Adaptive Suite Review
December 16, 2016
Adaptive Suite Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Adaptive Suite
Our instance of Adaptive was implemented around 18 months ago at the company I work at, and it was intended to streamline the forecast process and enhance our internal reporting capabilities. All of this was key for the growth which we were in the early stages of at the time. We relocated from San Diego and hired a new workforce in Dallas, plus we were actively adding companies to the portfolio. When we began looking for a reporting tool we met with several industry leaders including Adaptive, Oracle, IBM, Host etc. and we had a set of criteria for which we needed to make sure the choice would suffice the demands we would have for the product. Needless to say we picked Adaptive, but more importantly is to say that 2 years later we are all pleased with the decision. We just finished our second fiscal budget using Adaptive and our instance has evolved tremendously since the prior fiscal planning cycle. We are a private company owned by a private equity firm so we have large reporting requirements each month so the various reporting options, including Office Connect, ensures that we have the capability to churn out the reporting each month without a large effort by our analysts. We are gradually expanding the users beyond finance and accounting and the result has been good so far. We are beginning to develop various planning sheets that feed the income statement that have sound logic built into them, and the result is much higher forecast precision. In short, the problem 2 years ago was that we were unable to spend anytime understanding the business, with the biggest reason being time or the lack there of. Now we are streamlined with key reporting packages developed in Office Connect and the time to produce the package is a matter of minutes for one person, instead of weeks of work for multiple analysts. Now we are getting to the point where we understand the business implicitly and we are able to enhance our role in supporting the business and really turning our efforts to helping the organization make better financial decisions and plan for the future with more confidence. The results and the perception of Adaptive at my company are both great at this point. We're still growing and evolving just like our instance of Adaptive. We are pleased with product and feel confident that the product will be sufficient as we continue our growth.
- 1 - Click reporting. Either Matrix reporting or Office connect are the choices and both are great. Just having the ability to roll dates forward and run reporting packages on a monthly basis alone is something most analyst dream of, Adaptive is for real.
- Multiple connectors. We not only have our Oracle connect pulling trial balance data on demand but we also have ADP, and Transaction connectors in place. Having all of these connectors in place save untold amounts of time and allows you to develope some really strong processes to make monthly close and planning a breeze.
- Attributes and Dimensions: tagging your data will make life easier but too many will make it tough. Be smart but most certainly use them, it's an important component of analysis but segmenting the business in ways that make analysis more simple is at your finger tips. You just have to develop a plan of action and put it into place.
- Model Sheets are complicated.
- Some parts of the suite are not very intuitive, like formulas. It takes work.
- It would be nice to have 2 Actuals versions. Just a thought.
- Streamlined financial reporting is the obvious one but also we are happy with the products ability to keep up with our use. We are growing rapidly and adding business units and we are able to easily add to our org structure and not be slowed down by arduous remapping of Excel files, and the maintenance that goes along with it.
- KPIs and dashboarding. This has always been high priority at my company but it was always Excel based. Now we use Adaptive and the metrics are more readily available and the ability to display them in dashboards will continue to evolve.
- Long term financial modeling and improved modelling of HC and attrition. We are now able to sit down with functional leaders and determine the impact of attrition during a short meeting, something that used to take for longer.
- Multi Version instance that allows for what-if-scenario's. We are also able to create groups, which in turn are given access to specific versions, so we can plan for attrition or we can plan for acquisitions and not be concerned with the security and also not be concerned with modifying or changing a forecast by accident.
We had meetings with several industry leaders and Adaptive was our choice in the end. We liked IBM and also liked Host Analytics for different reasons. In the end it was the combination of cloud, Excel add-in, Office Connect, Discovery, and cost that would ultimately end up with Adaptive. I've used a few similar BI products and it has become my tool of preference. One of the best things about Adaptive is that they are committed to being the best, and to do that they must evolve and enhance the products different modules, I have seen many updates while using the product and I can say that they are making impressive enhancements on a regular basis. I'm very excited to see where they will be in another year.