Findings from the 2019 BPM Pulse Survey
Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners
While most people focus on the individual vendor customer satisfaction ratings that are part of our annual BPM Pulse survey, they tend to gloss over the other useful information that makes up the bulk of the survey. Let’s highlight some of those key findings that would otherwise be overlooked.
The Three Main Reasons Products are Selected Over Alternatives
When asked why they purchased the performance management vendor they did, one answer rose to the top, regardless of which vendor they actually selected: Product Flexibility. This of course assumes that the product also met their business requirements. All other things being equal though flexibility was a key selection criteria. In second and third place respectively were Ease of Use and Scalability/Complexity Handling. If a product is flexible, easy to use, and can handle large, complex problems it should come out on top more often than not. The problem is some easy to use products are not very flexible, nor can they handle big challenges. On the other hand, some very flexible products that can handle anything thrown their way are not as easy to use as they should be.
Dashboards Are Not Meeting Expectations
Survey respondents were asked to rate their own vendor’s functionality in several areas: budgeting, reporting, consolidation, analytics, and dashboards. One clear trend emerged – regardless of the vendor, dashboards received comparatively low ratings across the board. Why is that? The survey data didn’t provide much additional insight, but we know from our field work what the general complaints have been. Customers are looking for more interactive dashboard solutions (as opposed to the static Executive Information Systems of days gone by). They want to be able to drill down as many levels as it takes to understand why a particular metric fell short of the target. They want to be able to insert commentary to explain variances. They want the dashboards to be even more visual and intuitive. Based on the survey results there is clearly work to be done here.
Performance Management Solutions are Sticky
When asked how much longer they were planning to keep their current performance management solution 80% of respondents said they had no plans to change. This is consistent with another question which asked ‘what is the useful life of a performance management solution?’ and a third of respondents said 9 years or more (and another third said 6-8 years). A couple of takeaways a) these systems must be doing something right to have so few purchasers expecting to change any time soon (or it is so painful to change that it may just be easier to stick with a sub-optimal solution), and b) you better make sure you get the right solution because whether it is for good reasons or bad, you will be living with it for years to come.
Want to see more results? Get your own copy of the 80-page 2019 BPM Pulse Survey Results whitepaper.
