Yphise Software Product Assessment, Strategy Management

SELECTED BUSINESS CASE

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

STRATEGY MANAGEMENT

To effectively meet preservation, improvement or disruption

objectives

Yphise portfolio of valuable projectsIndependent research since 1985

Software Product Assessment EXECUTIVE VOLUME

Yphise ISO 9001:2000-certified independent quotations

of software products

Abstract 3

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

Benefits 4

Yphise shortlist 8

Yphise ranking 14

APPENDIX

Assessment overview 19

SO Service

ManagementPR Projects

GM GovernanceIS Information

Systems

Yphise ISO 9001:2000-certified ongoing research program since 1985

The project qualified at executive level: benefits, scope,

key requirements, final short-list of valuable solutions,

ranking of the solutions

Ongoing monitoring

EXECUTIVE vol

The portfolio of valuable software projects

aimed at IT steering committee

SIPP report

Software Investment & Project Planning

Each selected business case

REQUIREMENTS vol

ASSESSMENT vol

and selection ASSISTANT

− The shortlist of solutions of interest, the detailed

assessment of each shortlisted solution, our final

ranking of the solutions

− The results in Excel format

Selected Business Cases

− The business and IT benefits

− The useful set of requirements

The business cases that represent valuable

investments and lead to pragmatic projects

according to issues of interest to executives

Continuous monitoring of the marketplace

The detailed assessment of the project

Yphise independent research continuously monitors the strategies and solutions of all successful software

vendors in order to select valuable and high-priority projects for improving the business performance. Each

year, Yphise research draws up the portfolio of valuable projects that the executives should consider when

making investment decisions. Yphise transforms high-level strategies or complicated problems in concrete

projects with accurate benefits and valuable software solutions.

Yphise puts forth investment recommendations on software solutions based on accurate assessment

according to valuable business cases. Yphise judgment relies on a detailed assessment of each solution.

Yphise has unique experience in identifying the useful functional and technical requirements in order to score

solutions according to benefits expected by large companies.

The Yphise ongoing research program has helped executives plan, prioritize, conduct and control the useful

software projects in order to increase business performance since 1985. Our independence since 1985

proves our unparalleled expertise in helping the executives stand back from operational pressure and arrive

at sound decisions focused on the issues of large companies. ISO 9001:2000-certification of our research

program is evidence of this expertise. This unique distinction states independence and robust methodology

for assessing products according to issues and priorities of large companies.

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This report is produced and edited by Yphise. Yphise is an independent analysis company. Yphise cannot be

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reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express written consent of Yphise.

© Yphise. December 2008.

3 © Yphise

ABSTRACT

We are pleased to provide you with our opinion on the Strategy Management business

case.

Our research demonstrates that the Strategy Management business case represents a

priority investment. Executives can invest in all confidence because this business case

leads to concrete projects with strong benefits, accurate scope and valuable software

solutions, backed by the commitment of vendors and by useful strengths.

Consequently, we select the Strategy Management business case in the Yphise portfolio

of valuable projects that executives should consider when making investment decisions.

The Strategy Management business case is essential for all companies in any activity

sector. Each company or business line must be successful in conducting continuous

transformation in order to survive. Conducting strategies is always a difficult challenge

because it is extremely difficult in real life to stand back from operational pressure.

Strategy Management solutions are an essential foundation for effective management of

business strategies.

This business case is selected in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities for the

second time. We increase our commitment to Strategy Management solutions because

they are aligned on the challenging demand for change in any company or business line.

We put forth this investment recommendation based on our independent ongoing

research. We remind you that, since 1985, this independent research has been

continuously monitoring the strategies and solutions of all successful software vendors in

order to select high-priority projects for improving the business performance. This

research is ISO 9001:2000-certified (since 1999). This unique distinction is evidence of

independence and robust methodology for assessing software solutions according to

issues and priorities of large companies.

We were very pleased to closely work with the experts of each shortlisted vendor during

this research. We are sure that you will be excited by this investment opportunity and by

launching the corresponding project.

Yphise research team

December 2008

4 ©Yphise

BENEFITS

Strategy Management solutions help assess company overall performance. They help

drive business objectives, whether financial or nonfinancial (e.g. customer satisfaction,

risks), tangible or intangible (e.g. brand, customer capital, human capital).

Strategy Management solutions help define business objectives and associated indicators.

They provide population, reporting functions and dashboards to effectively monitor these

indicators. They offer analytical and predictive functions in order to anticipate changes

and trends.

Strategy Management solutions also help manage the operational strategies associated

with objectives. Strategies include all actions to be implemented in order to meet the

objectives (action plans, budgets and resources management, collaboration). They

facilitate and promote objectives and strategies management over time, whether in the

short, medium or long term.

Benefits for the business

Our research demonstrates that Strategy Management solutions are a key investment for

all companies in any activity sector.

Each company and business line must be successful in conducting continuous

transformation in order to survive. Conducting strategies is always a difficult challenge

because it is extremely difficult in real life to stand back from operational pressure.

Effective conducting of strategies requires intelligent use of Strategy Management

solutions.

Strategies are conducted at any level in a company, from departments to business lines

and to the overall company. They can combine preservation, improvement and disruption

objectives. Consistent management of strategies throughout the company requires

effective Strategy Management solutions.

� Successful achievement of business transformation and objectives

Business lines need to be very successful in attaining their objectives, at any level.

These objectives are not only quantified or financial (e.g. revenues, productivity) but

can also be qualitative or intangible targets (e.g. quality of service delivered to

customers, innovation, risks). The business lines need dedicated solutions in order to

easily manage and monitor indicators related to their overall targets.

Business lines also need more than just indicators and dashboards in order to meet

their objectives. They need to successfully conduct the associated strategies. It is

therefore essential to define relationships between high-level objectives and

operational actions (e.g. budgets, resources, action plans) in order to achieve the

goals.

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Finally, a strategy can be short-, medium or long-term. Business lines need to

anticipate, simulate and analyze their strategies in progress. It is essential to provide

simulation or analytical functions in order to assess the strategies.

Strategy Management solutions address these issues. They help define and drive

indicators, whether tangible or intangible. They provide operational management

functions in order to conduct and monitor the strategies. They facilitate strategy

management over time via trend analysis, simulation or advanced analytical functions.

� Successful business involvement in achieving the objectives

A key challenge in strategy management is to involve the useful stakeholders, from

executives to employees, including middle management and experts. Each business

line and department has to understand the overall strategy and its contribution.

People need clear understanding of their individual responsibility. This is extremely

difficult to achieve. Strategy Management solutions help involve and challenge the

various stakeholders over time.

Strategy Management solutions give visibility on the strategies. They help individual

collaborators understand their objectives, contributions and deadlines. They also

enable adequate communication and collaboration in order to challenge collaborators

and help team building. They are essential for guaranteeing adequate involvement and

motivation of individual stakeholders.

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Benefits for the IT processes

The main benefits

for the IT processes

Useful Essential

Security.

Data Publishing.

Maintenance.

Architecture.

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Productivity

Effectiveness

Benefits for the IT processes

� Architecture

The architecture process guarantees that the information system is in line with

requirements of the business lines, in terms of operations or strategies. It manages

the flexibility of the operational or decisional systems in order to sustain this

alignment over time.

Strategy Management solutions are essential in order to ensure flexibility in systems

aimed at assessing, conducting and controlling the strategies. They are effective

platforms that include useful functions in order to define or change strategies. They

enable easy definition and population of indicators from multiple and heterogeneous

data sources (including structured and unstructured data). They provide

comprehensive and integrated functions for helping collaboration between all

stakeholders, for planning and monitoring the actions in order to meet the objectives

and for defining adequate dashboard.

� Data publishing

The data publishing process manages the useful propagation of data from operational

to business intelligence or collaborative systems and within these systems (e.g. from a

data warehouse to specialized datamarts).

Strategy Management solutions are essential for managing unified dashboards for a

strategy. They are effective platforms for building the indicators that integrate

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information from multiple data sources. They provide out-of-the box features for

managing the processes from data extraction on heterogeneous data sources to

building the useful indicators. They help guarantee consistency of these indicators by

providing accurate understanding and monitoring of the data used to build the

indicators.

� Maintenance

The maintenance process conducts scope-limited changes. These changes must bring

added value to the business, quickly and at low cost. A key challenge of maintenance

is the guarantee of non-regression of existing systems when budgets and time frames

are tight.

Strategy Management solutions avoid many maintenance tasks by the IT teams. They

provide business users with effective features in order to define or change strategies.

They can define indicators or dashboards according to their needs. Strategy

Management solutions are also effective platforms for securing the changes that

require intervention by IT Teams. They ensure flexibility and consistency in defining

and operating the processes that build the indicators.

� Security

The security process guarantees the meeting of confidentiality objectives and the

providing of robustness against fraud.

Strategy Management solutions provide accurate management of confidentiality issues

pertaining to strategies. They manage the useful security policies and the access

control to data. They define and control the authorization required to access the

indicators and to drill down to detailed information. Strategy Management solutions

also control and track the changes made to data by the users.

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YPHISE SHORTLIST

Positioning of the market segment

The evaluated market segment is a specific one, with a precise positioning and list of

solutions. To avoid confusion, we differentiate it from the following list of market

segments. A solution belonging to one of these market segments is inappropriate for

attaining the expected benefits.

� Investment and Project Portfolio Management (IPPM) solutions

IPPM solutions help prioritize, plan and monitor the various projects of a portfolio.

They manage requests from the business lines. They facilitate effective qualification of

these requests. They help build consistent projects and portfolios of projects. They

allocate the resources to each project and monitor their use.

Strategy Management solutions focus on defining and managing the strategies. IPPM

solutions focus on selecting and conducting the projects and on managing the

resources allocated to the various projects of a portfolio. The actions defined by a

strategy are sometimes projects that should be managed by using IPPM solutions.

However, most actions needed in order to meet objectives are not projects requiring

IPPM solutions. Strategy Management solutions are effective platforms for defining and

managing the strategies. Strategy Management and IPPM solutions are

complementary and distinct.

E.g. Changepoint (Compuware), Clarity (CA), Planview Portfolio Management

(Planview) and Rational Portfolio Manager (IBM).

� Data Integration Services (DIS) solutions

DIS solutions manage information manufacturing processes. They drive operational

access to information built through aggregation, computing and reconciliation from

various heterogeneous distributed data sources. They are key middleware to ensure

effective and reliable access to consistent, cleansed, valuable data within operational

business processes.

DIS solutions bring the right data to the right applications at the right time. They are

used for building operational systems based on service-oriented architecture (SOA).

They can also be used in front of Strategy Management solutions for providing them

with data. Strategy Management solutions help define and manage business

strategies, while DIS solutions are technical middleware used by IT experts. Strategy

Management and DIS solutions are complementary and distinct.

E.g. Business Objects Data Services (SAP), IBM Information Server (IBM) and SAS

Dataflux (Dataflux).

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This business case is included in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities (August

2008).

� Integrated risk management and control (IRMC) solutions

IRMC solutions help understand and manage operational risks. They provide tools for

identifying, describing, quantifying and assessing the risks. They help define and

manage action plans in order to implement consistent risk response. They track and

monitor the advancement of action plans. IRMC solutions help define the control

activities required to mitigate the risks.

IRMC solutions are dedicated to risk management and especially internal controls,

while Strategy Management solutions focus on managing all the objectives and

business issues of a company. Risk or compliance issues may be included in the

objectives in order to manage and monitor by means of Strategy Management

solutions. However, Strategy Management solutions are not aimed at accurately

managing the risks and internal controls. The two solutions are distinct and

complementary.

E.g. Aris Governance, Risk & Compliance Management (IDS Scheer), BWise GRC

solution (BWise) and Mega GRC Suite (Mega).

� Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) solutions

BAM solutions monitor how the business runs. They provide business users with real-

time intelligence on business risks and opportunities. They alert the appropriate

stakeholders of any dysfunction or unusual situation. They deliver the information

required to drive the business and make appropriate and consistent decisions for the

business. They highlight the actual business situation and the expected trend based on

information collected from the applications or any other sources.

BAM solutions focus on operational and real-time control of business activities.

Strategy Management solutions help define and conduct strategies that change the

business activities in order to meet preservation, improvement or disruption

objectives. Strategy Management and BAM solutions are distinct.

E.g. BusinessBridge (Systar), Websphere Business Monitor (IBM), webMethods

Optimize (Software AG) and Tibco Business Factors (Tibco).

� Business intelligence (BI) solutions

BI solutions help managers, business operators or analysts monitor and understand

business activity for the purpose of decision making. They focus on providing user-

friendly functions for querying and reporting the data in datamarts, data warehouses

or operational databases.

BI solutions help prepare reports and define dashboards, while Strategy Management

solutions help define and conduct strategies. BI solutions are used for accurate

understanding of business activities in order to define new objectives. Strategy

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Management solutions are then used to plan the useful strategy associated with the

objectives and to monitor its implementation. Strategy Management and BI solutions

are complementary and distinct.

E.g. BusinessObjects (BusinessObjects), Cognos BI (Cognos), Hyperion BI+ (Oracle)

and SAS Business Intelligence (SAS Institute).

� Operational predictive analysis (OPA) solutions

OPA solutions manage real-time predictive analysis within applications in order to

support decision making. Predictive analysis forecasts and identifies outcomes based

on history and on past complex and uncertain behaviors. Predictive analysis is based

on analytical models. OPA solutions help accurately define and deploy analytical

models according to business needs.

OPA solutions are aimed at embedding predictive analysis functions in operational

systems. They help optimize operational decisions within defined business processes,

while Strategy Management solutions manage strategies in order to improve processes

or invent new ones. Strategy Management and OPA solutions are distinct.

E.g. KXEN Data Mining Automation Solution (KXEN), SAS Analytics (SAS) and SPSS

Predictive Enterprise Services platform (SPSS).

This business case is included in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities (June

2008).

� Text Mining (TM) solutions

TM solutions help discover and extract information from text sources. They provide

algorithms, models or other mathematical techniques for discovering significant

patterns within huge and heterogeneous sources of data.

TM solutions do not define or manage strategies. However, Strategy Management

solutions need text-mining features in order to manage strategies related to intangible

objectives. Strategy Management and TM solutions are complementary.

E.g. Statistica (StatSoft), Model Builder (Fair Isaac), SAS Enterprise Miner (SAS) and

Clementine (SPSS).

The short list for the evaluated business case

Strategy Management solutions are an essential foundation for managing the business

strategies. All companies need an effective platform for easy definition and

implementation of strategies at any level, from departments to business lines and

throughout the company.

This business case is selected in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities for the

second time. The first time was in early of 2007. We increase our commitment to

11 ©Yphise

Strategy Management solutions because all companies have a tremendous need of

ongoing business transformation in order to survive.

In the past, the solutions focused on managing the strategies related to financial

objectives. All companies also face difficult challenges related to nonfinancial or

intangible issues. They need to respond to a wide diversity of risks and opportunities.

Strategy Management solutions are aligned on the challenging demand for change in any

company and business line.

Strategy Management solutions populate, manage and monitor any kind of objectives. A

key challenge is to retrieve and present information from various data sources (e.g.

business applications such as risk management solutions, nonstructured data from call

centers or customer emails). Strategy Management solutions manage and retrieve

information from several sources in order to provide a unified and up-to-date view of

company performance. Another challenge is to support operational management of

strategies. These strategies evolve over time according to the attained performance on

the objectives. Strategy Management solutions help define, analyze and reassess the

strategies over time. A limited short list of software vendors can meet these demanding

issues.

The shortlisted solutions contribute to the definition, communication and monitoring of

objectives and operational strategies. They include data integration and population

functions.

The ISO 9001:2000 certification of our process is evidence of independence and robust

methodology for assessing software solutions according to issues and priorities of large

companies. All shortlisted vendors demonstrate their commitment to responding to the

requirements of this process. This process challenges them, as in a customer situation. It

is evidence of the vendors' commitment to responding to a demanding independent

assessment.

Our final short list is as follows:

− Cognos Metric Studio (IBM/Cognos) ;

− Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft);

− SAS Strategic Performance Management — SPM (SAS); and

− SAP Strategy Management — SSM (SAP).

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM/Cognos), Version 8.4

Cognos specializes in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance

management (CPM). The company provides a unified platform, Cognos 8 Business

Intelligence. This platform includes various capabilities in BI (reporting, dashboarding,

analysis and metrics management, event management or data management) and CPM

(scorecarding, planning, budgeting, forecasting or financial consolidation).

The Cognos Business Intelligence platform includes several modules that meet our list

of requirements, especially Cognos Metric Studio for objectives and metrics

management. The vendor also provides Cognos Planning (financial planning,

12 ©Yphise

consolidation, budgeting, scorecarding, dashboarding) and Cognos Report Studio

(analysis, reporting). Release 8.4 was launched in October 2008.

� Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft), Version 1

Microsoft software product lines include operating systems, server applications,

business applications, high performance computing applications and software

development tools.

The business applications include business intelligence (BI) solutions, based on

Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft focuses on three main BI domains: predictive analysis

and data mining, master data management, and performance management.

The Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server is the Microsoft performance

management solution. It includes three modules: Monitoring (dashboards and

scorecards), Analytics (data analysis) and Planning (forecasting and planning). Version

1 of MS Office PerformancePoint Server relies on Office 2007. The solution was

launched in October 2007. A new release is announced for late 2009.

� SAS Strategic Performance Management — SPM (SAS), Version 2.4

SAS focuses on the business intelligence market segment with its SAS Enterprise

Intelligence Platform. Part of this solution is the SAS Financial Intelligence solution.

SAS Financial Intelligence includes three solutions: SAS Strategic Performance

Management (strategy management, improvement, monitoring), SAS Financial

Management Solution (planning and financial reporting) and SAS Activity-Based

Management. All the solutions are independent and complementary.

The SAS Strategic Performance Management (SPM) solution relies on the SAS

Enterprise Intelligence Platform (Version 9.1.4). It includes three levels and tools:

monitoring (SAS Information Delivery Portal), modeling (SAS SPM) and population

(SAS Data Integration Server). The solution was launched in September 2008. A new

release is announced for late 2009 (with 9.2 release).

� SAP Strategy Management — SSM (SAP), Version 7.0

SAP is a worldwide business software company. The vendor provides enterprise

applications and business solutions to meet operational needs for enterprise

management. The business solutions include four lines: EPM (Enterprise Performance

Management), GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance), IM (Information Management)

and IDD (Information Discovery & Delivery).

The SSM solution is part of the EPM line. EPM includes four objectives: strategy

management (SSM solution, formerly Pilot software), business planning (SAP BPC,

formerly Outlooksoft), consolidations (SAP BPC, formerly Cartesis), as well as

profitability and cost management (SAP PCM, formerly ALG). The vendor’s objective is

to improve integration of its various products and integration of SAP Netweaver and

Business Objects BI Integration. The current version of SSM was released in October

2008.

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Oracle provides a performance management solution, from its Hyperion acquisition.

However, vendor commitment is not clear on the strategy management business case.

The vendor provides financial solutions and facilitates financial objectives management

but does not demonstrate a commitment to managing all performance objectives,

financial or nonfinancial, tangible or intangible.

Planview provides a solution called EPM (Enterprise Portfolio Management). The vendor

supports definition and management of objectives and operational strategies. However, it

does not include functions in order to comprehensively define, populate and monitor

indicators related to these objectives over time. The solution does not currently cover the

full scope of our requirements.

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YPHISE RANKING

SAS Strategic Performance Management

1. FACILITATING THE INDICATOR DEFINITIONACCORDING TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGYMANAGEMENT RELATED TO THE OBJECTIVES

3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OVER TIME

4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THEBUSINESS PERFORMANCE

SAS SPM Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation

SAP Strategy Management

SAP Strategy Management Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation





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Microsoft Office PPS

Microsoft Office PPS Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation





Cognos Metric Studio

Cognos Metric Studio Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation





The above charts are presented in order of final top-down ranking of the shortlisted

solutions after their in-depth ISO 9001:2000-certified assessment by Yphise.

The four assessment dimensions show the expected benefits by large companies. They

aggregate more than 160 functional or technical control items. This list of requirements is

16 ©Yphise

practical, in order to evaluate the capacity of the solutions to provide an adequate return

on investment. It is also proactive in order to appreciate the upcoming perspectives.

Assessment dimensions

1. Facilitating the indicator definition according to business objectives

Companies must define their objectives and adequate associated indicators according

to their needs. It is essential to provide the business with easy-to-use functions in

order to create the indicators. Predefined elements can be provided to accelerate

deployment (e.g. predefined objectives or indicators to manage risks or compliance

issues).

2. Improving the operational strategy management related to objectives

To achieve the objectives, operational management of strategies is essential. This

includes the definition of deadlines, priority and costs associated with objectives. It

also involves the definition and assignment of action plans. Collaboration between the

involved stakeholders is essential in order to challenge them and to attain the

objectives.

3. Monitoring the business performance over time

Reliable and up-to-date information is required to improve decision making. The

population and update of indicators is a crucial element in order to achieve the

expected benefits of this business case. It is essential to provide comprehensive

functions in order to populate the indicators from various data sources and data

formats, structured or nonstructured. The ability to manage the evolution of strategies

over time is also important.

4. Controlling and improving the business performance

The monitoring of business performance is facilitated by efficient and comprehensive

performance dashboards. This includes portlet management, easy customization,

collaborative functions or advanced graphical views (e.g. strategy maps). Business

performance can be improved by using analytical, predictive and simulation functions.

The REQUIREMENTS volume provides the detailed requirements.

Comments

The detailed assessment of the shortlisted solutions demonstrates that the best ones

have the strengths that would be useful for large companies and would represent a

valuable investment. The assessment results demonstrate that the shortlisted solutions

are valuable. However, there are significant differences among the solutions in the

coverage of the different assessment dimensions.

We remind you that building a Proof of Concept in the targeted technical environment

and for the expected value-added benefits remains a requirement.

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� Strategic Performance Management (SAS) provides the best coverage of our list

of requirements. The solution stands out in each of the four dimensions. SAS SPM also

ranked first in our 2007 SPM software assessment. This highlights its maturity and

suitability for investing in this business case.

The vendor demonstrates its commitment to integrating nonfinancial and intangible

objectives into enterprise performance management. SAS SPM provides an easy-to-

use and easy-to-customize strategy management model that helps manage any kind

of objectives. SAS also provides predefined templates according to compliance issues,

risks, vertical sectors or business departments; these accelerate strategy definition.

Finally, the solution demonstrates strengths in managing operational actions related to

objectives and in easily populating the indicators, manually or automatically. The

dashboards and analytical functions provided and announced in the next release

demonstrate an interest in investing in this solution.

� Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates comprehensive coverage of our list of

requirements. For our last report, we assessed the BO solutions for strategic

performance management. The new SAP solution, from the Pilot software acquisition,

demonstrates better strengths for this business case.

In particular, the solution provides efficient dashboards and graphical views that can

be easily customized to user needs. It also provides comprehensive initiatives

management functions in order to drive operational actions related to objectives.

The solution can be used usefully by SAP customers, as the vendor provides standard

integration into its other products. The solution can also be used by non-SAP

customers. The vendor has developed a strong and interesting integration into its GRC

(Governance Risk Compliance) solution in order to facilitate the management and

monitoring of objectives related to risk management.

� Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) demonstrates advanced capabilities in

our four assessment dimensions. It includes the functions required to meet the main

needs for this business case.

The product provides an easy-to-use and user-friendly solution. Several wizards and

assistants are provided out-of-the-box, and the definition of elements can be done

easily, via drag-and-drop and a dropdown list.

The solution also provides useful integration into other Microsoft solutions, such as MS

Office, MS Sharepoint or MS SQL Server. Via these solutions, the vendor can provide

dashboards, collaborative and operational functions.

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage of our list of

requirements. The solution has not really evolved since our last report. Metric Studio

can be a useful investment for Cognos customers and a header of the Cognos financial

solutions.

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The solution provides efficient dashboards and reporting functions thanks to its

business intelligence capabilities. In particular, it focuses on financial management

with specific plan, budget or analysis functions.

Sorted Aggregated Table ©Yphise

1. FACILITATING THE INDICATOR DEFINITION ACCORDING TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

Defining the indicators related to objectives

Defining accurately the objectives according to business needs

SAS SPM




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1.1. Defining accurately the objectives according to business needs. All the shortlisted

solutions provide functions in order to define objectives and related indicators in a tree

structure. However, they do not all distinctively manage objectives and indicators. They

also differ in the functions provided to customize objectives and in the templates

provided out-of-the-box.

1.2. Defining the indicators related to objectives. Despite significant differences, all the

vendors help define advanced (e.g. composite) indicators, and they all support threshold

or alert management. There are some differences in the comprehensiveness of the

functions provided and in the ease to define indicators.

� Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates high coverage of the two

assessment dimensions, because it provides efficient functions in order to define

strategies, objectives and indicators. The vendor provides several out-of-box

templates with predefined contents and indicators for operational directions (IT

scorecard, HR scorecard, marketing, finance), sectors (banking, insurance, telco,

retail, hospital, health care) or compliance issues (Basel II, SOX, LOLF, ITIL,

Sustainability scorecard/GRI, Six Sigma, Solvency II). Its advanced customization

functions help manage any kind of objectives and properties. The solution also

supports complete and easy-to-use business rules and formulas in order to define

indicators. It efficiently manages the thresholds related to indicators.

� Strategy Management (SAP) especially demonstrates good coverage in “Defining

accurately the objectives according to business needs”, as it provides comprehensive

functions for defining the objectives, perspectives and KPIs. The perspectives (e.g.

international, activity sectors) can be used to classify the objectives by means of a

matrix. The solution also demonstrates advanced functions for managing the

objectives related to the risks. SAP provides a risk management solution, SAP GRC.

SSM can be linked to risk maps obtained from SAP GRC data.

� Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) demonstrates good coverage of the

two assessment dimensions. The strategy and objectives management is not packaged

out-of-the-box, but the solution is flexible and offers an easy-to-customize model to

define KPIs that can be objectives. The vendor provides predefined models for the

telco and communication sectors.

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage in “Defining accurately

the objectives according to business needs”, as it provides the essential functions for

defining the objectives and the associated indicators. The solution relies on Cognos

Datawarehouse, and the indicators are built from the data managed in that data

warehouse.


2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGY MANAGEMENT RELATED TO THE OBJECTIVES

Improving the collaboration and efficiency of business users

Managing the operational strategy

SAS SPM




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2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGYMANAGEMENT RELATED TO OBJECTIVES

2.1. Managing the operational strategy. All the shortlisted solutions help manage costs or

duration related to objectives. They all help define action plans or initiatives aimed at

meeting these objectives. However, they do not provide the same comprehensiveness to

define these action plans and to manage them over time.

2.2. Improving the collaboration and efficiency of business users. All the solutions provide

the essential functions for meeting the requirements in this dimension: objective

assignation, access rights management, e-mail or built-in communication, customized

dashboards. Some provide more advanced functions than others.

� Strategic Performance Management (SAS) ranks high in the two dimensions. The

solution helps define comprehensively the duration and costs related to objectives. The

solution relies on the SAS Financial Management solution and the SAS Activity-Based

Management solution to retrieve cost information. It also supports action plan

management via definition of tasks and duration. Collaboration can occur via

comprehensive access rights, comments, e-mails and document management.

� Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates high coverage of the two assessment

dimensions. The solution supports permissions and comments management and

includes efficient customized dashboards. In particular, the solution demonstrates

advanced capabilities for managing the project and initiatives. A project is a

transversal view of several initiatives and objectives. A budget, schedule and targets

can be defined for each initiative. This information can be monitored in the dashboards

and in a fishbone view. The solution also provides a “prioritization matrix” to display

the initiatives according to importance/urgency and progress. SSM is part of a strategy

management suite that includes BPC (planning), BFC (consolidation), PCM (costing).

In the current version of the suite, the ETL layer can be used to transfer data from one

application to another. The vendor announces integration improvements in its next

release.

� Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) provides the essential functions in the

two assessment dimensions. The vendor provides MS Sharepoint (included with

Windows Server), which can be used for task management or customization of

business dashboards. PPS does not support out-of-the-box management of action

plans.

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage in “Improving the

collaboration and efficiency of business users”, as it provides all the required functions

in this dimension. The solution supports access rights or comment management, and it

provides two dashboards included in the solution or via its Web portal tool.



Populating the indicators from any relevant data source

Managing the indicators over time

SAS SPM




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3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

OVER TIME

3.1. Populating the indicators from any relevant data source. The solutions differ in the

functions provided to manually populate the indicators. They also differ in the extraction

functions provided. Some solutions rely on a data warehouse to extract business

information. It is also possible to retrieve operational data via an ETL or import formats.

An upcoming perspective is to be able to retrieve and use nonstructured information in

order to build indicators. Some vendors already include text analytics tools.

3.2. Managing the indicators over time. All the solutions help populate the indicators over

time via batch or real-time functions. All the vendors include a scheduler to manage the

population via batch. They do not all provide capabilities for managing the changes to

indicators over time, i.e. via version management, change or impact management

functions.

� Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates good coverage of the

two assessment dimensions and ranks especially high in “Populating the indicators

from any relevant data source”. The solution provides comprehensive functions in

order to populate the indicators. It includes an ETL, SAS Data Integration Server

(DIS), with predefined jobs for its SPM solution. It also provides various import format

and connectors with databases and business applications. The vendor provides a text

mining solution called SAS Text Miner. The data can be used via the ETL. Finally, the

solution helps in easily creating new forms for the entering or data manually via a

wizard. Impact analysis functions can be managed via its DIS tool, which helps

analysis where data is used in different transformation steps. Analytic functions (like

correlation, regression) are available through the SAS Analytics package. In the next

release, the vendor announces new functions such as correlation/ regression, what-if

analysis and trend analysis functions.

� Strategy Management (SAP) meets the essential requirements in the two

assessment dimensions. The vendor offers a single data warehouse that populates the

SSM indicators. It also provides an ETL tool, BO Integrator, which can also be used to

populate indicator, and the Text Analytics solution (formerly InXight), which supports

semantic analysis. In particular, the SSM solution demonstrates interesting functions

for manual populating. The manual entries can be managed via Excel or via a Web

form. Monitoring of the data entered manually can be done through a workflow

process.

� Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) ranks especially high in “Managing

the indicators over time”, as it supports comprehensive history functions. The solution

helps monitor changes over time (date of a change, user, field, old value, new value)

and includes “revert change” functions to roll back to an old version. PPS also provides

basic impact analysis functions, as it helps identify related indicators, related

scorecards and related data sources on an element.

25 ©Yphise

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) meets the essential requirements in the two

assessment dimensions. In particular, the solution provides a standard connection with

the Cognos Datawarehouse and Cognos solutions in order to retrieve data. It also

demonstrates useful impact functions, as it supports impact diagram management

according to relationships between indicators. The relationships must be defined

manually or retrieved from the “derived indexes” formulas (i.e. composite indicators).


4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Providing the analysis functions

Providing efficient dashboards

SAS SPM




27 ©Yphise

4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVINGTHE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

4.1. Providing efficient dashboards. All the solutions provide customized dashboards and

monitoring functions in order to control enterprise performance. They all include

graphical view and strategy maps to identify easily the relationships between indicators

and objectives and progress. They differ in the comprehensiveness of the provided

functions.

4.2. Providing the analysis functions. All the solutions help monitor over time the

objectives via target and trend management. They all include reporting functions in the

solution or with a third-party tool. They do not all offer advanced analytic functions (such

as predictive analysis or simulation) in order to assess changes in performance.

� Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates high coverage of the two

assessment dimensions. The solution provides comprehensive and easy-to-customize

dashboards. The vendor provides advanced reporting functions. Some reports are

predefined and can be customized according to business needs. The dashboards

include some collaborative functions via advanced comment management; they also

include dynamic strategy maps that can be automatically updated or used to define

relationships between any elements. SAS also demonstrates commitment to providing

analytic functions in the next release (what-if, predictive, impact analysis

management) and already supports integration into its SAS Analytics platform.

� Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates good coverage of the two assessment

dimensions. It provides efficient and easy-to-use dashboards that can be customized

for each user (e.g. “my bookmarks”, “my performance summary”). SSM also includes

a comprehensive graphical editor (Diagram Manager) to define strategy maps and

layouts. Reporting is managed via a third-party tool, Xcelsius or Crystal report. The

vendor also demonstrates interesting capabilities for analysis, via its KPI comparison

functions and relationships management. The objectives themselves are linked on a

cause/effect cascade that allows representation of the impact on one another.

� Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) provides the required functions in the

two assessment dimensions. The dashboards are provided with the Monitoring tool

(included in the PPS solution) or via MS Sharepoint. PPS demonstrates analytic

functions via its SQL Server solution and also provides a “trend analysis chart” that

can provide forecast trend. This component will evolve in the next releases.

� Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage of the two assessment

dimensions. In particular, it demonstrates good collaborative functions via its Cognos

Portal solution and efficient reporting functions via third-party tools. Business forums,

workflows or comments management are supported and help manage actions

according to indicator results.

The ASSESSMENT volume provides the detailed assessment of each shortlisted solution.

Documents

Yphise Software Product Assessment, Strategy Management