IBM Planning Analytics, powered by IBM TM1®, is an integrated planning solution designed to promote collaboration across the organization and help keep pace with the speed of modern business. With its calculation engine, this enterprise performance management solution is designed to help users move beyond the limits of spreadsheets, automating the planning process to drive faster, more accurate results. Use it to unify data sources into one single repository, enabling users to build…
Good for large organizations but can be used across various industries from manufacturing to even medical. Also very Citrix publishing friendly to allow multiple users located anywhere to use AspenOne Supply Chain Management across the organization while consolidating their data in a centralized secure place. This ability to consolidate and centralize applications and data within the same facility makes migration, high availability in DR scenario easier to configure as well.
Very powerful modeling capabilities. It has a really good OLAP engine memory. Strong scenario planning for what if analysis. Flexibility of integration with ERPs or WM systems for both cloud and on premises. Centralized planning and alignment of governance is also a plus. Having one single system for many different functions.
While AspenOne Supply Chain Management generate a wealth of data and information, the ability to organize and create reports can be time consuming as well as steep learning curve.
While incremental updates are predictable, AspenOne major version updates can be difficult to implement with wide user impact causing more downtime than we prefer.
Report merge and legacy version conversion tools can be made easier to use with more GUI (graphical user interface) options and less command base as well as status progress graphic and confirmation of completion would be very helpful.
Since IBM Cognos Express is suitable only for medium data warehouse environment, we are not sure if this tool solves the long term need as the business keeps growing rapidly. So its a 50/50 ratio to renew Express license. But having said that, the components of IBM Cognos Express are also available in other Cognos BI suites like Cognos 10.x version. So we will probably upgrade our environment to IBM Cognos 10.x which comes with more new features.
IBM Planning Analytics is generally good in terms of functionalities. It can be used reduce time for budget planning, resource planning, demand forecasting, etc. The performance of IBM Planning Analytics is acceptable, but user interface can be improved. It would be good to see new features that allow users to customise the dashboard.
IBM support has been very quick to respond and handle the very few issues we've had. We've had a third-party who partners with IBM to be our consulting team which has helped greatly reduce the need for us to contact IBM directly. I highly recommend researching and selecting a well-respected partner to help with an implementation as well as ongoing support as needed.
AspenOne Supply Chain Management was a cheaper alternative to SAP HANA and while as not feature-ful and not as easy to integrate with SAP data, the interface was easy enough to configure without the need for HANA. It was also easier and quicker to deploy and implement which alleviated our business pain point. It's like an old saying the best software is the one you can use, now! Our management and supply chain team members have been happy with the product and very few complaints arise from the production usage or performance.
As it is related to MS Excel, IBM Planning Analytics is a much more robust and complete solution for the CFO or COO in mind. Oracle Hyperion stacks up nicely against IBM Planning Analytics. However, IBM's investment in AI allows Planning Analytics users more options and speed.
We needed AspenOne Supply Chain Management quickly back in 2013 since our biggest pain point was tracking movement of products and ability for multiple departments and locations to access the information to complete their responsibilities within the organization. Was able to successfully implement in three quarters for go-live.
Since our initiation implementation our two major version upgrades did not go as smooth as we would like causing downtime of user access and the system does not have flexibility to run previous version while upgrading to new version. Upgrade path needs to improve to minimize downtime.
The business reported quick ROI of better than expected results and the software paid for itself in under three years which beats projection.
Centralized implementation makes disaster recovery (DR) configuration easier to manage.
