Aprimo vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

I think Aprimo is well suited when you are looking for a DAM to house all of your content. It will be easy to find what you need based on the metadata you are including. I think Aprimo works very well in situations where you are looking for both a DAM and project management system. We are using the DAM and Aprimo productivity and they pair well together

Incentivized

As mentioned earlier reporting was a big headache for us and the tools we used didn't support large data sets and visualization Performing analytics with such data sets was cumbersome and later post using this SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence we were able to correlate different data sets and prepare the dashboard pretty easier which were helpful and easier to understand.

Incentivized

• Audit - The trail of what you can look back on is so robust and the IDs are on every task and asset. You see a full picture of something that has been approved and can see any amends that have been made. Having the full view and timeline of any updates is essential for our teams.
• Reporting - Most if not all fields can be reported on. This is essential for us as we use reports to influence management decisions as well as managing day-to-day operations.
• DAM - The DAM functionality and connectivity is a big one for our future plans as well as existing ones. Connectors into the DAM help us integrate the systems we have already, plus plan and support the business with new plans in growing areas.
• Service - Aprimo support is amazing. The support we get as a company is always great, no matter how big or small any issues or queries are. The team at Aprimo is always so attentive and comes back with great answers and support.

• This software is easy to initially learn, and very powerful in producing reusable reports.
• It is much faster than my company's internal manual queries. The ability to build off of a saved query and share queries to other users is a great positive.
• My favorite part is that you can run queries in the background and it does not interfere with your current work or slow your computer down.

Incentivized

• Customer support is slow to resolve system issues
• Complicated configuration with no in-depth training amounts to a huge learning curve and expensive concierge services
• The consumer-facing UI does not have all of the functionality that is required
• Training videos are out of date or purport functionality that does not exist

Incentivized

• The installation can be very complex and time-consuming, it requires a lot of planning and foresight as to what role the software will play in the organization.
• The software has a relatively large learning curve that takes dedicated users months to get comfortable with, the UI is a bit intimidating for new users.
• SAP could organize their help better, it can be difficult to find dependable solutions to issues via their website and support channels.

Incentivized

While Aprimo provides the fundamental tools to track our actual spend, it has a major void when trying to plan for future programs. Our teams often have offline Excel spreadsheets to track actuals spend vs. our original budget, and lay out the future programs against which we plan to use budget funds. Would also appreciate reporting mechanisms which could splice data in non table format. For example, we often use marketing calendars to display programs/spend over time. This helps our team ensure that programs which are intended to run concurrent with in-store sales executions are happening in the correct time frame. The visual is simply easier to follow.

The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.

Incentivized

Really good search and upload process, and great functionality for workflow approval and editing. QuickConnect is handy for on the go, and the SSO keeps it simple. For customization, it is relatively complex and requires some technical knowledge. The user guides are very detailed, and the Aprimo Academy training modules provide lots of information, but there is a steep learning curve to get fully up to scratch with the system. The level of inter-relatedness of areas of customization could be complicated to work out if there is a problem. The support team at Aprimo is fantastic and the high customization potential is a benefit rather than a downside. A system champion is required to make sure it is fully utilized.

From a server and client side perspective. the Business Intelligence Platform provides a foundation for all aspects of content development, distribution, analysis, collaboration and self service. Ease of use from targeted content delivery through controlled accessibility. Content exporting in the format of the users choice. Scheduling for internal or external delivery. Public and private folders for secure content access when requied. Web based for viewing on the users device of choice without the need to download additional applications.

Incentivized

We have not yet experienced any downtime

When we implemented 3.1, we had a tough time managing the system: It took almost a year to stabilize.

With 4.0, we want to roll out to more users, and are holding back because of fears about the performance issue

We are struggling with it though I think it’s our firewall i.e. an internal issue. Accessing the software outside or on mobile is faster.

They have a multi-tenant and single tenant option (more expensive) . We bought the single tenant option in anticipation of using Campaign Management and based upon our scale. You get more capabilities with single tenant

Overall, the tool (Web Intelligence 4.2) is fast and solid. One issue is a dependability on JAVA for a full feature report creation/edit capabilities (as opposed to limited HTML option). Second, planned end of JAVA support by major browsers (Chrome is already not supporting JAVA applet).

Support is support, so mainly reactive when it is about product inside and common issues. But when it is about specific enhancements and business concerns related to our own configuration and settings, we surely feel a gap. and this is why concierge is a must have solution when facing Aprimo support

SAP has released various versions of SAP BO BI. starting from 3.1 and going to 4.0,4.1,4.2 and latest being 4.3. SAP provides support to these new versions. As new versions keep on coming, support for the very old software goes out of scope from SAP. it is when the different organization plans to get their BO content migrated from a lower version to a newer version. The newer version had definitely added functionality and features which ease the work of users.

Incentivized

Aprimo offered a number of hands on sessions customized for each group. As such, they address specific needs and configurations of each team. These sessions also offered another round of cross-functional collaboration in process design.

SAP authorized training is best, Please go ahead with it. Even lot of online training options/videos available for self learning

Incentivized

It was very generic and we took it prior to configuration. It was however adequate to educate our user in the basic capabilities that will have become available to them after deployment.

I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.

We were very well supported. TopRight who performed the process/requirements definition as well as project management functions came with ample experience with various marketing automation platforms. They also came with very good multi-channel marketing experience that allowed them to tackle this implementation as a marketing deployment and not a technology deployment. TopRight bring expertise in multi-channels strategy.

Aprimo performed the configuration and training functions. Their personnel were very well versed in their platform and brought much empathy to a deployment that required a great deal of change management.

I am stunned by how many people (from for-profit sector who work here) have not been exposed to these types of platforms. I want to make sure that folks are so accustomed to user interface. When I roll-out campaign management, teaching them the art and science of campaign management versus just learning the tool. TopRight are marketers. They are familiar with all these technologies. Their job has been to define processes, best practices and turn into training. Similar to training from Salesforce.com about funnel mgmt etc, vs. just the product. We will create training modules that are agnostic to the platform

Hire specialists and experienced staff. Mix some beginners so that everyone is not a leader but a learner too. Plan well; architect well; break down implementation in small steps and move towards larger steps. Create a centralized and authorized SAP Business Objects implementation team.

Incentivized

Unica - Both platforms (i.e. Unica and Aprimo) delivered comparable capabilities. However, due to internal limitations around technical support and technical maturity of the organization we selected Aprimo as it delivered the more user friendly user interface. Unica requires more technical saviness. With Aprimo you can be completely non-technical.

We evaluated Epsilon, but they were too expensive and don’t compete on price.

We evaluated Axciom. They offered an outsourced full service and were very powerful, but we wanted to bring capabilities more in-house. The capabilities were more advanced that we needed today. We felt Aprimo or Unica could both carry us a long way.

We did not look at marketing automation vendors like Eloqua, Marketo. From a scale standpoint, we were looking for campaign management and not just marketing automation. Also wanted MRM (Marketing Resource Management) or internal workflow management capabilities. We did not take a deep dive as they didn’t have the full suite solution

We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do more, and that's why at the end we went with it

Incentivized

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform supports SOA Service Oriented Architecture. You can start/restart/enable/disable all the servers. You can seamless do load balancing and clustering. It supports all leading application and web server. Supports LDAP SSO integration. People who can work on excel with training they can work on SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, dashboard, Lumira, Information design tool product suite. Tool is very user friendly and easy to learn and implement

Incentivized

• The stream-lined content process with agency partners who have access to our Aprimo client.
• In app creative review and redlining makes changes easy for client and agency.
• Cost saving in the way that we were able to build custom products and not try and use a costly less effective tool.

Incentivized

• By generating and distributing reports in a timely manner, we were able to save millions of dollars for the company which otherwise would not have been visible.
• Almost realtime dashboard, saved the company a huge amount by showing the outages and kept the company from buying a tool to do just that.
• It showed the customers who were not paying the bills and were missing in the system due to some loophole. This was visible by doing reporting on the theft usage of electricity.

Incentivized