Planful Modeling Simplifies Planning and Reporting

Robert Kugel, SVP of Research at Ventana Research, published an article about the new product and its ability to help customers simplify their planning and reporting processes.

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Citing Ventana’s research about the domination of spreadsheets in corporate planning, Kugel noted, “Software vendors and IT departments have been trying – mainly in vain – to get users to switch from spreadsheets to a variety of dedicated applications.  To date, most dedicated applications have been far more difficult than spreadsheets for the average business user to use in the design and test phases.  To convince people to switch to its dedicated application, a vendor must offer an alternative that lets users model, create reports, collect data, and create dedicated data stores as easily as they can do it in a desktop spreadsheet.”

He goes on to highlight how Planful Modeling Cloud attempts to address the spreadsheet problem. According to Kugel, the Modeling module enables individuals in business units to create and update plans and budgets, as well as their underlying models, in a way that’s consistent with what they’re used to doing. He then elaborates on how the Modeling Cloud also makes it easy to tie these together to achieve an integrated, company-wide view.

In one of his final comments Kugel said, “I recommend that Planful customers assess using Modeling Cloud in their organization and that buyers of dedicated planning applications include this type of capability in their evaluation of vendors’ offerings.”

Kugel’s article as well as other analyst support, is great validation of what Planful set out to accomplish with the development and launch of the Modeling module.  We’re also seeing validation by our early adopter customers with use cases that span the following:

• Compensation Modeling
• Balance Sheet Modeling for M&A Analysis
• Capital Planning
• Brand Volume Forecasting
• And many others