Customer Satisfaction
6.4/10
6.4
User Experience
7.9/10
7.9
Functionality
5.7/10
5.7
Business Value
7.2/10
7.2

IBM Planning Analytics

What is IBM Planning Analytics?

Flexibile platform for business power users to create tailored planning, budgeting and forecasting as well as analytics applications based on a high-performance and scalable in-memory database. Comprehensive functionality for preparing individual content in Excel and publishing it to the web.

BI, Analytics & CPM
● Reporting / Dashboards
●● Analysis
– Advanced Analytics
●● Planning
– Financial Consolidation

= Function covered, ●● = Functional focus

= Function covered
●●
= Functional focus

About IBM Planning Analytics

Self-description of the vendor

No vendor self-description available

IBM Planning Analytics BARC Review & Rating

Provider and product description

IBM is one of the world’s largest vendors of IT hardware, software and services. The company has a global workforce of approximately 282,000 employees and is active in over 170 countries.

IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of analytics, performance management (in particular for planning, budgeting and forecasting, and financial consolidation and close) and advanced analytics solutions. Major offerings include IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics. For financial consolidation and regulatory reporting, IBM Controller is part of the performance management portfolio. IBM supports a wide range of deployment requirements by offering both cloud and on-premises options as well as containerized applications.
IBM Planning Analytics – the vendor’s strategic enterprise planning product – is a core element in IBM’s performance management portfolio and has been on the market since the 1980s. Due to its rich functionality for planning and OLAP analysis, and its underlying in-memory TM1 technology, the product plays a strategic role for IBM and thousands of solutions have been implemented worldwide. Planning Analytics is available in both cloud and classical on-premises versions. Essentially, it is a high-performance, multidimensional, in-memory database for budgeting, planning and forecasting with Excel and web front ends. The product is targeted at business power users for building all kinds of applications (planning, analytics, strategy management, etc.). Therefore, it has no dominant focus on any one topic (financials, sales, HR, etc.) or industry. While Planning Analytics’ strength is its rich flexibility to implement tailored solutions for specific use cases, IBM and particularly its extensive partner network offer prebuilt business content for specific use cases and industries. In the latest versions of Planning Analytics, IBM has improved the web client with a modernized user interface and user experience, extended charting options and visualizations, a web-based data modeling environment and strengthened workflow capabilities. To control planning processes, a web-based visual workflow designer helps in the development of individual workflows (e.g., task management and due dates, status monitoring, approval, email notifications, etc.). Built-in AI and ML capabilities can be used to recognize anomalies or potential data entry errors and offer functionality to generate forecasts. Planning Analytics can also harness the services of advanced IBM AI capabilities such as IBM watsonx.ai.

IBM Cognos Analytics, the vendor’s enterprise BI and analytics platform, provides functionality for dashboards, pixel-perfect reports, data stories, data modeling and analysis in a unified web-based user experience. It combines ease of use with elaborate governance features in an end-to-end platform. The product can be used in large-scale scenarios supporting the needs of many concurrent users as well as large data volumes. IBM wants Cognos Analytics to be every user’s analytics copilot when navigating data. The vendor has incorporated NLQ, automated insights and intent-driven modeling and has invested in automation and ML capabilities across data modeling, dashboards, data exploration and an analytics chat assistant. The AI assistant allows users to explore data by asking natural language questions and by receiving insightful answers with a presentation-ready dashboard or report. Cognos Analytics’ AI capabilities can also identify trends and forecast results, helping companies to identify relevant influencers and correlations and calculate quick predictions.

IBM Controller is a purpose-built financial consolidation and close product for statutory and management consolidation use cases with predefined dimensions, consolidation computations and a library of pre-packaged reports for data review, system configuration and audit trail. Controller is agnostic in terms of industry and organization size and is available in the cloud and on premises. Standard functionality includes currency translation, intercompany reconciliation/elimination, complex ownership handling, multi-GAAP capabilities and options for custom calculations and flexible reporting.

Strengths and challenges of IBM Planning Analytics

BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.

Strengths
  • IBM Planning Analytics offers rich flexibility for business power users to create tailored planning, budgeting and forecasting as well as analytics applications based on a high-performance and scalable in-memory database.
  • IBM Planning Analytics provides comprehensive functionality for preparing individual content in Excel (modeling, custom planning forms, etc.) and publishing it to the web.
  • IBM Cognos Analytics combines ease of use with elaborate governance features in an end-to-end platform that provides functionality for dashboards, pixel-perfect reporting, data stories, data modeling and analysis in a unified web-based user experience.
  • Well established and expansive partner community with global product support and knowledge.
Challenges
  • IBM Planning Analytics is essentially a development environment for planning, budgeting and forecasting as well as OLAP analytics. Compared to competitors, the product has a rather low level of prefabrication and only limited prebuilt business content is currently available from IBM itself (mainly blueprints and project best practices). However, extensive predefined business content is available from partners and IBM also plans to strengthen its solution offerings in 2024 with pre-packaged solutions for finance, advanced workforce, demand and supply, and projects/IT.
  • IBM Planning Analytics itself offers comparatively limited reporting capabilities (e.g., format/layout for page-based print reporting). However, an integration with IBM’s enterprise BI and analytics suite for advanced reporting with Cognos Analytics is in place and is being continuously expanded. IBM Planning Analytics’ reporting capabilities were enhanced in 2023 with a new ‘Universal Report’ report type that allows users to build more complex and sophisticated reports in Planning Analytics itself.
  • When using different IBM performance management and analytics products, users will face different UIs. Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics share the same dashboarding functionality so the UIs and building processes are very similar. Planning Analytics Workspace includes native dashboarding capabilities, but dashboards from Cognos Analytics can also be embedded. Work on standardizing the UI and UX of IBM’s products is ongoing.
  • Comparatively expensive planning and analytics products, although the cloud versions of Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics offer alternatives for a lower level of initial investment and faster time to value.
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IBM Planning Analytics User Reviews & Experiences

The information contained in this section is based on user feedback and actual experience with IBM Planning Analytics.

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.

Who uses IBM Planning Analytics in a BI & analytics context and how

Why users buy IBM Planning Analytics and what problems they have using it

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Individual user reviews for IBM Planning Analytics

Role
Consultant
Number of employees
100 - 2.500
Industry
Education
Source
BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 06/2024
What do you like best?

Die Abfrage Geschwindigkeit und die Flexibilität in der Modellierung.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

-

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Zuerst den Standard definieren, dann erst implementieren.

How would you sum up your experience?

Sehr gutes Tool für Fachabteilungen, die wissen was sie wollen.

Role
Project manager for BI/analytics from business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Transportation and logistics
Source
BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024
What do you like best?

Mir gefallen besonders gut, dass man die Datenmodelle so flexibel designen kann und über die Echtzeitberechnung der Rechenregeln schnelle und flexible Planungsanwendungen und Dashboards bauen kann.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Die Frontends wirken manchmal etwas altbacken

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Bei aller Flexibilität der Software sollten die Anforderungen der Fachabteilungen klar sein. Es müssen genug Ressourcen der Fachanwender bei der Definition der Anforderungen, Test, Schulungen etc... eingeplant werden.

How would you sum up your experience?

Sehr gute Perfomance und flexible Datenmodelle.

Role
Project manager for BI/analytics from business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Manufacturing
Source
BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024
What do you like best?

Very flexible and powerful data platform TM1.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Newer frontends aren't fully integrated with TM1 Server anymore (e.g. separate user maintenance).

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Build up well-grounded inhouse knowledge.

How would you sum up your experience?

One of the most powerful pieces of software.

Role
Consultant
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Transportation and logistics
Source
BARC Marketing, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024
What do you like best?

Excel Add-in. Performance bei komplexen Berechnungen. Flexibilität.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Automatische Berichtsverteilung.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Zusatzmodul oder -tool für Berichtsverteilung. Relationale Datenbank für Data Staging als Vorsystem.

How would you sum up your experience?

Sehr positiv. Super flexibles System, das auf nahezu alle Bedürfnisse bzgl. BI angepasst werden kann.

Role
Project manager for BI/analytics from business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Process industry
Source
Invited by the vendor, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024
What do you like best?

Flexibilität und schnelle Umsetzung.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Direkte Schnittstellen zu SAP ERP und Power BI.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Eine gute Wahl im Vergleich und anderen Lösungen auf dem Markt. Kann ohne IT Support auch nur vom Fachbereich aufgesetzt werden.

How would you sum up your experience?

Nach 15 Jahren Erfahrung mit BI Tools immer noch meine erste Wahl.

Role
Project manager for BI/analytics from business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Transportation and logistics
Source
Invited by the vendor, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024
What do you like best?

Die hohe Flexibilität im Modell. Das neue Planning Analytics Workspace. Die Weiterentwicklung des Produkts.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Die hohen Kosten für Lizenzen und Wartung.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Wenn ihr Flexibilität wollt, nutzt das IBM Planning Analytics. Es kann für das gesamte Unternehmen genutzt werden.

How would you sum up your experience?

12 Jahre Erfahrung in der Datenmodellierung und Berichtserstellung waren sehr positiv.

Role
Line of business employee
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Public sector
Source
Invited by the vendor, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Anpassungsfähigkeit der Software an den jährlichen Anforderungen im Fachbereich. Flexibilität. Verknüpfung mit Excel.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Priorisierung der Cloud-Entwicklung.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Jedes Unternehmen ist individuell, daher braucht es auch größtmögliche Flexibilität im Planungsprozess mit einer geeigneten Software. Fachbereich in dieser Hinsicht fördern.

How would you sum up your experience?

Langjährige Nutzung und trotzdem am Pulse der Zeit.

Role
Consultant
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Consulting
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Speed, scalability, and flexibility to handle most any type of planning and forecasting situation.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

User interface.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Put it on your short list. Complete a real world competitive bake off with your data, with your internal technical people involved not just implementations consultant people. You will learn a lot more about product features and flexibility and total cost of ownership by having your team intimately engaged in the process.

How would you sum up your experience?

Very positive. We’ve been able to accommodate many types of applications with the tool kit even outside standard financial planning and budgeting.

Role
Manager Resource Management Systems
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Manufacturing
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Outstanding TM1 Database with functional Database concept. This makes the difference.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Large variety of legacy frontends, which each have its own strength, but full merge into latest frontend generation is still missing.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Build up inhouse knowledge to fully leverage all usage options of this outstanding piece of software.

How would you sum up your experience?

I haven't come across a data/analytics problem, that I couldn't solve using IBM Planning Analytics/TM1.

Role
Project manager for planning from business department
Number of employees
100 - 2.500
Industry
Banking and finance
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Einfach, generisch. Write back von Kreuztaballen. Stabilität.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Keine relationale Datenbank (mit einfacher Schnittstelle). Rules und Feeders.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Referenzbesuch bei vergleichbarer Firma.

How would you sum up your experience?

Die User lieben und schätzen die Applikation.

Role
Line of business employee
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Banking and finance
Source
Invited by the vendor, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Sehr flexibel in Abbildung von Business-Prozessen. Hohe Performance auch bei außergewöhnlich großen Modellen. Sehr mächtig mit der Möglichkeit von Live-Links in der Form von Rules.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Weiterentwicklungswünsche könnten besser berücksichtigt werden. (z.B. Renaming von Dimensionselement / Cubes / Instanzen).

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Die Architektur der Cubes mit deren Dimensionalitäten wohlüberlegt zu Beginn zu machen, da spätere Anpassungen aufwändig sind.

How would you sum up your experience?

Ein tolles Tool, das sehr viel Flexibilität bietet und nicht mehr wegzudenken wäre.

Role
Project manager for planning from IT
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Insurance
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Sehr flexibel einsetzbar, ich habe noch keinen Anwendungsfall gefunden, der nicht umsetzbar wäre. Besonders in Kombination mit Cognos Analytics entfaltet PA seine Möglichkeiten.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Lizenzen sind relativ teuer.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Macht euch im Vorwege klar, wer planen soll.

How would you sum up your experience?

Seit vielen Jahren sehr zufrieden.

Role
Project manager for planning from IT
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Healthcare
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Serves planning at the lowest level and the ability to consolidate at different levels and the ability to report at the planned level. Flexible to customize and use, low learning curve.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Nothing as such.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

have a clear use case, try out the tool for the use case on hand especially in the areas of ease of implementation/use/administration, flexibility to customize, training and have user involvement right through the evaluation and implementation process.

How would you sum up your experience?

Great tool for planning and consolidation of planning across the enterprise.

Role
Consultant
Number of employees
100 - 2.500
Industry
Consulting
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Skalierbarkeit technisch (Datenmenge) und fachlich (Offenheit bzgl. Datenmodellen und Regeln/Berechnungen).

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Versionswechsel von alter Architektur zur neuen Architektur noch unklar für on-prem Installationen.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Starten sie mit einem kleinen Modell, um Erfahrungen zu sammeln, evtl. auch mit Hilfe eines Experten. Wachsen Sie dann mit ihren Modellen und fachlichen Anforderungen.

How would you sum up your experience?

Die Anwender lieben es.

Role
IT employee
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Manufacturing
Source
Invited by the vendor, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Flexibilität / logischer Aufbau.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Alle Funktionen des Architekten in PAW verfügbar machen. Multiple Selection beim List Selector Widget ermöglichen.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Zeit in die Entwicklung der Cube Architektur investieren. Reporting Masken / Spreadsheets erst am Ende entwickeln.

How would you sum up your experience?

Sehr gut.

Role
Member of a cross-departmental BI team
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Manufacturing
Source
Invited by the vendor, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Ständige Innovation, gute Excel-Integration und Webanwendung.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Vollständige Integration aller Funktionen in Planning Analytics Workspace notwendig (aktuell 2 Welten).

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Direkt den Workspace und Planning Analytics for Excel nutzen und nicht die ursprüngliche Software (Architect, Perspectives).

How would you sum up your experience?

Anfängliche Schwierigkeiten aufgrund fehlender Funktionalität in der neuen Welt, mittlerweile eine sehr integrierte Planung.

Role
Line of business employee
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Process industry
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Kern-Datenbank TM1.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Von IBM entwickelte Benutzeroberfläche weicht stark von der den Entwicklern bekannten TM1-Benutzeroberfläche Perspectives ab.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

How would you sum up your experience?

Ein sehr gutes flexibles OLAP-Instrumentarium mit der Super-TM1-Datenbank. Aber seit IBM-Übernahme nicht mehr so intuitive Benutzerumgebung und leider mit häufigen Updates, weil noch in fortwährender Weiterentwicklung.

Role
Head of business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Utilities
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

I strongly recommend this product. Planning Analytics added significant efficiencies and improvements to our budgeting and planning processes. Flexibility, scalability, and tight integration with Excel are key strengths, as well as user friendly Excel interface in Pafe (Planning Analytics for Excel) and good dashboarding functionality in Planning Analytics Workspace.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

How would you sum up your experience?

I would strongly recommend this product. It is a great tool, as evidenced by its flexibility, ease of use, and strong integration with Excel.

Role
Member of a cross-departmental BI team
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
IT
Source
BARC Panel, The Planning Survey 24, 04/2024
What do you like best?

Flexibility with ability to combine online and offline calculations. Predictive analytics feature looks promising.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Cost of upgrade should be stabilized.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Take advantage of AI to infuse more automation.

How would you sum up your experience?

The product keeps its promises.

Role
Project manager for planning from business department
Number of employees
More than 2.500
Industry
Transportation and logistics
Source
Invited by BARC, 12/2022
What do you like best?

Die Flexibilität, Vielseitigkeit und phenomänale Softwarelandschaft durch Drittanbieter - somit bleibt nichts unmöglich. Die hohe Skalierbarkeit und Robustheit.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Monatliche Updates bringen mich durcheinander, aber machen auch Spaß in der Arbeit mit Web-Clients.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Eine Unternehmenslizens.

How would you sum up your experience?

Alles in Allem sehr gute Erfahrungen!

Survey Information
Number of reviews for IBM Planning Analytics
102
Reviewed versions
BI Survey: 83% version PA 2.0, 11% version 10, 6% version 8; Planning Survy 24: PA 2.0 73%, V10 3%, V11 21%, V12 3%
Peer groups in the survey
Large/Enterprise-Wide Implementations, Analysis Focus, International BI Giants, Products for Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting, Integrated Products for Planning and BI & Analytics, Worldwide Implementations
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