Board
What is Board?
Flexible, fully web-based platform with tightly integrated system architecture of proprietary multidimensional in-memory database and front ends. Graphical no-code development environment for business power users to create tailored planning and performance management applications.
About Board
The information in this section has been provided by the vendor of Board.
Self-description of the vendor
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Board BARC Review & Rating
This section contains our independent analyst views on Board.
Provider and product description
Board was founded in 1994 and employs 600 people worldwide. Its European headquarters and software development are located in Chiasso, Switzerland. The company also has a regional headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, further offices around the world and a global partner network. More than 2,000 customers worldwide use Board to implement planning, performance management and analytics projects. The company’s ownership changed in 2019, when Nordic Capital acquired a majority stake to support the vendor’s continued international expansion. In 2024, Board acquired Prevedere, a provider of global data sets and predictive AI planning solutions.
Board provides a modern and intelligent platform for integrated business planning (IBP) that supports fast, automated and transparent decision-making. The scalable platform helps organizations discover insights that drive business decisions and unite strategy, finance and operations through connected and agile planning to achieve performance control. To do this, Board combines platform capabilities (integration, security, etc.), planning and automation, AI/ML, analytics, reporting and collaboration into an easy-to-use, no-code solution for business power users to build custom applications. Board does not focus on specific industries, but popular sectors across its customer base include retail, banking and finance, manufacturing, professional services and consumer packaged goods.
Board offers a combined product consisting of a front end and a proprietary multidimensional in-memory data processing technology that also enables business-user-friendly data modeling. The product provides a consistent, technically homogeneous environment for administration, development and utilization with tightly integrated front and back ends. Board is data agnostic and supports data integration through its own integration framework and over 50 prebuilt and certified API connections to various source systems. It is available in the cloud (using Microsoft Azure) and on premises.
At its core, Board is a flexible, web-based platform for building custom planning and performance management applications. The product provides intelligent planning capabilities, but also supports reporting and dashboarding, analysis, advanced and predictive analytics, financial consolidation and ESG. It offers a rich portfolio of visual objects, from simple charts to advanced charting techniques. Specifically for planning, forecasting and simulation use cases, Board provides powerful and comprehensive functionality. Users can create and customize a wide range of applications that bring together financial and operational data. Together with its partners, Board has a strong focus on extending the platform with prebuilt business content. In 2024, the vendor created a solution division with five specialized teams: FP&A, Financial Close and Consolidation, Supply Chain Planning, Merchandise Planning and IBP. These teams are dedicated to driving the accelerator/solution and application strategy and each asset has its own roadmap and release cycle. In addition, Board and its partners offer solutions for specific domains and industries.
AI- and ML-enabled planning and decision support is an important area of investment for Board’s future development, not just because of the Prevedere acquisition. Flexible capabilities focus on natural language interaction and conversational querying, automated predictions, anomaly detection and intelligent insights – delivered through Board’s own functionality, integration with R and Python models and third-party ML services such as Microsoft Azure ML and Azure OpenAI. Prevedere enriches Board’s predictive analytics capabilities by combining global economic data with internal business data to improve predictive accuracy and embedding external data into predictive models to proactively respond to external risks and economic shifts.
Strengths and challenges of Board
BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.
Strengths
- Flexible, fully web-based planning and performance management platform with tightly integrated system architecture of proprietary multidimensional in-memory data processing technology, modeling environment and front ends.
- Graphical no-code development environment for business power users to create custom planning and performance management applications, including reporting, dashboarding, analysis, advanced and predictive analytics, financial consolidation and ESG.
- Comprehensive planning, budgeting and forecasting capabilities for all types of planning approaches (top-down, bottom-up or a combination of both). Customers can address different workflow-based planning topics on a common platform with different levels of aggregation (e.g., strategic, financial and operational planning) for an integrated business planning approach.
- Complementary, comprehensive capabilities for BI and analytics include dashboards, reporting and analysis with a rich portfolio of visual objects. AI- and ML-augmented planning and decision support based on the platform’s own capabilities, native R and Python integration, and integration with third-party ML services to run AI/ML algorithms.
Challenges
- The Board platform has a comparatively low level of prefabrication, and many implementations are customized based on customer requirements, which is a real strength of the product. However, as the survey results confirm, the product’s extra flexibility can mean that implementation projects take longer to complete than those of competitors. As a result, Board’s future strategy focuses heavily on “solutionizing” the flexible platform. Several prebuilt but customizable applications are now available from Board and its partners to provide industry best practices and speed up implementation projects.
- Board is a highly flexible and comprehensive platform. Depending on the complexity and volume of data, the product's flexibility and rich functionality can make it quite complex for inexperienced users to implement and build intricate applications for custom solutions.
- According to customer feedback from The Planning Survey, some customers consider the product to be more expensive than competitive offerings, with significant price increases in recent years. However, Board also includes BI and analytics capabilities, and the platform is continually being enhanced by the vendor to include prebuilt solutions for emerging business problems.
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Board User Reviews & Experiences
The information contained in this section is based on user feedback and actual experience with Board.
The information and figures are largely drawn from BARC’s The BI & Analytics Survey, The Planning Survey, The Financial Consolidation Survey and The Data Management Survey. You can find out more about these surveys by clicking on the relevant links.
Summary of user review highlights from Board
What users like about Board and where the product scores best in a user comparison.
Why users buy Board and what problems they have using it
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Full user reviews and KPI results for Board
All key figures for Board at a glance.
- Get independent information on software solutions, market developments and trends in data, analytics, business intelligence, data science and corporate performance management.
- Make data & analytics decisions based on numbers, data, facts and expert knowledge
- Access to all premium articles and all our research, including all software comparison studies, scores and surveys.
- Unlimited access to the BARC media library
- Consume unlimited content anywhere
Individual user reviews for Board
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Easy to use and modify without any programming skills.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
The flexibility in creating and modifying graphs and the report formatting.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
To spend the right time in defining the requirements of the project together with the Board business partner.
How would you sum up your experience?
It's good.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Support ist gut erreichbar & hat auch immer eine Lösung für ein Problem.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Bugs, die nicht nachvollziehbar sind & auch externe Dienstleister zum Verzweifeln bringen. Mehr Möglichkeiten / Funktionen auch wieder für OnPremise-Kunden zur Verfügung stellen.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Board sollte unbedingt mit einem vorgelagerten DWH betrieben werden, auf welches Board dann zugreift.
How would you sum up your experience?
Sehr gemischt. Das System funktioniert so manches Mal einwandfrei (vor allem seit den letzten Updates 12.x). Allerdings gibt es immer wieder mal kleine Bugs, die in langem Austausch mit dem Board-Support geklärt werden können.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Hohe Flexibilität. Integration von Reporting und Planung - und eventuell perspektivisch Konsolidierung.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Dynamische Spaltenüberschriften - z. B. das jeweiligen Planungsjahr. Bessere Kommentierungsfunktionen. Automatische Aufsummierung von Werten, wenn man in Berichten Zellen markiert (wie bei Excel - auch z. B. mit Mittelwertfunktion).
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Ausreichend Zeit und Ressourcen in der Implementierungsphase bereitstellen.
How would you sum up your experience?
Überwiegend gut. Alle Kernanforderungen konnten bis jetzt umgesetzt werden. Allerdings ist das zugrundeliegende Datenmodell sehr komplex. Berechnungen und Selektionen können mitunter etwas länger dauern.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Planungsfunktionalitäten, einfache Administration, begleitend Workflow und stark in Analyse & Reporting, An-/Einbindung anderer Systeme z.B. Karten.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Spezifische Anpassungen gehen nur über Community, wenn nicht genügend Likes dann keine Umsetzung.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Zeit für Vorarbeit und Pflichtenheft einplanen, User Experience sehr wichtig, Anwender und Fachbereiche mitnehmen, Schulung mit einplanen, Historisierung als Thema ernst nehmen.
How would you sum up your experience?
Wir sind noch in der Umsetzung.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The ease with which the knowledge and skills needed to administer the software can be learned without any specific background.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Data visualization for dashboards and integration with IBCS standards.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
If you are retail industries, I highly recommend the use of Board to move efficiently through the ongoing and growing complexity of daily operations.
How would you sum up your experience?
Positive or very positive on all fronts, more than 70 percent of my work time is based on using Board.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibilität, Funktionen.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Beschränkte Funktionen, Limitierungen bei Darstellung, Grafiken/Diagrammen.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Sorgfältige Auswahl der Implementierungspartner / Berater, gute Ausbildung der Projektmitarbeiter.
How would you sum up your experience?
Einführung gelungen, aber nicht reibungslos.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Integration Benutzeroberfläche und technischer Datenbankunterbau. Weboberfläche. Geschwindigkeit.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Schlüsselfertige KI-Integration mit der Azure Cloud.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Interessierte, fähige Mitarbeiter finden und zum Developer ausbilden / befähigen-
How would you sum up your experience?
Gerne weiter so.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibilität, Konfigurierbarkeit.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Kein undo button.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Prozessklarheit für den geplanten Einsatz. Keine Standardsoftware = Vor und Nachteil.
How would you sum up your experience?
Wichtig war der Implementierer Celver!!!
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibilität, schnelle Anpassungsfähigkeit, userfriendly.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Performance.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Viel Zeit in die Konzepte investieren, da Board sehr flexibel ist.
How would you sum up your experience?
Richtige Software für unbestimmte Zeiten.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Von allen Systemen, die ich in 20 Jahren kennengelernt habe, bei weitem das Beste.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Es ist kaum möglich, Mitarbeiter mit Board-Wissen zu finden, auch Dienstleister sind Mangelware und sehr teuer.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Ausreichend interne Ressourcen und Mitarbeiter einzuplanen, das Tool ist mächtig, aber muss beherrscht werden.
How would you sum up your experience?
Im Großen und Ganzen sehr positiv und zufriedenstellend.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The fact that, thanks to its high flexibility and relatively low complexity, it can be used to create almost any kind of CPM application, allowing companies to potentially use the software in any department to satisfy any need. Tools developed in Board are able to meet very specific requirements and therefore can really help organizations to better support their daily business and to improve their strategic and operative processes. If properly carried out, a Board project will certainly provide a true added value.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
The price increase of Board licenses in the last years is in part justified by all the recent improvements, but at the same time it could still be perceived as an obstacle for a company wanting to launch new CPM projects.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Board is really flexible and allows companies to set up CPM tools following a custom made approach. For this reason, it is more than important to have a very clear idea of the desired target of any Board project. Processes must be well defined before actually starting to move them in Board, and therefore companies must invest all the needed time in the analysis phase. The role of external consultants and of internal resources is strategic and makes a real difference.
How would you sum up your experience?
Board is a very good tool that has improved a lot in the last years in all aspects, reaching a top-class level in its market. This was made possible thanks to a wise product strategy that aimed to solve all the long-time issues as well as to introduce new features both for developers and end users.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Réactivité des équipes de l'éditeur, ils proposent des événements clients assez régulièrement et font progresser les utilisateurs grâce à des formations très intéressantes. Outil facile à prendre en main (que ce soit pour un admin ou pour un user) et qui permet de faire tout ce qu'on souhaite y faire. Interface esthétique.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Avoir un peu plus d'éléments de personnalisation pour rendre le visuel de nos écrans métiers plus agréables à utiliser. Amélioration des interfaces admin afin de mettre plus de commentaires
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Bien préparer les données en amont, quel que soit le logiciel choisi. Si les données est propre à l'arrivée, le rendu final sera excellent. Bien préparer son cahier des charges. Idéalement, avoir une ressource interne capable de développer ses propres outils afin de ne pas être dépendant à 100% d'un prestataire. Trouver un bon intégrateur qui va réussir à former les équipes.
How would you sum up your experience?
Très satisfait !
