in)

Relatively technical administration and data integration; support required from IT or tech-savvy

business users (ongoing operations can be managed by tech-savvy business users)

Solution supports OLAP analysis. Support for other types of analyses (such as advanced anal-

yses) is limited.


IBM

Armonk, NY, USA

www.ibm.com

Being one of the world’s largest vendors of IT hardware, software and services, IBM has a global work-

force of approximately 380,000 employees and is active in over 170 countries. At the end of 2007, IBM

purchased the software vendor Cognos for about $5 billion to extend its existing business intelligence

product portfolio.

IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of business intelligence, performance management and advanced

analytics solutions. For this BARC Score, we evaluated IBM Cognos Analytics (formerly IBM Cognos BI)

– the company’s enterprise business intelligence solution – and IBM Planning Analytics (formerly

IBM Cognos TM1) – the strategic planning product. Both solutions are available on-premises or in the

cloud.

IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) has been on the market since the early 1980s. Cognos acquired the

product as part of its takeover of Applix shortly before Cognos itself was purchased by IBM. Due to

Planning Analytics’ rich functionality for analysis and planning, and its in-memory technology, the prod-

uct plays a strategic role for IBM. It is essentially a high-performance, multidimensional in-memory da-

tabase for planning and (OLAP) analysis. Planning Analytics is targeted at power users who build indi-

vidual planning and analysis applications based on the in-memory database. The solution offers Web

and Excel front ends and has capabilities for publishing content on the Web.

IBM’s BI suite Cognos Analytics provides functions for many different categories of BI applications in-

cluding dashboards, formatted reporting, ad hoc reporting and OLAP analyses in Web-based and inte-

grated modules. The suite is typically used in large scenarios supporting the needs of many concurrent

users as well as large data volumes. In 2015 IBM started to modernize Cognos Analytics providing new

HTML5 based web front ends, which offer additional data modeling features besides dashboarding and

reporting functionality.

Today, IBM’s strategic goal and positioning of its BI and analytics portfolio is to provide capabilities that

are accessible to every type of user in customer organizations. This goal is supported through the addi-

tion of IBM Watson Analytics, a cloud-based self-service data prep and data discovery product, and

continued development of the IBM SPSS Predictive Analytics portfolio.

Strengths

Planning Analytics is a flexible product for business users with both Web and Excel front ends

for planning and analysis based on a high performance in-memory OLAP database

Extensive product offering for formatted and ad hoc reporting; OLAP, visual and advanced anal-

ysis, and dashboard creation with IBM Cognos Analytics

Broad capabilities for data mining and advanced analysis with SPSS: creation and deployment

of individual models as well as business-user-oriented encapsulated capabilities available; vis-

ual business-user-oriented data discovery and cognitive BI with IBM Watson Analytics

Well established and expansive partner community with global product support and know-how

Weaknesses

Limited integration between the Cognos Analytics, Planning Analytics, SPSS and Watson Ana-

lytics products

High flexibility of Planning Analytics can lead to complex handling, especially when implement-

ing and building intricate applications


Limited functionality for advanced analysis in the Cognos Analytics solution (however, SPSS is

available as a dedicated product)

Relatively expensive BI and planning products, although the cloud versions of Cognos Analytics

and Planning Analytics offer alternatives for cost savings and faster time to value


IDL

Schmitten, Germany

www.idl.eu

IDL GmbH Mitte is a solutions partner offering business, methodological and technological competen-

cies in all aspects of financial consolidation, planning, reporting and analysis. The company was founded

in 1990 and currently employs 120 people, based in its offices in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and

France.

IDL offers a flexible CPM suite, which includes solutions for financial consolidation (IDL.KONSIS), finan-

cial planning (IDL.FORECAST) and reporting and analysis (IDL.DESIGNER). It also has complementary

products for annual reports (IDL.PUBLISHER), e-balance filings (IDL.EBILANZ) and XBRL reporting

requirements in banks (IDL.FINREP). According to its own accounts, around 850 corporate groups,

each with 50 to 60 individual companies on average, currently use IDL solutions. IDL also enhances its

own product portfolio with third-party OEM products (e.g. to support data integration and operational

planning scenarios that go beyond the inbuilt financial planning functionality). The vendor currently main-

tains a very close partnership with Cubeware (providing the OEM products IDL.IMPORTER and

IDL.COCKPIT).

IDL’s planning product IDL.FORECAST is targeted at business departments, which often belong to a

group of companies. Company-wide financial results plans (balance sheets, profit and loss statements,

liquidity) can be created using the product. To address operational planning scenarios other than finan-

cial planning (e.g. sales, HR, procurement planning, etc.), IDL.FORECAST is complemented by

IDL.COCKPIT. Detailed operational plans are integrated with financial plans at data level with prede-

fined routines for data integration using IDL.IMPORTER. IDL.DESIGNER, a central component of the

IDL reporting platform, completes the IDL portfolio with user-friendly, Web-based functions to create ad

hoc reports, analyses and dashboards. Its modern tile interface and Windows look and feel provide a

user-friendly environment for designing individual reports and analyses with custom layouts. IDL solu-

tions can either run on-premises or as SaaS and cloud services, based on Microsoft Azure.

Strengths

Comprehensive product portfolio for financial planning, financial consolidation, and report-

ing/analysis enhanced with OEM products

Extensive predefined business rules for financial management

Transparent status monitoring for controlling planning and financial consolidation processes

(completeness of delivered data, plausibility)

Business user-friendly, Web-based solution for ad hoc reporting, OLAP analysis and dashboard

design with IDL.DESIGNER

Weaknesses

Operational detailed plans are done in a separate OEM product (IDL.COCKPIT), integrated at

data level only. Therefore, there’s significantly higher systems complexity due to different data-

base environments, modeling techniques, user interfaces, (planning) functionality, etc.

IDL.DESIGNER is still a young product and platform support is currently limited to Microsoft

SQL Server Analysis Services and IBM Cognos TM1 cubes

Limited support for print-oriented reporting

Implementation of complex financial management applications can require external business

consulting know-how


Infor

New York, NY, USA

www.infor.com

Infor is a global US-based vendor of ERP, CRM, BI, SCM and other business software solutions with

venture capital funding from Golden Gate Capital Partners. The company was founded in 2002, has

more than 150 offices worldwide and supports over 73,000 customers in around 200 countries.

The Infor BI suite comprises the following components: Application Studio (for building Web-based BI

applications), Office Plus (an add-in for Excel, Word and PowerPoint), Dashboards (for building and

administering dashboards for the Web and mobile devices), OLAP Server and Designer (for modeling

OLAP cubes). Predefined BI and performance management applications are also available for various

business functions and industries with Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management (d/EPM),

including strategy management, budgeting, planning and financial consolidation. OEM partnerships with

Cubeware, Bissantz and IBM Cognos address additional areas such as data integration, advanced an-

alytics and print reporting.

All components use Infor’s OLAP Server, which stores data in multidimensional structures. Infor requires

a relational database, most often Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle, for storing the repository (users, roles

and reports from Application Studio and Office Plus). Through a meta layer named DataLinks, Infor has

improved structured access to data in Infor or third party systems and the platform also supports access

to Amazon Redshift.

Infor BI provides a multifaceted development environment for building custom BI and planning applica-

tions. Application Studio serves as the central component for building applications and, in the case of

Infor d/EPM, business content. The product is marketed to mid-sized companies and large corporations

in all industries and is designed for tech-savvy business power users who build BI applications in an

environment similar to Excel.

Strengths

Integrated application suite for dashboards, reporting, analysis, planning and forecasting as well

as consolidation with proprietary multidimensional data storage

Flexible, Web-based BI applications that can be built by tech-savvy business power users

Strong functionality for ad hoc analysis and planning integrated in Excel (Infor BI Office Plus)

Good mobile BI offering including dashboard creation capabilities and write-back for planning

Predefined analytics, BI and performance management applications with Infor d/EPM

Weaknesses

High flexibility can lead to more complex handling when implementing intricate Infor BI applica-

tions from scratch

Only passive positioning of Infor BI’s capabilities in trending market areas such as self-service

BI, visual analysis and predictive analytics

Limited functionality for data mining and advanced analysis; R integration available; supple-

mented by partner products

Exceptionally negative feedback from Infor’s customers in this year’s BI Survey 16, particularly

in important areas like customer experience (performance satisfaction, recommendation), cus-

tomer satisfaction (product satisfaction, vendor support), innovation and business benefits


Jedox

Freiburg, Germany

www.jedox.com

Established in 2002, Jedox has grown into a team of more than 150 employees. The vendor serves

clients worldwide through its headquarters in Freiburg, Germany, its seven international offices, and a

partner network.

The company’s flagship product is Jedox Suite, a flexible BI and performance management product with

planning, reporting and analysis capabilities. The suite runs on the company’s own multidimensional in-

memory database. The underlying philosophy of Jedox Suite is to extend the familiar Excel environment

with specific BI functionality. The solution, which offers both an Excel client and Web interface resem-

bling a spreadsheet as front ends, was first launched in 2004. The Excel add-in is a classic spreadsheet

interface combining well-known Excel functions with additional Jedox features. The Web client has a

browser-based spreadsheet interface – a type of Excel on the Web – with additional functions. According

to the company, more than 1,900 clients worldwide use the Jedox product today.

The product is aimed at business power users who create individual planning, reporting and analysis

applications with the flexible multidimensional in-memory database in a familiar spreadsheet environ-

ment. However, tasks such as integrating data into Jedox OLAP Server may require IT support. Trained

business users can later take on responsibility for the administration and further development of Jedox

applications. These applications can be published to large groups of users through Jedox Web and

Jedox Mobile. Both centralized top-down and decentralized bottom-up planning scenarios can be im-

plemented with Jedox. Classified as a development environment, in its latest version Jedox now pro-

vides predefined planning models for P&L, cost center, sales and HR via its own marketplace integrated

in Jedox Suite.

The BI Survey 16 again revealed a high level of satisfaction with vendor, product and functionality

among Jedox customers confirming its good price-to-value-perception.

Strengths

Flexible BI product for planning, reporting and analysis. Designed for business users

Uses Excel and spreadsheet resembling Excel in the Web client as user interfaces

Good integration between Excel and Web clients. Mobile access to Jedox content

Web-based modeling (OLAP database and ETL processes)

Good customer feedback and top-ranked in several important KPIs in The BI Survey 16

Weaknesses

Handling can get complicated, especially during the implementation and initial development of

complex BI applications

Compared to its competition, it still has limited predefined business content (e.g. for integrated

financial planning). However, several models and a marketplace were introduced with the cur-

rent release which is likely to be enhanced in the future

Limited predefined workflow functions (e.g. planning calendar, task assignment, status monitor-

ing, approval process) and collaboration functions

Limited functionality for page-based print reporting within Excel client and the Web client


Longview

Markham, Canada

www.longview.com

In March 2015, Longview Solutions and arcplan merged to form an integrated CPM and BI company,

operating under the name Longview. Longview today has 190 employees serving 1,100 customers

mainly located in North America and Europe. Longview is a privately held company backed by Marlin

Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $3 billion (USD) of capital under management.

The merger brings together Longview’s CPM and tax solutions (Longview Plan, Longview Tax and

Longview Close) with arcplan’s BI and analytics solutions. In the overall portfolio, arcplan is now called

Longview Analytics. Whereas Longview Analytics provides functionality for building individual BI appli-

cations for dashboards, reporting, analysis and planning, Longview’s products bring capabilities for cor-

porate performance management and tax management. Using the so-called arcplan Longview commu-

nication interface, it is possible to apply arcplan’s BI capabilities in Longview 7, the engine behind

Longview CPM and Tax. Longview typically operates on either Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle as da-

tabases. Leveraging relational data storage, Longview provides a multidimensional in-memory data en-

gine, accelerating performance and adding financial intelligence for planning and closing processes.

The Longview product offers functionality for tax provisioning, planning, budgeting and forecasting, stat-

utory consolidation and reporting as well as disclosure management to support finance and tax pro-

cesses. Longview Analytics complements these functions with mobile reporting, operational planning,

dashboarding and analytics solutions. Longview Analytics is a versatile platform for the development of

tailor-made BI applications across all major databases, applications and systems. Users typically access

these analytics applications via a Web browser.

Strengths

Strong individual product offerings for Corporate Performance Management and individual BI

applications available on-premises or in the cloud

Functionality for strategic as well as operational planning and forecasting

Good flexibility for building individual, tailor-made BI applications with Longview Analytics (re-

porting, analysis and dashboarding use cases)

Large number of supported data sources that can be combined in BI applications as required

with Longview Analytics (Longview and other third-party data sources)

Weaknesses

Integration of products is incomplete (e.g. integration currently includes metadata exchange,

integrated data access and common authentication methods, but products continue to have

different UIs, separate Excel add-ins for Longview Plan and Longview Analytics, etc.)

Integration of product lines is progressing rather slowly. The vendor is also behind the compe-

tition in addressing new trending topics (e.g. in The BI Survey 16, customers express dissatis-

faction at Longview Analytics’ innovative capabilities in terms of data discovery/visualization,

self-service and collaboration)

Developing BI applications with Longview Analytics requires some technical knowledge and is

only suitable for trained business users. However, once created, experienced business users

can usually administer these applications.


LucaNet

Berlin, Germany

www.lucanet.com

Founded in 1999, LucaNet is a German vendor of software, seminars and consulting focused on BI in

accountancy. The company is headquartered in Berlin with additional offices in Germany, Europe, Asia

and the United States. According to its own accounts, LucaNet employs more than 250 people and

serves over 1,700 customers worldwide. LucaNet’s software portfolio comprises standardized and tes-

tified (IDW) solutions for financial planning and controlling, legal and management consolidation, mu-

nicipal consolidated financial accounts, e-balance filings, collection and validation of data, controlling of

equity holdings, and data transfers which can be used in any desired combination. All products are

based on a proprietary multidimensional, in-memory database called LucaNet.Financial OLAP Server.

Within the database, a predefined financial (planning) data model with intertwined business rules for

creating balance sheets as well as profit and loss statements and derived cash flows is provided. In

recent versions, the product’s flexibility has been enhanced beyond its traditional focus on finance-spe-

cific content (dimensions, KPIs, etc.). It is now possible to name dimensions in the data model individu-

ally and to reuse and/or use them multiple times for different purposes. Moreover, an integrated devel-

opment environment provides functionality to design individual forms, calculation rules and applications.

Usually, a data warehouse layer (LucaNet.Financial Warehouse) based on a relational database tech-

nology is implemented as an interlayer between operational systems (e.g. ERP) and LucaNet.Financial

OLAP Server for storing mass data and additional information.

As the planning module of the portfolio, LucaNet.Planner focuses on integrated corporate and financial

planning as well as financial reporting and analyses in individual subsidiaries or at group level. For

individual, flexible (ad hoc) reporting and analyses, LucaNet recommends its Excel add-in as a front

end, or the enhanced functionality of various BI products available on the market (e.g. Qlik, Tableau,

BOARD, Cubeware, etc.). Due to its open architecture, BI front ends that are capable of accessing

OLAP data sources can access the LucaNet.Financial OLAP Server including all structures, hierarchies

and values via XMLA.

Operational planning scenarios outside the area of finance (e.g. sales, HR, production, etc.) can either

be addressed with LucaNet’s enhanced flexibility (however, the number of dimensions in the data model

is technically still limited to a maximum of 11), its integrated development environment or with third-party

products (e.g. BOARD, Cubeware, etc.). Using the integrated development environment, LucaNet pro-

vides apps for several operational planning scenarios (e.g. HR planning, project planning, tax planning,

etc.) that can be used to feed the vendor’s inherent financial planning model.

Strengths

Business user oriented platform for integrated financial management for individual subsidiaries

or at group level based on a proprietary multidimensional database

Extensive predefined business rules for financial management

Plan data entry with full client, Web client and Excel add-in

Great collection of 120 predefined connectors to operational systems with semantic support

including drill down functionality (e.g. SAP, Navision, Diamant, proALPHA, DATEV, Sage, etc.).

Tight integration of (financial) planning and financial consolidation

Weaknesses

Support for operational plans in LucaNet (apart from integrated financial planning) is limited by

LucaNet’s flexibility. Predefined apps for various operational plans are available. Alternatively,

third-party products (such as BOARD, Cubeware, etc.) can be used, although in these cases


integration is at data level only and necessitates data transfers between environments which

can be done using the vendor’s script-based ETL tool LucaNet.Importer.

Limited functionality for individual reporting and analysis. However, OLAP cubes in LucaNet.Fi-

nancial OLAP Server can be accessed by certain BI front ends using XMLA. Moreover, the

vendor’s bidirectional Excel add-in can be used with Excel’s native functionality or the proprie-

tary database can be replicated in a standard DBMS and accessed with an appropriate third-

party product.

Implementation of (complex) financial management applications can require external business

consulting know-how


Oracle

Redwood Shores, CA, USA

www.oracle.com

Oracle is one of the world’s largest software companies, with offices in more than 145 countries. It has

long been the largest RDBMS vendor and, through a series of acquisitions, is now the second largest

applications vendor. With its purchase of Sun in 2010, Oracle entered the hardware market as well.

In the BI and performance management area, Oracle offers various on-premises and cloud products.

The well-known Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) portfolio as well as Ora-

cle BI suite and Oracle Big Data Discovery are available as on-premises products. However, in 2014,

Oracle changed its general release strategy to “Cloud First”, and the vendor now has a major strategic

focus on enhancing its cloud-based portfolio. Oracle’s cloud portfolio includes Oracle Enterprise Perfor-

mance Management Cloud, which includes EPM applications such as Oracle Planning and Budgeting

Cloud Service for planning, and Oracle BI Cloud Service (part of the Oracle Analytics Cloud). A variety

of other on-premises and cloud offerings complete Oracle’s product portfolio.

Oracle Hyperion Planning was acquired with Hyperion Solutions in 2007. Based on the Essbase multi-

dimensional database, Hyperion Planning is a platform for corporate planning as well as integrated fi-

nancial planning. It is especially suited to centrally controlled, standardized planning applications in mid-

size to large scenarios. Hyperion Planning is integrated with Oracle’s other EPM products, and with

thousands of implementations it is possibly the most widely used planning product in the world. As a

cloud-based alternative, Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service can be used via the Web, Mi-

crosoft Office and mobile clients.

Oracle BI is a platform with modules for developing and deploying dashboards, formatted reporting, ad

hoc reporting and analysis. Oracle BI Cloud Service extends Oracle’s BI suite in the cloud in terms of

data loading and modeling. With its Data Visualization offering, Oracle continues to deliver expanded

capabilities for advanced visualizations and self-service in a business user-oriented solution focused on

explorative data analysis (data discovery). For transformation and analysis of Hadoop-based data, Or-

acle also has a visualization and analysis solution called Oracle Big Data Discovery.

Strengths

Web-based BI product portfolio for data preparation, data discovery, formatted and ad hoc re-

porting, analysis, dashboarding and scorecards in one suite available on-premises and in the

cloud

Hyperion Planning and Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service offer comprehensive

functionality for Web-based, integrated corporate planning in top-down and bottom-up planning

scenarios

Variety of predefined applications available for EPM and BI/Analytics

High-performance multidimensional in-memory database with Oracle Essbase

Suitable for enterprise BI and planning scenarios in mid-size to large companies

Weaknesses

No seamless integration between product packages such as Oracle BI and the Hyperion prod-

uct family (except predefined applications). Integration mainly at data level and shared access

in EPM Workspace portal.

Hyperion Planning is not well suited to a self-service approach in line of business. Due to its

comprehensive functionality and setting options, the back end requires tech-savvy power users

for administration tasks and to set up individual planning applications. However, with the cloud


offering – Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service – back end complexity is reduced since Oracle

looks after the technical operation of the system.

Cloud-first strategy for the BI and EPM portfolio might lead to transient functional disparity be-

tween cloud and on-premises offerings

Compared to the competition, Oracle’s BI and planning products are rather expensive


prevero

Munich, Germany

www.prevero.com

prevero was originally founded as a consultancy in 1994. The company is based in Munich, Germany,

and has a workforce of approximately 180 employees worldwide as well as an international partner

network. In recent years, prevero has grown into one of the largest performance management vendors

in the DACH region in terms of software revenues, and claims to have a client base of more than 4,500

companies in over 30 countries. Its growth has been largely organic but was also boosted considerably

by the acquisition of software vendors Winterheller in 2011 and MIK in 2015. In July 2016 prevero itself

agreed to be acquired by Unit4, a Dutch provider of enterprise applications (e.g. ERP) for service or-

ganizations.

prevero’s product portfolio includes its platform technology prevero.core that can be used for various BI

and performance management use cases. prevero is positioned as a flexible platform for tailor-made

planning and BI solutions. The company also offers a Web-based financial consolidation solution called

prevero Consolidation (OEM SigmaConso), which is integrated with prevero at database level.

prevero is targeted to business users who build BI and performance management applications with the

help of wizards. The tool provides a flexible development environment for building individual applications

for planning, reporting and analysis, which is supported by dialog boxes and requires no knowledge of

scripting.

For historical reasons, prevero has a strong focus on the utilities sector and it offers pre-built content

specifically for this industry. Approximately 20-30 percent of prevero’s clients come from this sector.

Despite this, prevero positions itself as industry-neutral and now wins more new clients outside the

utilities sector. An additional predefined industry model is available for airports, and prevero also offers

predefined business applications for areas such as project portfolio management, strategic controlling

and risk management.

Strengths

Flexible, integrated platform for planning, reporting, analysis and dashboarding aimed at busi-

ness users

Strong functionality for reporting with development in a spreadsheet environment resembling

Excel (full client)

Comprehensive functionality for top-down, bottom-up and mixed planning methods

Microsoft Office integration (Excel, PowerPoint and Word)

Predefined business applications and content available

Weaknesses

Product's flexibility can lead to more complex handling when implementing and building (com-

plex) applications

Scheduled, periodic report distribution is rather technical and has to be done by administrators

using macros and Windows tasks on the prevero server

As of today, limited capabilities for advanced and predictive analysis


SAP

Walldorf, Germany

www.sap.com

SAP was founded in 1972 as a business applications company, long before it entered the BI market

with the large acquisition of Business Objects in 2008. Today SAP is one of the largest applications

vendors worldwide. Its original strategy was to view BI as an extension of its all-inclusive ERP offerings.

In 1998 SAP launched SAP Business Warehouse (BW), a completely packaged BI solution designed to

complement SAP ERP applications. To meet the growing BI needs of its customers, SAP acquired

Business Objects (BO), OutlookSoft and Pilot Software back in 2007 and 2008. The portfolio of BI and

analytics solutions, also called SAP BusinessObjects Analytics, encompasses solutions in the following

categories: business intelligence, predictive analytics and performance management on-premises and

in the cloud.

SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC), the on-premises planning product in SAP’s

performance management portfolio, was originally developed by OutlookSoft and based on Microsoft

SQL Server as a database platform. Since the acquisition, SAP has developed a second version for

BW, and it now sells both versions. With release 10.1, BW Integrated Planning (BW-IP) capabilities were

introduced into BPC, SAP’s own former BW-based planning product. BPC 10.1 runs on BW on HANA

and combines IP’s integration in BW with BPC’s ease of use. BPC is an integrated, Microsoft Excel and

Web-based solution for planning and financial consolidation that can be used to develop individual,

workflow-based planning applications for various kinds of planning topics (sales, financials, etc.) in a

flexible manner. It is targeted at mid-size and large companies. According to SAP, more than 5,500 cus-

tomers use BPC as a planning and financial consolidation product (approximately 60% with BW and

40% with Microsoft).

BI capabilities in the SAP BO Analytics portfolio are available in the SAP BusinessObjects Cloud pack-

age and SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise for on-premises deployments. SAP BusinessObjects Cloud

is designed specifically for the cloud and combines the traditionally separate processes of data model-

ing, planning, reporting, visualization and predictive analytics into one solution aimed at business users.

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise is an on-premises BI offering which incorporates various end-user

tools with a moderate level of integration. The suite contains strong individual products as well as several

clients for various types of analysis and capabilities for building custom guided BI applications that can

be published to the Web or mobile devices. The suite currently consists of the following products: SAP

Crystal Reports (highly formatted standard reporting), SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence (ad hoc

reporting and analysis), SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio (custom dashboards and individual guided

BI applications), SAP BusinessObjects Analysis (multidimensional OLAP analysis) and SAP Busi-

nessObjects Lumira (self-service data discovery and visual analysis).

Strengths

Extensive BI platform – SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – for formatted and ad hoc reporting,

analysis, dashboarding and custom application development as well as performance manage-

ment

Suitable for large deployments

Integrated cloud solution – SAP BusinessObjects Cloud – which combines BI, planning and

predictive capabilities in one product and also serves as the platform for the SAP Digital Board-

room solution

Business-user-friendly experience for ad hoc reporting, analysis and visual analysis

BPC is a flexible, integrated product for planning and financial consolidation, providing function-

ality for Web and workflow-based planning scenarios


Well established and expansive partner community with worldwide product support and

knowledge; knowledge of SAP products in the DACH region is especially strong

Weaknesses

Product integration in the BI portfolio remains a work in progress with a strategy to converge

user experiences. However, with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Office, a common Excel-

based front end is available for planning and BI (comprising the Analysis, EPM and BPC plug-

ins as single tabs).

BPC’s backend in BW requires technical staff to set up the database (cubes) and queries – not

very business user friendly

SAP offers a broad portfolio of separate BI and planning products for different use cases. Cus-

tomers have to decide which product(s) best suit(s) their requirements

Compared to the competition, SAP’s BI and planning products are rather expensive

Moderate customer feedback and level of satisfaction with vendor, products and functionality in

The BI Survey 16 and The Planning Survey 16


Tagetik

Lucca, Italy

www.tagetik.com

Tagetik is an Italian software vendor and solutions partner for CPM and finance-oriented corporate man-

agement. Founded in 1986 in Lucca (Italy) as a management consultancy, Tagetik now specializes in

performance management solutions. According to the vendor’s accounts, more than 1,000 customers

worldwide use its solutions, including over a hundred in the DACH region. Tagetik employs a total of

480 people spread across more than 30 offices worldwide. In March 2017 Tagetik was acquired by

Wolters Kluwer, a global company with revenues of 4.2bn Euro in 2015 that provides information, soft-

ware, and services to a variety of industries, including tax and accounting. In the future Tagetik will be

a strategic element in the Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting division.

Its product is a unified Web-based software for performance management (financial consolidation, plan-

ning and budgeting), financial corporate management, risk management and compliance as well as

disclosure management. Tagetik targets mid-size and large companies (or groups of affiliated compa-

nies) with lots of users involved in corporate planning and/or financial consolidation processes.

From a planning perspective, Tagetik is focused on integrated financial planning and budgeting, with

top-down, bottom-up and mixed approaches all supported. Comprehensive workflow functionality (es-

pecially for bottom-up approaches) is available to control planning processes involving lots of planners.

Tagetik contains a predefined model for integrated financial planning (balance sheet, profit and loss

statement, liquidity) that can be used by individual subsidiaries or at group level. Consolidation of plans

is possible due to Tagetik’s integrated functionality for financial consolidation.

In terms of reporting and analysis, Tagetik’s integrated reporting product and dashboards are geared to

on-screen display (not printing) of reports and dashboards. In version 5.2, a new analysis panel in the

Web client and Excel add-in was introduced for analyses by cell (drill down to details in a specific cell),

by cube (pivot analysis for a specific range of data) or anywhere (free filtering of data room). Moreover,

Tagetik enables wizard-driven automatic cube generation for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services

and third-party BI products (partly OEM) from XLCubed, Microsoft, pmOne and Qlik. The relational Ta-

getik data model, usually stored in Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or (since 2014) SAP HANA, is open to

third-party access.

Strengths

Integrated product for financial planning (balance sheet, P&L, liquidity) for individual subsidiar-

ies or at group level with additional performance management functionality (financial consolida-

tion, risk management, disclosure management)

Comprehensive predefined set of business rules for financial corporate management and se-

lected operational plans

Comprehensive Web-based workflow functionality with transparent status monitoring

Business user friendly Excel add-in as well as Web-based planning forms for data entry

Weaknesses

For individual operational plans (e.g. sales) not covered by Tagetik’s standard modules (e.g.

finance planning), five additional dimensions can be used freely in the data model (on top of

eleven predefined dimensions)

Limited functionality for reporting and analysis in Tagetik itself – this is supplemented by inte-

grated third-party BI products


Depending on complexity and scope, the implementation of Tagetik applications can require

external business know-how from consultants


Other Vendors

There are many other established software vendors in the DACH region that provide mature and very

useful technology, which may be ideal for organizations looking for a planning and BI solution. However,

due to the inclusion criteria applied in this report, those vendors are not evaluated in detail. To complete

the market overview, here is a selection of those providers (this does not claim to be a complete list).

Adaptive Insights

Palo Alto, CA, USA

www.adaptiveinsights.com

Cloud-based BI and planning product with modules for planning, financial consolidation, reporting and

analysis.

anaplan

San Francisco, CA, USA

www.anaplan.com

Flexible, cloud-based planning product with additional functionality for reporting and analysis. Planning

applications for miscellaneous topics available.

Denzhorn

Ulm-Jungingen, Germany

www.denzhorn.de

Standardized software product for integrated financial, results, sales, investment and HR planning.

elKomSolutions

Tuttlingen, Germany

www.elkomsolutions.de

Software for integrated corporate planning and financial consolidation based on IBM Cognos TM1 tech-

nology (database, data integration and front ends).

Kern Allevo

Freiburg, Germany

www.kern.ag

Allevo integrates with SAP ERP CO to provide Excel-based operational planning, analysis and visuali-

zation of SAP ERP CO data in the field of operational BI.

macs Software

Zimmern, Germany

www.macscontrolling.com

Modular software product family for accounting and controlling with integrated planning functionality.

Flexible combination of different software modules is possible.


OneStream Software

Rochester, MI, USA

www.onestreamsoftware.com

Corporate performance management product with functionality for financial consolidation, planning and

analytics.

Procos

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

www.procos.com

Flexible budgeting and planning software for operational as well as strategic planning (balanced score-

carding).

Prophix

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

www.prophix.com

Integrated BI product for planning, analysis, reporting, dashboarding and financial consolidation focused

on mid-sized companies and based on the Microsoft BI platform.

PST

Freising, Germany

www.pst.de

Integrated software for dashboarding, reporting, OLAP analysis and planning based on the Microsoft BI

platform.

Software4You

Munich, Germany

www.software4you.com

Software for planning and corporate controlling with a particular focus on HR planning.

Solvistas

Linz, Austria

www.solvistas.com

Software suite with separate modules for planning (financials, costs, liquidity, sales), analysis based on

key figures and balanced scorecarding.

SWOT

Berlin, Germany

www.swot.de

Standardized software product for integrated financial planning and corporate controlling focused on

small to medium-sized enterprises.


Thinking Networks

Aachen, Germany

www.thinking-networks.com

Flexible planning software for creating tailored applications focused on sophisticated planning require-

ments and innovative planning approaches.

Valsight

Potsdam, Germany

www.valsight.com

New platform for interactive, driver-based simulation and corporate management based on operational

and strategic drivers. Scenario simulation of action alternatives and measures considering uncertainties

and risk simulations (Monte-Carlo).


Related Research Documents

The following BARC and CXP Group documents complement this BARC Score report:

BARC Access: Access to BARC’s complete research portfolio, including product reviews with

detailed insights into more than 35 BI solutions, covering all the major players in the BI space

http://barc-research.com/research/business-intelligence/

BARC Study “Softwarewerkzeuge für die Planung”: Comprehensive detailed information on

the market-leading planning products in the DACH region. The study scores products from dif-

ferent vendors for use in mid-size and large companies (in German only).

http://barc.de/planung

BARC Score Business Intelligence: A quick and clear overview of the international BI prod-

ucts market based on a combination of detailed end-user feedback and thorough analysis of

products and vendors.

http://barc-research.com/barc-score/bi-score/

BARC Score Advanced Analytics Platforms: This report focuses on vendors offering ad-

vanced analytics and data mining platforms in the DACH region, and analyzes the strengths

and challenges of all the leading vendors in the market as well as a number of smaller vendors

that often have less visibility, but equally offer outstanding value to their customers.

http://barc-research.com/barc-score/barc-score-advanced-analytics-platforms-2016/

BARC Score Data Integration Platforms: The market for data integration (DI) tools is highly

competitive, with some large international incumbents, many successful vendors with a track

record spanning decades, and countless smaller specialists that approach DI challenges from

a niche perspective. This report analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of all of the leading

vendors in the DI market.

http://barc-research.com/barc-score/barc-score-data-integration-platforms-2016/

The BI Survey 16: The world’s largest annual survey of BI end users analyzes the latest trends

and reveals how real-world users currently rate their BI vendors and products.

http://barc-research.com/bi-survey-16/

The Planning Survey 16: The world’s largest vendor-independent survey on the use of plan-

ning products looks at the latest trends and features user ratings of the leading planning vendors

and products.

http://barc-research.com/planning-survey-16/

BARC BI Trend Monitor 2017: BARC’s BI Trend Monitor 2017 study gives BI practitioners a

platform to have their say on the trends currently shaping the BI and data management market,

supplemented by additional commentary and analysis from BARC analysts.

http://barc-research.com/research/bi-trend-monitor/

The PAC SITSI Research Platform: Market and vendor analyses on Analytics and many other

topics

https://www.pac-online.com/sitsi

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