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BI / CPM Comparison
BI / CPM Comparison 2009
Welcome to this year’s survey on business intelligence and corporate performance management. We received 12 responses from BI/CPM vendors up from 10 last year. Despite everything that has been written about BI and CPM, a lot of confusion remains. Let’s start with BI, which is essentially about turning data into information useful for making decisions. This sounds like motherhood -- everybody should have a tool for that purpose. But although here are several on the market -- including Excel, reporting programs, dashboards and online analytical processing - none is ideal...
Excel is the dominant tool, but it has limitations. The raw data often needs to be manually manipulated before it is entered, leading to inefficiency and potential errors. Once in Excel, the data often requires adjustment, which leads to further problems -- including the often-heard lack of "one version of the truth". Meanwhile, it’s not easy to generate reports with the various report writers without programming intervention....
BI / CPM Comparison 2008
Welcome to this year’s vendor survey on business intelligence and corporate performance management. We decided to do a separate survey for BI/CPM this year instead of including it in our larger September survey on enterprise resource planning. We did the same for customer relationship management in last month’s issue and found the decision to be a good one in both cases. This year, we have 10 responses from BI/CPM vendors, up from eight last year. Some of the major players that were missing in the 2007 survey, such as Cognos and Microsoft, are also included. See the online version of this article for the survey chart. In the September 2007 is-sue of CAmagazine, we pointed to a couple of acquisitions earlier in the year (including Oracle’s purchase of Hyperion) and wondered if and when the same would happen with Cognos. The answer was clear in November 2007, with IBM’s acquisition of the company. Other acquisitions in 2007 included Longview (by Exact), Business Objects (by SAP) and Applix (by Cognos).
According to research and advisory firm Gartner, "Megavendors are beginning to dominate the business intelligence market" in less than one year, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM will have gone from accounting for a quarter of the market to owning over two-thirds of it. The acquisitions represent a growing trend toward providing end-to-end solutions. Initially ERP was a back-office application (financials, distribution, etc.). Then it came to include the front office (CRM, eCommerce). Now it encompasses BI and corporate performance management. ERP systems contain a ton of data that needs to be turned into information. That is BI’s job. CPM includes BI as well as budgeting, forecasting and consolidation...