This article first appeared on OneStreamSoftware.com by John O’Rourke
As organizations begin their evaluations of potential enterprise performance management (EPM) software vendors, industry analyst reports are a great resource for identifying viable solutions. Some industry analyst reports are based on analyst opinions of the various vendors built through briefings, demonstrations, and customer references. Others are based more on customer surveys and reviews, providing a clear assessment of how actual customers view the software vendor and the value they are getting from their solutions. This is often referred to as the “wisdom of crowds.”
A good example of an industry analyst report that is driven mostly by customer reviews is the recently published Dresner Advisory Wisdom of Crowds® 2022 Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Market Study.
Leveraging the Collective Wisdom of Crowds
The 2022 Wisdom of Crowds® EPM Market Study builds on the previous seven years of Enterprise Planning and EPM Market Studies published by Dresner Advisory and reflects the shift in the market towards a more holistic approach to performance management vs. relying on individual point solutions.
According to Dresner Advisory, an enterprise performance management system is a key element of performance management. It allows an organization to plan for the impact of various internal and external factors on its future performance and business outcomes. This includes strategic, operational, and financial planning and forecasting. EPM systems also include reporting and analytics capabilities that allow organizations to set goals and objectives and monitor performance against those objectives.
EPM software systems can vary significantly in complexity and automation capabilities, from relatively straightforward spreadsheet replacements to sophisticated multi-user systems that support collaborative planning, provide a wide range of analytics, and use advanced technologies such as in-memory computing and machine learning
What’s New in Enterprise Performance Management?
This year’s report highlighted several key market trends, including the following:
- Enterprise performance management remains an important technology. In 2022 current usage of EPM solutions increased to 54 percent, up from 51 percent in 2021, and the percentage of respondents rating EPM as critically important is up by 3 percent to nearly 25 percent.
- EPM adoption skews towards large and very large organizations, but small organizations have become more open to adopting enterprise performance management (44 percent are currently evaluating or may use it in the future, up from 37 percent in 2021).
- The 2021 data show a continuing trend toward sourcing of enterprise performance management solutions from specialist vendors regardless of their affiliation with any ERP vendor, up to nearly 49 percent in 2021.
- While ERP vendors aggressively push their EPM solutions, only 10 percent of respondents prefer to source enterprise performance management from their ERP vendor, whereas 31 percent consider all types of vendors and 59 percent prefer to source these capabilities from a specialist enterprise performance management vendor.
- The top three planning priorities remained unchanged from 2021 (annual financial budgets, cash-flow forecasting, and headcount planning), while strategic planning continued its rise up the rankings, moving up to the fourth place.
- Frequency of forecasting has increased with forty-three percent of respondents increased the frequency of forecasting in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and 41 percent focused more on key performance indicators and business drivers.
- Resistance to AI-based forecasting and planning continues its slow downward trend, dropping slightly by 1 percent. However, most respondents remain undecided.
- Respondents prefer cloud enterprise performance management solutions compared to on-premises deployment.
OneStream Once Again Recognized as a Leader
What’s unique about this study is that the results are based 100% on surveys of customers using EPM software. Vendors are evaluated based on 33 criteria covering:
- Sales/Acquisition Experience
- Value for Price
- Quality and Usefulness of Product
- Quality of Technical Support
- Quality and Value of Consulting Services
- Vendor Integrity
- Whether Vendor is Recommended
This was OneStream’s fifth year of inclusion in the Dresner Advisory Wisdom of Crowds Study and, once again, the results were outstanding. Each vendor was evaluated on 33 criteria, and as you can see in the spider chart below, OneStream Software is substantially above the overall sample for all measures, best in class for 9 measures and we received a perfect “5” recommend score.
Dresner Advisory provides two models to help clients understand the EPM market. Their Customer Experience Model positions vendors based on their combined scores on Product/Technology vs. Sales and Service metrics on two axes, positioning vendors into one of four quadrants.
Their Vendor Credibility Model considers how customers “feel” about their vendor, plotting value for the price paid against the integrity and recommending measures, creating a “confidence” dimension. The upper-right quadrant in both models contains the highest-scoring vendors, and those considered leaders in customer experience and vendor credibility.
Based on our scores, OneStream was positioned as an Overall Leader in both the Customer Experience and Vendor Credibility models. Here’s a view of how the various vendors are positioned in the Customer Experience model.
Commenting on OneStream’s results in the study, Howard Dresner, Founder and Chief Research Officer at Dresner Advisory Services said, “In 2022, OneStream received outstanding results across virtually all measures and is an Overall leader in the Customer Experience Model and Vendor Credibility Models. Customers rank the company best in class for sales professionalism, responsiveness, flexibility/accommodation and business practices, product robustness/sophistication of technology, reliability of technology, integration of components within product, ease of upgrade/migration to new versions, and technical support time to resolve problems and responsiveness. Additionally, it maintains a perfect recommend score. We applaud OneStream on their 2022 rankings and their continued recognition in our annual market survey.”
Learn More
Making every customer a reference, one success at a time is the mission of OneStream Software and is our top priority companywide. Being named a leader in Customer Experience and Vendor Credibility by Dresner Advisory Services validates our approach and recognizes the ability of OneStream to address the advanced planning and performance management requirements of global enterprises.
To learn more, download a copy of the 2022 Dresner Advisory Enterprise Performance Management Market Study.
