Matching EPM Product Capabilities to Customer Use Cases

As part of its ongoing EPM/CPM market research, Gartner recently published two new reports that match capabilities of EPM/CPM solutions to use cases.  The two reports are Gartner Critical Capabilities for Strategic and Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions.

Download the Gartner Reports

 These reports are another deliverable from Gartner’s overall Magic Quadrant research process in which Gartner uses customer survey data to assess each vendor’s ability to deliver critical CPM capabilities matched to four specific use cases.  The two critical capabilities reports align to the recent splitting of the CPM Magic Quadrants into Strategic CPM and Financial CPM.  You can learn about the rationale for this split view of the market in a prior blog article.  Here are the requirements that are covered in each report. 

The critical capabilities Strategic CPM include:

• Financial Budgets and Plans
• Complex Financial Budgets and Plans
• Integrated Financial Planning, Modeling and Analytics
• Ease of Implementation and Use
• Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade
• Support and Vendor Satisfaction
• Enterprise Scalability

The critical capabilities for Financial CPM include:

• Medium Complexity Financial CPM
• Complex Financial CPM
• Process Analytics
• Cloud Capability
• Ease of Implementation and Use
• Ease of Maintenance/Upgrade
• Support and Vendor Satisfaction
• Enterprise Scalability

In the two reports, Gartner accurately states that the degree to which each of the above capabilities is important varies by use case. The use cases described in these research reports are for the following market segments:

• Small – Organizations with less than $250 million in annual revenue
• Midsize – Organizations with $250 million to $1 billion in annual revenue
• Midsize/Large – Organizations with $1 billion to $3 billion in annual revenue
• Large – Organizations with more than $3 billion in annual revenue
• Individual business units within large organizations

So how did Planful stack up in these reports? Among the key use cases in the “Critical Capabilities for Strategic CPM” report, Planful received:

• Highest score for Midsize Organizations, 4.03 out of 5
• Highest score for Business Units of Large Organizations, 3.94 out of 5
• 3rd highest score for Small Organizations, 4.12 out of 5
• 3rd highest score for Midsize/Large Organizations 3.88 out of 5

According to the Gartner report, “Planful received high scores for all ease-of-use capabilities. It also received strong scores for financial budgets and plans, as well as corporate planning and modeling. This combination of ratings is important for small and midsize businesses, but also benefits individual business units within larger organizations.”

In the “Critical Capabilities for Financial CPM” report, Planful received:

• 3rd highest score for Midsize Organizations, 3.95 out of 5
• 4th highest score for Midsize/Large Organizations, 3.73 out of 5
• 3rd highest score for Business Units of Large Organizations, 3.85 out of 5

The Financial CPM report includes some vendors who don’t provide any core financial consolidation and reporting capabilities – such as Blackline and Workiva.  These vendors provide strong functionality for areas such as account reconciliations and financial close workflow and were ranked highly in the report.  However, when you look past these vendors at the highest-ranked vendors who provide financial consolidation and reporting capabilities, Planful is the highest-ranked pure cloud-EPM vendor in several use cases as noted above. 

According to the Gartner report, “Planful is one of the Visionaries in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions.” This is due to the vendor’s level of cloud experience, customer satisfaction and its products’ abilities to support the more complex use cases.”

In a recent press release highlighting the report, Planful CEO Dave Kellogg said, “The latest reports from Gartner provide buyers with a deeper understanding of how vendors match up to a range of use cases while proving that cloud-based solutions can address the needs of small, mid-sized and larger organizations.  Planful is unique in its ability to address both strategic and financial CPM requirements, as evidenced by our ability to scale across a broad range of use cases.”

For complimentary access to the two Gartner reports, “Critical Capabilities for Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions” and “Critical Capabilities for Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions,” click here.

Download the Gartner Reports