Item: IBM Planning Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Petr Sládek

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Mostly for financial planning use cases in controlling departments. However IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is quite flexible for planning in other domains such as Sales, Cost planning and allocation or emission planning and optimization.

Pros and Cons

Flexibility
Visualisation
Business Rules

Versioning
Weak built-in workflow
Notifications

Return on Investment

Overall planning efficiency
Lower probability of error
Higher planning detail

Scenario Planning and What-If Analysis

Build-in sandbox feature with limited usability. However you can build your own what-if and simulation module to fit your needs.

Alternatives Considered

Anaplan, SAP Analytics Cloud and Oracle Cloud EPM

IBM allows to build flexible models from the scratch. IBM Planning Analytics with Watson does not include non-planning features in one package, so you don't pay for something you may not need.

Key Insights

Do you think IBM Planning Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with IBM Planning Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Planning Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IBM Planning Analytics go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IBM Planning Analytics again?

Yes

Support Rating

There is space for improvements. Its probably price given for high flexibility of the product.

Usability

High flexibility makes it very usable for various use cases.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel

Likelihood to Recommend

Great for various use cases where company wants to customize model/process/workflow to its needs. Other products usually won't provide such room for modification of out-of-the-box features. You can experience difficulties if your planning use case requires to plan on item level (employees, investments).

Flexible planning tool

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Planning Analytics with Watson