A Sneak Peek at the 2021 BARC Score Integrated Planning & Analytics

In these times of COVID-19, the competition and dynamics in many industries have deepened. Growing pressure on companies to meet sales and margins has created an unparalleled demand for modern performance management solutions. In addition, each new lockdown increases the need to rapidly adjust corporate planning and forecasts, thereby raising the bar for professional solutions.

The integration of corporate planning and its integration with analytics (IP&A) in common platforms is essential to optimally support modern and integrated corporate management. This is particularly important as alignment to dynamic market conditions requires tools that allow shorter and more flexible planning cycles, even in the middle of the fiscal year. In light of the growing concern and additional requirements, the software market for IP&A products has become highly competitive and complex.

To help you navigate this plethora of options, our upcoming BARC Score assesses the market for integrated planning and analytics (IP&A) products and portfolios. Based on countless data points from various BARC surveys and many analyst interactions, vendors are rated on a variety of criteria, which range from portfolio capabilities and architecture to financials, product and sales strategy. In other words, this BARC Score provides a neutral and reliable summary of the state of the IP&A market.

Who is in BARC Score IP&A?

The software market for IP&A products is highly competitive. Both international software generalists and local specialists offer their planning and analytics portfolios. With their local know-how, smaller local vendors are able to challenge the big vendors, who in turn impress with elaborate and extensive solutions.

For this BARC Score, comprehensive functionality for planning is the “entrance ticket” for vendors and their solutions as planning and forecasting are indispensable for corporate performance management. Core functionality for planning, budgeting and forecasting in this context includes the creation of planning models and planning masks, the coordination of the various planning activities and planners involved (e.g., via workflows) as well as specific planning functionality (e.g., for simulation). The scope extends beyond financial plans to encompass planning operations (e.g., sales, production, resources, etc.). Vendors must also supply integrated and comprehensive capabilities for analytics and business intelligence (BI), or reporting, analysis and dashboards. Focused on business users, tools must be reasonably accessible and usable. Lastly, seamless integration between all components and reliable performance are vital for productivity.

In addition to functional capabilities, vendors must also meet some general criteria. Suppliers have to generate a minimum of 20 million EUR in software revenue with the evaluated product set. Geographically, their business has to be spread across specific regions. Since there are two versions of the BARC Score IP&A this year – a global version and a version focusing specifically on the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) – vendors must have a significant number of implementations and license or subscription revenues in the relevant regions.

The vendors who fit our criteria and made the cut for this year’s BARC Score IP&A are:

Classification of the vendors

Without further ado, here is the latest version of BARC Score IP&A. There is a striking split into almost even groups with six of the vendors in the ‘Market Leaders’ segment while the remaining seven are ‘Challengers’. The chart shows that the IP&A market analyzed in this BARC Score is a rather mature market. However, there are several interesting and emerging contenders in the market not included in our analysis as they do not yet meet the aforementioned inclusion criteria.

‘Challengers’ are generally characterized by their pursuit of an expansion strategy – either through acquisitions or through innovative, perhaps even disruptive technologies, ideas or business models. However, they are often still limited in terms of sales and marketing. In contrast, ‘Market Leaders’ have combined their powerful technology with strong market adoption and robust account management.

Conclusion

The full BARC Score IP&A will be released on March 29^th, 2021 and can help you to assess and classify the software market, for example, to support your software selection process.

For a preview of our 2021 BARC Score Financial Performance Management, look out for our next blog post.