BOARD is a business decision-making platform for organizations of any size. BOARD hosts several business modeling, planning, and analysis all in one cloud-based platform.
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Varicent
Score 7.1 out of 10
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From quotas to sales and compensation, Varicent helps revenue leaders in enterprise organizations chart a more effective, connected path to revenue by providing vital data, insights, and sales go-to-market planning tools.
Board is a useful tool with a great set of features. We migrated from human apps to board and we find it relatively fast in search results and better-managed threads and forums. There are some areas, such as UI and interactions which could be improved but overall a great product. The learning section is also pretty good.
For the use cases we have at the bank, ICM is a perfect solution. For any bank or institution that has similar requirements, ICM would be a perfect solution. But I also think for any use case that has any sort of incentives based on Sales done, this would work amazing, as both Calculations and reports are handled by ICM very well; it's an all-in-one solution, I feel like.
As [the] model gets more and more transactional data, the calculation time increases. This should/can be handled internally with better model optimization.
Migrating from one env to other sometimes is challenging. There can be better 'Alerts' or 'Explanation' provided to handle it or at least to give a hint of the error.
For managers viewing their rep's report, the access part can be made easier. It should be linked to Payee hierarchy and access can be done automatically.
Board is a fantastic product for swift BI solution delivery when compared with its peers. Ease of use, support and integration with Microsoft Office Addin open a wide horizon of opportunities for further enhancements to solutions. Easy bespoke app development capabilities make it a winner for us. BOARD is just like a white canvas, it lets you explore your creative side while designing and delivering a solution
Customer support from IBM is impeccable. They are quick to respond and they don't nickel and dime you for every request you make. Their goal is to ensure your success and as a user, I really feel like they listen to my concerns. That's not to say there are no problems. All software has its issues, but I don't feel like those issues fall on deaf ears.
From a user perspective, Board is quite simple to use. You can evaluate the presentation of the data, the navigation, the configuration of the users, the selection of the data etc ... It would have a better rating if it were even more intuitive as regards the construction of a project, starting from the database, to the info-cubes, to entities, to data acquisition procedures from other servers.
Any calculations can be implemented as there are hardly any limitations on complexity. However, online real-time usability is lacking - a simple user enters, and the system calculates work in a way that it is in the browser and hence still needs overnight to be properly reflected in the batch calculations and backend tables.
All is fast, but with API's it is sometimes slower due to the application we are pulling data from. Reports are loaded directly or within seconds and our reports are very detailed with many columns and rows.
The only time I needed assistance was due to a problem in the prints: the colors of the brochures as they were on the screen were not reproduced in the print, but a series of standard colors were reproduced. This fact made colored numbers on a colored background illegible. From the assistance they confirmed that it was a problem of version 10.2 that occurred when leaving the brochures with the default colors proposed by Board. To obtain the desired colors, they had to be personalized ... I didn't like the solution very much and the technician who recommended it didn't like me either, but they would have solved the problem with the following versions. In any case, the assistance was quick and effective even if not exactly efficient.
Giving a 10 would suggest there is no room for improvement. I don't feel like their support is perfect. However, I have never met another team that was more dedicated to making sure we get what we want and need.
Board is fairly simple and straight forward. Advance training on workflows and procedures is a good one but the training content only touches through the interesting areas. training content needs to cover a few areas more in-depth
The problem of user profiling in our context is certainly quite complex. The complexity is given by the fact that the company is divided territorially into logistic points of sale, but at the same time they are virtually divided into divisions (or specific implementation areas) and points of sale of competence. The same operator can have access to data at different logistic sales points, sales points of competence and divisions.
Test test test. Make sure that the product is calculating everyone 100% correctly. DO NOT accept a 70% pass rate as some companies would like to have you believe is acceptable. This means conducting thorough testing by providing 100% of all expected results, but it will be worth it when you know that the compensation plans are working entirely as expected.
Board has been more complete when compared to Anaplan. Although I didn't participate in the buying decision of any of those products I have used both and by far Board just has more features. It's more than a CPM, it's BI and CPM put together. If I had to make a choice now it would be Board.
In 2015, we used a scorecard containing 80 attributes in our review of Oracle, Callidus, and Xactly & Varicent. Oracle did not have true self serve capabilities- programming was heavily required, not intuitive, out of the box functionality was limited. Callidus & Xactly could not provide us a demo using our data, statements could not be sent out in bulk form, difficulty in importing/exporting to CRM. Varicent excelled in most areas and was the clear winner.
It is very scalable and adaptable to changing complexities of calculations and business rules under a variety of different scenarios. It does not get full points because in large data loads the time needed to calculate and import the data increases exponentially and may cause issues related to timing potentially.
Board facilitates proactive decision making - it gives all the insights of the company's needs, which includes predictive analytics and manipulation of data to make different types of reports.
Easy to use for non-programmer and integration with other software is seamless. It has [the] ability to handle large amounts of data.
Compliance - with a central system used for calculation incentive payments and commissions, we are able to provide reports and data showing every detail of how payments are calculated and why they are justified. We can also identify anomalies and outliers.
Integration with our payroll system is seamless. Except for regular pay, nothing goes to payroll without going through ICM. The process for paying incentives/bonuses/commissions is now very structured and efficient.
