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Impacts of the Vena Acquisition of Acterys

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

Vena has announced their intent to acquire Acterys, with the deal to close in a matter of weeks. At first glance there may appear to be significant overlap between the two product sets which both leverage Microsoft tools to deliver planning and broader EPM capabilities, albeit with different approaches. However, Vena has a clear vision of how to position the products going forward to deliver what they are calling Orchestrated Planning. More on this and Vena’s GTM strategy in the details below.

It is also important to note that Acterys is part of a pioneering community of vendors that take an approach to EPM that differs from the more established vendors. That’s why we named them our Best New Vendor of the Year in 2021. We can label this group ’the Power BI write-back vendors’. Several of them are also among the first in EPM to embrace Microsoft Fabric. In addition to Acterys this group includes Lumel, deFacto Global, Aimplan, and Power ON. By adding write-back to Power BI they expand it from a pure data consumption tool into a data creation tool as well.

The vision for many of these vendors is to use Power BI to create/collect planning data, sit on top of existing data warehouses, and bring planning to where the actuals data resides to perform analysis and generate performance reports. As a reminder, the more common approach for EPM vendors is to extract the actuals data from where it currently resides (ERP, general ledger, operational systems) and load it into the planning solution database. This acquisition is a vote of confidence and recognition that the Power BI write-back approach has merit and this may encourage more vendors (and prospects) to consider this approach as well. However, as you will see Vena’s vision for Power BI write-back is slightly different.

This Deal is a Net Positive for Vena, Acterys, and Current Customers

Vena is a successful and rapidly growing FP&A/EPM vendor with over 2,000 customers. Their target market is finance teams at Microsoft customers, and they fully leverage Microsoft Excel as a front-end to their central and secure database while also incorporating other Microsoft Office components in their solution. Acterys is a smaller Australia-based vendor with a global footprint and over 300 customers. In recent years they have focused their business on fully leveraging Power BI with write-back and Fabric to deliver analytics as well as operational planning with support for app development to address unique use cases. Their user base is a mix of Finance and IT.

While Vena has utilized embedded Power BI in their solution as a performance dashboard (Vena Insights), and started to work with Microsoft Fabric, Acterys accelerates realizing the value from these tools. The combination of Vena and Acterys will immediately make Vena a top choice for Microsoft customers looking for a vendor that fully leverages a broad range of Microsoft tools to address the performance management needs of Finance. It will also provide an opportunity for Finance to work with IT to address more company-specific operational use cases.

Operational planning capabilities and full integration of Power BI have been top priorities for EPM customers for several years now. In our 2025 BPM Pulse survey we found that 98% of companies are looking for an EPM solution to address one or more of their operational planning requirements. In terms of analytics 75% want EPM vendors to offer live integration with Power BI. Acterys’s embrace of Power BI along with operational planning capabilities (packaged and custom) combined with Vena’s Complete FP&A Platform that includes budgeting, planning, modeling, consolidation, reporting and analysis will be very compelling.

Another benefit of the combination of these two companies is the reuniting of Finance and IT when it comes to EPM. In the early days IT led the selection and rollout of EPM solutions. For the past 15-20 years IT has taken a back seat while Finance took the lead. Of course IT has been involved in project management, source system integration, security, and more recently evaluating AI capabilities. With Acterys’s app development capabilities IT can take a more active role working closely with Finance to develop new operational solutions.

Go to Market Plans: Orchestrated Planning

Both products and brands will coexist (at least for the next year), be integrated at the data level, and will be sold individually and bundled.  Of course existing customers will be offered the opportunity to add the product they don’t already own.  Orchestrated Planning will be the strategic theme. Vena’s vision of Orchestrated Planning – a company-wide uniting of people, processes, technology, agentic AI and data, sounds similar to what some vendors have labeled connected planning and will offer many of the same benefits. A differentiator though is leveraging the strengths of both products to tie decisions to actions by uniting planning and operational execution while leveraging agentic AI across the combined product set.

Of course there are some challenges to deal with. While Acterys offers custom app development many companies are looking for more out-of-the-box solutions, which is why many vendors that used to tout their flexible platforms have been delivering their own prepackaged applications. The good news is that both Vena and Acterys offer pre-built solutions: Vena with their pre-configured solutions for various industries such as banking and credit unions, hospitality, not-for-profits, and many others, and Acterys with their Rapid Results Packs for specific operational use cases such as procurement, logistics, as well as verticals such as government contractors, accounting firms, and more.

In Vena’s target market customers have a strong focus on data governance. Therefore, FP&A solutions writing directly back to source systems have traditionally been a concern. Many companies today already bring together data from multiple source systems to data warehouses such as Microsoft Fabric, and Acterys’s Power BI write-back to Fabric allows for real-time updates without compromising source system data governance requirements.

Lastly, Acterys licensed some of their technology to Microsoft several years ago for use with Microsoft Dynamics. The agreement included a narrowly defined non-compete which limits Vena’s ability to sell Acterys in situations where this non-compete applies. We believe this will impact only a small number of potential opportunities. Update February 8, 2026: These restrictions are no longer in place.

Vena has gone into this acquisition with its eyes open, looking to execute on its strategic vision of being the leading FP&A/EPM choice for Microsoft customers, evaluating multiple solutions to potentially acquire, and ultimately selecting Acterys. Although this is their first major product acquisition, we believe they made the right choice. Acterys is a proven and complementary solution to add to their existing Microsft-focused product offering. This should help Vena address additional needs of their current customers as well as reach a broader range of prospects looking for a Microsoft-centric EPM solution.

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This is an important topic that directly impacts you if you are planning to purchase a new performance management solution. To ensure you incorporate the latest developments into your project plans talk to us, or add us to your team. For our full report on Vena go here.

BPM Partners Best Content of 2025

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

As we prepare our 2026 research, buyers guides, webcasts, and whitepapers, we wanted to make it easier for you to find all of our existing 2025 content. This blog entry brings together the best of our content from the past year. If you are looking to get caught up on the latest in BPM/CPM/EPM, AI, FP&A, Financial Consolidation and Reporting this is a great place to start.

AI

AI Evolution in Finance Drives a Productivity Revolution: This white paper looks at the evolution of AI in CPM and the benefits to Finance at each stage. Agentic AI has the potential to greatly enhance productivity and this report will examine this as well as the ROI implications. Request whitepaper

AI in CPM Interview with theCube + NYSE WIRED: In this interview from the New York Stock Exchange, Craig Schiff joins theCUBE’s John Furrier for the Mixture of Experts series and discusses why the hype surrounding the shift toward agentic AI is legitimate, emphasizing that successful implementation starts with a robust data foundation. The conversation highlights how performance management vendors are now embedding AI directly into their platforms, removing the need for complex third-party integrations and allowing finance teams to bypass the heavy lifting often associated with data science. This sets the stage for the new era of autonomous finance. Watch the interview

FP&A/Finance

Buyers Guide for Budgeting and Planning Solutions: This is not an analyst report, but a consumer-oriented guide that leverages data from our annual BPM Pulse Research Study and Vendor Landscape Matrix report. It is the most comprehensive  Buyers Guide for Budgeting and Planning Solutions available today with detailed sections on requirements, vendors, and the evaluation process. Information on 24 vendors, with detailed ratings for 16. Download

Equipping Your Finance Team to Lead Strategically: The pressures of market volatility, regulatory changes, and geopolitical disruptions demand more than just resilience. They call for strategic leadership guided by data-driven decisions delivered through unified solutions that streamline planning, closing, and reporting. Request whitepaper, Watch webcast

How CPM Modernizes Finance for Banking and Financial Services: To continue success and growth, FSI entities need maximum efficiency and accuracy from their finance team. Yet many FSI entities are hindered by fragmented financial data, disconnected systems, and manual processes. This white paper examines how modern CPM solutions can address these challenges for finance teams in banks. Request whitepaper

How a Complete CPM Solution Boosts Enterprise Resilience: This white paper describes how an end-to-end CPM solution boosts enterprise resilience and fuels finance leadership, especially under volatile conditions. Request whitepaper

Forecast Methodologies and Technologies – Latest Trends and AI: During this webcast you’ll learn how your forecasting approach compares to peer organizations, understand how AI is shaping forecasting accuracy and adoption, and key factors to consider when selecting a new forecasting tool. Watch webcast

How to Navigate CPM Market Dynamics: Learn how data-driven strategies are transforming budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and decision-making. This session will unpack the key trends shaping CPM adoption and priorities, giving you the knowledge to enhance your organization’s performance and stay ahead in a competitive landscape. Watch webcast

The Hallmarks of a Modern, Mature Finance Team: What separates good finance teams from great ones? In this special episode of The CFO Show, host Melissa Howatson brings together insights from more than 20 finance leaders to answer one deceptively simple question: What is the hallmark of a mature finance team? Watch podcast

Financial Consolidation

Buyers Guide for Financial Consolidation, Close, and Reporting Solutions: Just like the Budgeting and Planning Guide, this is a consumer-oriented guide that leverages data from our annual BPM Pulse Research Study and Vendor Landscape Matrix report. It is the most comprehensive Buyers Guide for Financial Consolidation, Close, and Reporting Solutions available today with detailed sections on requirements, vendors, and the evaluation process. Information on 13 vendors, with detailed ratings for 10. Download

7 Things They Never Told You About Financial Consolidation: This white paper and webcast looks at some things you might not have been told about financial consolidation solutions. Awareness of these seven key factors will build your perspective, understanding and confidence when it comes to selecting the best CPM consolidation solution for your organization. Request whitepaper, Watch webcast

Beyond the Close – How Financial Consolidation Creates Strategic Advantage: On this episode of The CFO Show we discuss why financial consolidation is essential to performance management, and how the options and customer interest have evolved over time. Watch podcast

Research

The State of Strategic Finance – Finance Teams Grow Up, Glow Up, and Warm Up to AI: Get insight into finance teams’ key challenges and priorities across several topics such as navigating the economy, people management, organizational processes and technology. Download, Watch podcast

The Pulse of Performance Management: AI + BI + CPM: This is the 22nd edition of our annual web event designed to quickly get you and your team up to speed on everything important happening in budgeting, financial planning, forecasting, operational planning, consolidation and close, financial and operational reporting, ESG planning and reporting, AI, and analytics. Watch webcast

Vendor Landscape Matrix 2025-2026 Edition: This 70-page analyst report covers budgeting, financial and operational planning, forecasting, consolidation and close, financial reporting, performance dashboards, analytics and AI, in a single document. Detailed coverage of 17 vendors.  Order report

Vendor Snapshots 2025-2026 Edition: Before you invest your valuable time and resources in evaluating (or purchasing) a particular vendor’s products, make sure you have all the facts. Validate your vendors with unbiased facts from their customers and our analysts. Vendor Snapshots contain data from our Vendor Landscape Matrix for two vendors of your choosing. Request  snapshots

BARC/BPM Partners Global CPM Trend Monitor 2026: Research, analysis, and recommendations from two of the leading analysts in the CPM space. What are the hottest performance management trends for 2026? How have they evolved over time? What are the implications for your projects?  Compare your thoughts with the results of our latest survey and learn what almost 1,000 CPM practitioners think. Learn which CPM trends are making waves in the market. See how best-in-class companies differ from the rest. Get infographic/Request report, Watch webcast

That’s all for now. We’ll be back soon with new content.

Understanding insightsoftware’s Acquisition of JustPerform

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

Today insightsoftware announced its acquisition of JustPerform, a Singapore-based CPM vendor. This is a major event in the CPM world that will expand the list of viable vendor options to choose from for both midmarket organizations and large enterprises. Let’s look at the details to understand why we believe this deal makes good sense.

JustPerform

JustPerform is a relatively new software vendor that we named our ‘Best New Vendor of the Year’ in 2022, joining the ranks of prior selections such as OneStream Software, Vena Solutions, Fluence Technologies (now part of Anaplan), and more recently Pigment. What impressed us most was that they came to market with strong planning capabilities along with equally strong financial consolidation functionality. That’s a rare occurrence that we hadn’t seen from a new vendor since OneStream entered the market over 12 years ago. In addition, they have a small, but very experienced team. Prior to launching JustPerform they had been implementing SAP BPC for several years and learned what customers liked and where there was room for improvement. Leveraging that experience they set out to build their own CPM product. What also sets the product apart is its unique process-centric approach.

As a small company, JustPerform has faced challenges competing with the more established players. While they have a strong product, they lack the financial resources to add the sales and marketing staff they need, and are also unable to easily extend their geographic reach. Most of their sales so far have been in their home region of Asia, although this past year they started to show up in deals outside of Asia and won a sizeable deal in the UK competing against some of the better-known vendors. Still, there are companies that won’t even consider them because of their size, location, and the usual questions around the long-term viability of a newer vendor.

insightsoftware

insightsoftware is a large global software company targeting the office of the CFO with numerous successful products, but lacking a modern, comprehensive, CPM solution with global appeal to lead the charge. They tried to address this by acquiring Longview Solutions several years ago, and Tidemark came along for the ride as well (having previously been acquired by Longview along with arcplan), but while Longview Tax has been very successful, Longview Plan and Longview Close have not fared as well competing against more modern solutions, and the more modern Tidemark was still building out its offering when it was acquired. JustPerform on the other hand, is ready to fill this gap today.

insightsoftware can provide the financial and people resources that JustPerform needs, as well as the infrastructure and ecosystem to accelerate their growth. In addition, their large product portfolio includes several complementary solutions such as Longview Tax and Certent (disclosure management), that can extend JustPerform’s capabilities, while also providing additional entry points for sales.

The Result

We believe this is a near perfect combination of companies and products with a mutually beneficial outcome.  While integration always takes time, we think it can be relatively quick in this instance for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the existing JustPerform product can stand on its own and is ready to go as is. Secondly, insightsoftware is very experienced when it comes to software acquisitions and in this case there is only a relatively small team to merge into the organization.

So how does this impact you? insightsoftware plans to roll out JustPerform globally (in phases), targeting both midmarket and enterprise organizations. When the dust settles you will have an additional modern and very capable CPM solution to consider, that is sold and supported by a large well-funded global organization.

Learn More

End user organizations can get our detailed report on JustPerform, or if you prefer speak to one of our analysts.

Have a project? We are one of the few advisory firms with the depth of vendor-specific knowledge and experience to help you evaluate and compare solutions such as JustPerform/insightsoftware with OneStream Software, CCH Tagetik by Wolters Kluwer, Anaplan, Oracle, SAP, Vena, Prophix, Planful and many others. Get the details.

How the Anaplan Acquisition of Fluence Will Change the CPM Market (For the Better)

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

Anaplan has announced their intent to acquire Fluence Technologies with the deal expected to close by the end of the month, if not sooner. This may look like yet another routine acquisition of a smaller vendor by a larger vendor in the enterprise software space. These types of deals occur on a regular basis and most people barely pay attention anymore. This one is different though, and its impact will ripple through the red-hot performance management market. For one thing, it validates the importance of true financial consolidation capabilities as a key component of performance management solutions and may cause some planning-only vendors to sit up and take notice. Let’s drill into the details.

Anaplan, Fluence, and Their Customers Will Benefit From This Deal

Both vendors and their customers benefit significantly from this combination. The two vendors’ offerings complement each other nicely, filling in key gaps, with minimal overlap. Anaplan pioneered ‘connected planning’ starting with a focus on providing a flexible platform for aligning strategic and operational planning, followed by the addition of robust financial planning capabilities. Today, Anaplan on its own is a planning leader, but in large enterprise deals financial consolidation has only grown in importance, and that is a key component they lack. Fluence, on the other hand, is focused on financial consolidation, redefining how a financial consolidation solution can handle complexity while also simplifying its administration and use by leveraging out-of-the-box functionality. Fluence’s challenge has been their lack of planning capabilities, requiring them to partner with other vendors for the significant number of companies looking to purchase both consolidation and planning. This two-vendor CPM solution approach didn’t always go over well. Anaplan, after the Fluence acquisition, will be able to provide its customers and prospects with the complete performance management planning, consolidation and disclosure management solution that most companies are looking for. This will enable the Finance team to utilize the Anaplan platform to plan their business in real-time while also being able to leverage a familiar UX to control and execute consolidation and disclosure management, streamlining the entire process and accelerating time to decision-making.

Anaplan Joins the Ranks of the Comprehensive CPM Solution Leaders for Large Organizations

The combination of these two leading CPM vendors will create a new dynamic in the top-tier of large enterprise focused performance management vendors. When this acquisition is complete Anaplan will join OneStream Software, Oracle, and Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik as one of the few leading vendors in the world offering a complete CPM suite of financial planning, operational planning, financial consolidation and close, reporting and analytics for large organizations. You might wonder why certain other familiar vendor names are missing from this list. The simple answer is that their current financial consolidation strategies disqualify them. As the Anaplan acquisition of Fluence highlights – financial consolidation, and the ‘one version of the truth’ that it enables, is critical to companies trying to measure their actual performance against plan.

Best-of-Breed Becomes a Real Choice

There has been renewed interest in best-of-breed solutions, particularly when it comes to planning and consolidation. Buyers see the value in purpose-built performance management solutions architected and optimized for particular use cases, they just don’t want to get them from two different vendors and have to worry about integration and support. Fluence is a best-of-breed consolidation solution, and as part of Anaplan it will remain as such. The current Anaplan Connected Planning platform and the Fluence product will work together as two best-of-breed solutions, integrated at the data level, sold and supported by a single vendor. If this sounds familiar it’s because it’s very similar to the approach Prophix has taken with its Prophix One platform which incorporates its Sigma Conso consolidation product acquisition.

Midmarket Consolidation Solutions

The acquisition of Fluence by Anaplan for consolidation capabilities validates the activity that has been going on for a while now in the midmarket where planning vendors have been expanding their own consolidation capabilities. Planful, during its Host Analytics days, was one of the first vendors in the midmarket to see the importance of consolidation and delivered those capabilities alongside planning and budgeting. More recently they have been enhancing their offerings in this area through strategic partnerships. Prophix, as previously mentioned, now delivers a complete CPM suite for the midmarket through their Prophix One offering. Vena, although a Fluence partner, has built out their own consolidation capabilities to the point where they would only need to bring in Fluence for very specific consolidation use cases. While it is unclear right now what will become of Fluence’s existing vendor partnerships, Vena continues to enhance its consolidation capabilities to address the most complex requirements, while also leveraging Vena Copilot to provide insights into the consolidated data, all included in Vena’s Complete Planning platform. Even Workday Adaptive Planning has recognized the importance of true financial consolidation alongside planning, as evidenced by their recent announcement of Workday Adaptive Planning and Consolidation which leverages the consolidation capabilities of Workday Financial Management through a unified data model.

The Future

Beyond the current crop of vendors, most new CPM vendors are still in their early stages and are focused primarily on financial planning and modeling for smaller organizations. There is one major exception however. JustPerform, who we named our Best New Vendor in 2022, provides a very capable financial consolidation and planning solution targeted at the upper midmarket/large company market segment. Despite their relatively small size they have been effectively competing with some of the larger vendors in this space.

While there will always be a place for budgeting and planning focused vendors, for large companies and growing midmarket organizations consolidation has shown itself to be an essential component. With the Anaplan acquisition of Fluence these companies now have one more compelling option to consider when looking for a modern and comprehensive CPM solution.

Learn More

This is an important topic that directly impacts you if you are planning to purchase a new performance management solution. To ensure you incorporate the latest developments into your project plans talk to us, or add us to your team.

Vena Announces Vena Copilot for FP&A

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

We are at an interesting juncture in terms of the adoption of AI in performance management systems. While vendors have been steadily rolling out AI capabilities for a number of years now (anomaly detection, predictive forecasting with machine learning, natural language processing, etc.) customers and prospects have basically reacted with a shrug, or worse. In our 2023 BPM Pulse survey 74% of respondents were skeptical of the value that AI could bring to CPM, and therefore hesitant to take advantage of it. It’s a year later and I hope the 2024 BPM Pulse will show significant movement towards greater acceptance.

All the noise around generative AI has certainly increased interest in AI, but that hasn’t yet translated to it becoming a buyer priority for CPM solutions. Users have basically said: ‘I don’t need AI to do my job for me, I just want it to make my job easier’. For vendors, the key will be to add AI in a seamless, non-threatening manner that clearly adds value, ideally in terms of productivity. For example, this could mean automating routine tasks, quickly locating requested data, reconciling data, customizing workflows and related tasks/menu choices based on roles and responsibilities. Much of this actually falls under the banner of ease of use, which is a priority for everyone and should aid in adoption. As a matter of fact, Microsoft’s recently announced Copilot for Finance takes this approach, focusing on streamlining the analysis and presentation of financial data. The true value of AI for Finance comes not so much from large-scale generic AI capabilities, but how well trained the model is specifically on financial data, and the company data model in particular. In other words, the more localized the focus the better, which brings us to Vena Copilot for FP&A.

Vena Copilot for FP&A

In business applications the most desirable AI capabilities are those designed to address selected use cases related to specific business roles and requirements and tied to the company’s data model. That is exactly the type of solution Vena set out to deliver with Vena Copilot for FP&A, a purpose-built solution to enhance FP&A productivity. Utilizing Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service large language models, Vena Copilot for FP&A is essentially an advanced conversational assistant for self-service insights. It enables users to gather data, generate reports, and analyze trends in a fraction of the time it would have taken them to accomplish those same tasks on their own.  The setup walks business users through the process of creating and training their unique AI model. They can choose from revenue or cost focused templates, or build their model from a clean slate. Next, they point it to their data model and map the appropriate elements of their Finance cube for model training. When they are satisfied with their model they can publish it, which makes it available for use across the organization. Once in use they can review user interactions and the scoring of the accuracy of the model and further train and fine-tune if necessary. That’s it. A custom model, tied to their unique needs, using their data. Vena Copilot for FP&A harnesses the power of generative AI specifically for FP&A users on the Vena Complete Planning platform. Currently in beta, the product is scheduled for general availability this May.

Vena’s Progress

Vena Copilot for FP&A complements other recently released or enhanced AI capabilities including Vena Insights, which provides AI-powered data visualizations with key influencers, decomposition trees, and anomaly detection. Vena advanced predictive forecasting unites Excel, the Vena CubeFLEX™ analytical data model, and Azure Machine Learning to deliver deep learning capabilities to improve forecast accuracy. There are several other product enhancements recently or soon-to-be released including new collaboration capabilities, additional Microsoft 365 integrations, and support for Vena data exports to feed processes in other systems. While R&D has been busy, Sales hasn’t been sitting still either. By our estimate Vena has added over 400 new customers in the past year, which is particularly impressive considering how competitive this space has become. We believe Vena is on the right track, fully leveraging the Microsoft technology stack to deliver innovative CPM solutions to midmarket Finance teams, and Vena’s sales momentum indicates we’re clearly not alone in our thinking.

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Vena PerformancePlace

The performance management market is rapidly evolving. If you plan to purchase a new solution make sure you don’t base your decision on outdated (or biased) information. Talk to us first, or better yet: add us to your team.

 

Prophix Launches Prophix One™

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

When organizations are in the market for a new financial performance management solution there are many competing priorities. The FP&A team is looking for a capable but easy to use budgeting and planning solution along with management reporting and analytics. Operational leaders are looking for an integrated business planning solution that is highly flexible, can integrate with numerous source systems, as well as store and analyze large volumes of detailed granular data with adequate performance. The accounting group wants a consolidation and close solution that is fast, accurate, supports global regulatory requirements, integrates seamlessly with their ERP or general ledger, can handle complexity with out-of-the-box functionality, and of course deliver trustworthy financial reporting.

Ideally, the CFO (along with IT) would like to purchase a single unified all-in-one performance management solution to address all of these requirements. Does such a system exist? Yes and no. There are many unified solutions available today. However, most of them are very strong in one primary area and somewhat weaker in the others. Some are unified in name only and are really a collection of disconnected modules. The best of the unified solutions can be costly and are targeted at the largest companies. Due to the unified nature and bundled pricing you can also end up paying for functionality that you don’t require today.

All of this has generated renewed interest in considering best-of-breed solutions focused on each major area. The challenges with this approach include contracting with multiple vendors, IT having to build integration between the various data models, and users that need to access more than one of the solutions having to sign in and out of each solution as well as adjust to their different interfaces. This leads us to Prophix One.

Prophix One™

The goal of Prophix One is to provide the benefits of a best-of-breed approach (products architected and optimized for specific use cases and audiences), but minus the challenges, by delivering solutions through a unified platform framework from a single vendor.  Have they achieved their goal? Let’s take a look.

In its initial release Prophix One, a Financial Performance Platform, offers solutions for financial planning, budgeting, financial consolidation with intercompany management, disclosure management (utilizing IRIS CARBON), and reporting and analytics. It’s a good start that addresses the most pressing needs of many organizations today. The next items on the roadmap to be delivered as part of Prophix One this year include account reconciliation, close management, and integrated business planning. On day one the Prophix One platform itself includes the following capabilities: a centralized starting point and single sign on for all solutions, centralized user management and authentication, seamless data integration and sharing across the platform, and a consistent user experience. The concept is certainly compelling, we’ll have to wait to see how well it all works in practice once it’s being actively used by Prophix customers.

   

The Future

The Prophix One approach will allow Prophix to easily add new solutions over time. In addition to the planned product releases for later this year, they will also be adding a solutions marketplace to greatly expand the offerings available as part of Prophix One. While Prophix One should be attractive to many companies, it would appear to be a particularly good fit for rapidly growing midmarket organizations. They can purchase and use just what they need today, and as their needs evolve, they can add new purpose-built solutions without having to worry about integration, setting up user security, or learning a new interface.

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Prophix PerformancePlace

The performance management market is rapidly evolving. If you plan to purchase a new solution make sure you don’t base your decision on outdated (or biased) information. Talk to us first, or better yet: add us to your team.

Pigment Expands into Sales Performance Management

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

Pigment continues to grow in terms of geographies, customers, and users within a customer organization. Some of this growth is driven by the fact that they are always challenging themselves with the question: ‘how can we enable more users to easily adopt Pigment’?  This thinking has resulted in integrations such as the Pigment Connector for Excel (Pigment’s initial spreadsheet integration focus was with Google Sheets), and native integrations with data warehouses such as Snowflake to enable deeper data analysis. It has also spawned a focus on addressing the needs of teams beyond Finance with specific functionality. This led to the addition of Pigment Org Chart to flesh out their Workforce Planning capabilities, and better meet the needs of HR when it comes to headcount planning. Now they have turned their attention to meeting the needs of the sales team.

Pigment SPM

Pigment’s Sales Performance Management focus is on GTM planning (capacity planning, territory and quota management). Pigment’s solution for this use case resides within the existing Pigment platform and leverages existing functionality and CRM integrations, with some enhancements made for this purpose (such as additional detail being added to Org Chart). Clients also have access to a template library to get them started. You might be thinking: is this really a solution at all? A key question therefore is will anybody purchase Pigment expressly for this purpose? The answer is yes. Several net new customers have already purchased the product specifically for Sales Performance Management. In addition, these new customers have also started using some of the financial planning capabilities as well. One of the customers is a large multi-national consumer packaged goods company that needed an SPM solution for hundreds of sales executives. This purchase was a replacement of an existing solution they were using from a competing CPM vendor. That’s certainly an early validation of Pigment’s SPM capabilities. To utilize Pigment for SPM there is a platform fee related to this use case, and of course user licenses are required for any new users.

   

Pigment’s Progress

By our count Pigment has added nearly 150 customers in the past year or so, putting them at 250+. They have also in that same timeframe established a sizeable footprint in North America in terms of both employees and customers (ARR in N.A. grew by 4X in the past year). Backed by significant funding (now including a $145 million series D) Pigment continues to execute on its vision to address all key areas of planning and analysis. We have been surprised by how quickly they have been able to move into the larger company market and effectively compete with some of the well-established vendors targeting that market sector. With Pigment AI currently in beta, Workforce Planning, Sales Performance Management, and scenario planning currently in place, consolidation and close addressed by a partnership with Fluence Technologies, it will be interesting to see which areas of performance management Pigment tackles next.

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Pigment PerformancePlace

The performance management market is rapidly evolving. If you plan to purchase a new solution make sure you don’t base your decision on outdated (or biased) information. Talk to us first, or better yet: add us to your team.

 

The New Leaders: Budgeting, Planning, Consolidation and Reporting Solutions 2023

/in /by BPM Partners

BPM Partners VLM 2023 w/notes

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

For the 20th Anniversary Edition of our Vendor Landscape Matrix (VLM) report we decided to add something that other analyst reports have had for years: categories for leaders, competitors, challengers, etc. Of course our VLM offers many things others still do not: a single report that covers budgeting, financial planning, operational planning, consolidation and close, as well as financial reporting and analytics, objective placement on the report grid based on measurable metrics: number of customers/deal size (for market momentum), and overall BPM Pulse customer  satisfaction ratings (for customer success), comparative pricing charts, along with the usual comparative customer satisfaction charts.

In the 2023 report Leaders are defined  as having an Excellent or Outstanding overall customer satisfaction rating combined with an Established or Dominant position in the market. Vendors that are both Outstanding and Dominant are categorized as Premier Leaders. Now it’s time to acknowledge the Leaders for 2023. You can learn more about them including their actual overall numeric rating, industry success, current offering information, latest news, analyst reviews, articles, blogs,  and current job openings by clicking on their name which will take you to their PerformancePlace page on this site.

 

Outstanding Customer Satisfaction

and Dominant Market Position

 

Target Market: Upper Midmarket to Enterprise

Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik

 

Excellent or Outstanding Customer Satisfaction

and Established Market Position OR

Excellent Customer Satisfaction and Dominant Market Position

Target Market: Upper Midmarket to Enterprise

Board International

OneStream Software

Target Market: Midmarket to Large

Fluence Technologies

Planful

Prophix

Talentia Software Group

Vena

Bonus: Top Rated Vendors in 2023 by Functionality:

PerformancePlace Filter: Top Rated for Budgeting and Financial Planning

PerformancePlace Filter: Top Rated for Comprehensive Consolidation

PerformancePlace Filter: Top Rated for Reporting

You can add additional filters to sort these Top Rated vendors by target market, price range, and more.

For each vendor’s complete chart of 16 detailed BPM Pulse ratings, plus Recommendation Rate and much more, read the 2023 Vendor Landscape Matrix report.

If you are part of an end-user organization you can request a report sample (Vendor Snapshots) featuring two vendors of your choosing.

First Look: Pigment

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

Pigment is a relatively new budgeting and planning vendor that has been attracting a good deal of attention lately. The two main reasons for all the attention are the impressive amount of money they have raised, and the equally impressive number of customers they have acquired after only a short time actively marketing their solution.

Does that make them a vendor that you should be considering? We recently met with them to find out

Investment: US$165 million to date from investors such as Greenoaks, Meritech, FirstMark, IVP, and Blossom

Customers: 100+ after only a little over a year of actively marketing their product with Carta and Deliveroo as two examples

Country of Origin: France, with offices currently in Paris, London, NYC

Target Market: Midmarket and larger organizations, across all industries in Europe and North America

Details:  Pigment is a rapidly growing vendor with a global footprint. Although they are based in France, over half of their customers are from outside the country, with the U.S. being the single largest market segment. The Pigment integrated business planning platform is modeling-centric and can support most financial and operational planning requirements. To accelerate operational planning implementations templates are currently available for workforce planning and sales performance management. The product’s well laid-out interface, ease-of-use, training academy, and community forum should aid in adoption. Native integrations are available for many popular source systems. Completing the picture is live collaboration and a relatively quick implementation timeframe. Also of note, we found the company very responsive and easy to work with.

 Financial Dashboard  Scenario Planning Example

Key Strengths: An impressive team that includes experienced performance management industry veterans and a product vision to further enhance integration and collaboration to become a leading end-to-end EPM provider. Although we don’t yet have BPM Pulse ratings for Pigment, other data points would indicate a happy customer base. Their greatest strength is an inviting, easy to use budgeting and planning product designed for Finance self-sufficiency, that addresses the key areas companies are most focused on today, such as scenario planning.

Key Elements Missing Today: Consolidation and close, live integration with Excel and Power BI (all on the roadmap). They are also lacking access to native AI capabilities (although they do make this available through partners), but for most companies that is not yet a top priority.

Bottom Line: If you are a midmarket organization looking for an intuitive, easy to use, budgeting and planning solution with a focus on modeling and scenario planning specifically, and you are open to the risks (and rewards) of working with a newer vendor, then Pigment is worth including on your evaluation shortlist.

Learn More: Pigment PerformancePlace

The Road to FP&A Excellence

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Unit4

  • A guide to modernizing your financial planning and analysis: knowing when and where to begin, how to establish ROI, and what milestones to aim for.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: December 2022
  • Pages: 16
  • Instant Download
  • View related webcast here.

Executive Summary:

It may be time to launch your Finance department’s journey to efficient, high-performing financial planning and analysis (FP&A). Asking yourself a few pointed questions about how finance processes are working at your company can probably reveal the answer quickly. The actual modernization of FP&A can be handled as an incremental evolution, a phase-by-phase extension of existing capabilities, or a full-fledged transformation of these functions. This whitepaper looks at the overall journey to more effective, modern FP&A, and should help Finance groups prepare for a successful transition.