IBM Planning Analytics vs. Wolters Kluwer CCH® Tagetik

For a CFO or a COO to do budgeting and planning, IBM Planning Analytics would be essential. It is a tool that can take in multiple data sources and showcase them in a multidimensional way. If you are looking just for a BI or reporting tool, Planning Analytics would be considered "overkill".

Well suited for large multi-entity international, multi-currency, multi GAAP groups with excellent report writing features, customizations, and validation traps with minimal IT support. The ability to customize dimensions and dimension structures is a key strength. The intuitive user interface enables easy adoption by new users and training times are short. Upload features via embedded customisable ETL and standardised Excel templates are very efficient. Error checking is intuitive and helpful. Less appropriate for small single entity businesses.

Incentivized

• Handle very large data volumes.
• Scale to a large number of users.
• Not having to compromise on business complexity.
• It can be run by business users.
• Availability of highly qualified consultants to support businesses.
• REST API allows for an open eco system and a variety of solutions to extend the product.
• Vast integration possibilities.
• AI-infused engine with IBM Watson.

Incentivized

• Processes are clearly described in CCH Tagetik ; users can easily find where they are and which action they have to make
• Interaction with Excel is really fluid ; the Excel add-in is easy to deploy and to updgrade, in the hand of users. It is reliable provided the internet connection is fast.
• Managing hierachies is obvious in CCH Tagetik. Hierarchies are fundamental for a good reporting ; CCH Tagetik has obviously a deep experience of this feature.
• SaaS : our experience with CCH Tagetik is of only 1 year, but it technically performs well, the system is reponsive, no shut-down, and updates (every quarter) do not disturb production.
• AIH seems to be able to manage very large quantity of data, and to provide advanced analysis functionalities. We did not have time to explore them.

Incentivized

• sometimes it is hard to produce pixel perfect reports from the Web UI. I know it is not made for this, but still, it'll be great
• getting in e.g. an Excel file just by drag and drop, and the AI should "understand" what the data is all around

Incentivized

• The steps of setting up the loading of data is slightly painful.
• The steps and error message while connecting the process workflow has to provide a hint on which area needed to be fixed (because it could be anywhere or anything).
• The combination of 2 segments for the excel upload on what's needed to eliminate is yet to resolved. Which made the entire list very long.

Incentivized

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.

Based on our business requirements, its current implementation and way of use (in terms of the efficiceny) it's more than certain that we will renew our contract with CCH Tagetik. CCH Tagetik increased our efficiency regarding reporting and provides more features which made it easier to take decisions. Besides of that, it provided he best solutions for reporting according to the Solvency II standards. Since this is still the case, it is also a reason to stay with CCH Tagetik.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

On a general level, it is a flexible, streamlined system, that can integrate operational data with accounting data for a better financial overview and budget planning. Reporting wise, the types and the amount of data analysis available or that can be created are close to endless. Having a quicker, more flexible way of analysing data certainly means better, faster reporting and better use of the data itself.

Incentivized

CCH Tagetik has alwyas been there in case we need help. In almost 20 years of commercial relationship, I have no evidence of times in which they were not available to answer a question or to solve an issue linked to their products, timely and efficiently.

Incentivized

As you can see, speed depends on the applications but also on the hardware that runs them. As far as CCH Tagetik improved, we saw the benefit of a cloud-based solution which could solve many speed performance issues.

Incentivized

Although I find the IBM Planning analytics documentation quite time consuming, their support with email and call is something i can term as very considerate and patient, I have had few calls about the features and how i would want to implement them within my projects, and the teams have been super helpful to resolve my issues

Incentivized

I have had the pleasure of attending some courses at the dutch offices of CCH Tagetik. These were very educational with excellent trainers, a very enjoyable accomodation and they helped me a lot with regards to starting to use CCH Tagetik.

the training was not bad, but we got more training from working with the consultants. This because it is based on our system

Incentivized

several times since the deployment of the product in 2013 we got on-line training on new functions or on very specific questions/issues (e.g. ETL customisation), followed by the usage of the Learning Hub since 2025

I joined the team when implementation already started. I was involved in the testing phase, checking the newly created reports and if the were in line with expectations and stress test the ETL and all other elaborations, data entry and consolidation.

For strong technical teams and flexibility IBM Planning Analytics is the way to go. For quicker adoption and less technical teams Anaplan is the best option. If consolidation, financials, and moving from legacy tools are main focus than OneStream will be a really good choice. If deeply invested into SAP already than the SAP BPC will be the best fit to maintain the investment.

Incentivized

Oracle Essbase is another EPM software that we used but compared to Tagetik, it's not user friendly and the creation of dimensions and describing rules are more technically difficult. Drill down and analysis are not as easy as double clicking on Cch tagetik for immediate information. But as I have not used this software much and tagetik more, this is all I can say

A good and performing scalability both on a geographical and a legal entity scale. The link with MS Office suite allows an easy deployment of the application, especially for contributors.

Incentivized

• Much higher degree of accuracy in forecasting with the use of predictive analysis from historical data
• Dozens of man hours saved in routine processes that are now handled with minimal human interaction
• One system that holds the "source of truth," consolidating multiple systems together that were only accessible individually before

Incentivized

• It has definitely helped to standardize reporting across the company. Teams are able to pull the same reports and everything has the same feel to it.
• Since there are so many standard reports that we are able to create, it makes the analysts jobs easier since they are not spending so much time re-creating reports.
• With any system, there is going to be some admin work required. Creating new reports, accounts and entities does take time, but it is fairly simple and doesn't take a ton of time.

Incentivized