1. Home
  2. Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software
  3. IBM Planning Analytics Reviews
  4. User Review of IBM Planning Analytics
IBM is the safe choice if your planning needs are complex and detailed
May 09, 2023

IBM is the safe choice if your planning needs are complex and detailed

Ann-Grete Tan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

My organization is both a customer of IBM Planning Analytics, and an implementation Services provider. Internally we use it for financial planning and analysis (revenue & expense planning including workforce and capacity planning), management reporting, sales forecasting, cash forecasting and bonus & commissions calculations.
  • Loads large volumes of data very quickly from external sources
  • Scales to support very detailed models - e.g. SKU level products or many years of history
  • Has very powerful and feature-rich Excel integration
  • Powerful calculation engine that can be used for complex allocations (for example)
  • It's very flexible, so it is possible to use it incorrectly
  • Even though PA can be owned by the business, it requires a little investment to learn
  • The new Workspace-based modeling UI does not (yet) have all the features needed
  • Automate direct data connections to multiple data sources
  • One secured version of the the truth (for data and formulas)
  • Ability to scale to much more detailed planning with option to create predictive forecasts at detail
  • Business user friendly with powerful Excel integration
  • Very flexible and powerful modeling, can handle custom modeling needs at scale
  • Can make the same data available across finance and ops, but at the level of details and timeline that makes sense for them
Scenario planning and what-if analysis are critical capabilities for any business to help manage uncertainties such as supply chain issues, inflation risk and the like. With IBM Planning Analytics you can build integrated models of different parts of your business at scale and then use those models to explore the impact on possible futures on cash, demand, capacity and so on. The ability of IBM Planning Analytics to support greater levels of detail without sacrificing performance enables companies to do things like use SKU level demand planning to drive the revenue forecast, or accommodate many years of detailed historical data to support a predictive forecast. And of course this scalability also supports being able to store and compare unlimited scenario snapshots.
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson will be up and running more quickly and be easier to maintain if modeling flexibility, scale, and the ability to plan at greater levels of detail are important requirements.

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

My experience with support is that they are very responsive. IBM Planning Analytics also has excellent support and free learning options through the IBM Communities web site.
For developers, admins and end users looking for flexibility, IBM Planning Analytics would rate very highly on usability. For example, a developer has access to a highly performant built-in ETL (Extract Translate Load) tool and scripting language called Turbo Integrator that can (among other things) bring in data via flat file or direct connection from many data sources, move data around Planning Analytics, perform batch calculations, export to files or other data stores. In the rare situation where limitations are encountered there is a well documented REST API. Admins and end users benefit from the intuitive PAW (Workspace) interface as well as the rich Excel integration through Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE). Since flexibility inherently comes with a little more complexity, so an organization with simple and "cookie-cutter" requirements may rate Planning Analytics a little lower.
In our experience IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is the most functionally complete, powerful and scalable planning platform on the market, and can handle anything from financial and management reporting use-cases, to large-scale integrated revenue and expense planning, and AI-infused predictive forecasting. Any company with a large integrated business planning vision that is pursuing an xP&A strategy that brings together all kinds of planning across the business including financial, supply chain and sales will find that IBM Planning Analytics is the only tool that can easily and efficiently (1) connect directly to large data sets and pull in data (2) perform complex calculations including allocations and predictive forecasts, and (3) be expanded (if needed) using it's well-engineered and well-documented REST API. The only situation where it may appear to be less appropriate is at organizations with very simple standard financial planning requirements, with (perhaps) just one or two data sources. While IBM Planning Analytics can certainly serve such needs and is surprisingly affordable from a software pricing point of view, its flexibility and power do add more complexity to the user experience.

IBM Planning Analytics Feature Ratings

10.0
Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
10
Management reporting
10
6.1
Financial data consolidation
7
Journal entries and reports
2
Multi-currency management
10
Intercompany Eliminations
6
Minority Ownership
6
Local and consolidated reporting
10
Detailed Audit Trails
2
8.4
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
10
XBRL support for regulatory filing
2
10.0
Personalized dashboards
10
Color-coded scorecards
10
KPIs
10
Cost and profitability analysis
10
Key Performance Indicator setting
10
10.0
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
10
9.3
Pixel Perfect reports
8
Customizable dashboards
10
Report Formatting Templates
10
10.0
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
10
Report sharing and collaboration
10
9.5
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
10
Report Delivery Scheduling
8
9.7
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
9
Predictive Analytics
10
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Report-Level Access Control
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
10.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
10