This is the second blog regarding Forecasting, Budgeting and Planning processes as we experience them at our customers and how these processes can be done in a different way.
As mentioned in our previous blog when making plans, budgets and forecasts there is a need for flexibility like Excel offers, but reports based on these should not give the opportunity of “multiple truths” like is experienced often in organizations relying on Excel for reporting as well.
So what kind of solutions are available to fill the need described above where the organization is using an ERP solution for (most of) its back-office processes? When challenged by this question we went on a quest to find these solutions
Solutions for forecasting, budgeting and planning (CPM/EPM)
As the processes we wanted to support had a primary financial focus we started looking for financial planning and analysis solutions. It appeared that solutions that were labelled as CPM/EPM (Corporate Performance Management/Enterprise Performance Management) solutions contained the functionality we, and our customers, were looking for. Nowadays these solutions are labelled as CFPA (Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis solution). It also appeared that (most of) these solutions also had functionality on board to be classified as CFC (Cloud Financial Close solution).
The solutions that are already longer on the market have offered their functionality in the past on premise, but the major vendors now offer all a cloud based solution. The underlying technology can be Microsoft based, but there are also solutions based on Oracle technology. As Kaya is an organization which implements and supports ERP systems from the Microsoft stack we focused on CPM tools based on Microsoft technology, This meant that solutions of Oracle and SAP were out of scope for us.
Major vendors of CPM software
During our analysis of the various vendors of CPM software we focussed on a number of major players (as identified by Gartner) with the exception as mentioned before. In order to limit the number of solutions further we only looked into solutions that were, preferably, both listed as CFPA and CFC solution. This made that solutions like Blackline were out of scope. We added this extra criterium, not only to limit the number of solutions to analyse, but also to ensure we should end up with a solution which can be used for multiple purposes in order to be able to support our customers in a more “ERP” like way.
Following US and/or Europe based solutions have been analysed by us (in alphabetical order):
• Adaptive Insights
• Anaplan
• Board International
• CCH Tagetik
• Host Analytics
• Jedox
• Workiva.
Which solution did Kaya select for a partnership
After comparing the various solutions mentioned above Kaya decided to apply for a partnership with Board International. After training of Kaya staff (both technical as functional), Kaya was awarded the status of implementation partner. In our next blog we will elaborate on the reasons why Kaya wanted to become a partner of Board International and why Kaya thinks that the combination of Dynamics AX or D365 for Finance & Supply Chain and Board international is a winning combination.
Look for other related blogs at https://kaya-consulting.com/category/board/