Publication: March 2024

BARC Score Integrated Planning & Analytics DACH

Compare 13 software vendors at a glance using BARC Score Integrated Planning & Analytics for the German-speaking region.

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Using BARC Score Integrated Planning & Analytics DACH

  • you will get an overview of the integrated planning & analytics market segment in the German-speaking region.
  • you will be able to assess the market position and portfolio of software vendors.
  • you will have the foundation to build your long list or short list.

Further information

Planning, budgeting and forecasting are important elements of corporate management to align operational business with strategic corporate objectives. In recent years, the dynamics of markets and competition have increased rapidly and many companies are struggling to keep pace. In particular, corporate planning and forecasting are more essential than ever to cope with increasing dynamics. Well-founded decisions based on current forecasts and data analytics, the efficient evaluation of possible future developments in scenarios and simulations as well as the automation of processes and the relief of planners are becoming massively more important. However, successful corporate performance management (CPM) requires comprehensive planning and forecasting, analytics and business intelligence (BI) functionality.

This BARC Score focuses on the market for integrated planning and analytics (IP&A) products and portfolios. The combination of these topics is of high importance for a growing number of companies. Based on countless data points from various BARC surveys and many analyst interactions, vendors are rated on a variety of criteria, ranging from portfolio capabilities and architecture to sales and marketing strategy, financial performance and customer feedback.

Selection of vendors

There are two separate categories of inclusion criteria for this BARC Score: the first is associated with a vendor’s products and portfolios and the other is linked to the financial results relating to those products.

Functionality for planning (including write-back of planning data to a central database and other advanced planning features such as workflows, forecasting and simulation) is the ‘entrance ticket’ to be evaluated in this BARC Score.

Moreover, a vendor has to supply additional functionality for all four of the following analytics technologies in a solution not merely focused on one industry or use case:

  • Formatted reporting
  • Ad hoc query and reporting
  • Analysis
  • Dashboards

All steps of planning, budgeting and forecasting processes, such as the creation of a planning model and model provision, creation of planning masks and definition of planning processes (workflows) as well as user functionality for planning (e.g., plan data entry, comments, forecasting and simulation), reporting, analysis and dashboarding must be accessible and usable by business users. Seamless integration between all components is required.

To appear in the DACH edition, the vendor has to generate a minimum of 25 million EUR in license revenue per year with a significant number of implementations and license or subscription revenues in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

There is no differentiation between on-premises offerings and cloud-based product sets.

Software evaluation

Software providers are evaluated on two dimensions, ‘Portfolio Capabilities’ and ‘Market Execution’, each representing an axis on the chart.

In addition to BARC’s analyst opinion, user experience also plays an important role.

For our Scores in the areas of BI, analytics and business planning, we draw on the world’s largest surveys for BI & analytics and planning software, the BI & Analytics Survey and the Planning Survey, which ask companies each year about their satisfaction with software vendors and solutions.

Detailed analyst knowledge and comprehensive survey results are summarized in the BARC Score report and chart. The chart provides a clear view of each vendor’s market position and portfolio.

Authors

Chris Neubauer
Analyst Data & Analytics
Chris Neubauer is an analyst in Data & Analytics and ESG
Dr. Christian Fuchs
Senior Analyst Data & Analytics
Dr. Christian Fuchs is Senior Analyst and Head of Data & Analytics Research at BARC.
Larissa Baier
Senior Analyst Data & Analytics
Larissa is a Senior Analyst working in research and consulting.
Robert Tischler
Senior Analyst Data & Analytics
Robert's focus is on research and advisory. He is also responsible for BARC's business in Austria.
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