Posts

AI in Finance: Proceed, but Mitigate the Risks

/in /by BPM Partners

Craig Schiff , President and CEO, BPM Partners

Overview

After 30+ years tracking every cycle of technology hype and reality in enterprise finance, I can tell you that the AI moment feels different. The potential for transformative impact in finance is real. But so is the risk of taking a counterproductive AI approach. With our most recent BPM Pulse data showing 52% of finance teams either piloting or going into production with their AI initiatives I think it’s time we share our perspective and offer some guidance.

At BPM Partners, we impartially evaluate the AI-enhanced capabilities of leading EPM vendors. We survey and speak with many finance leaders navigating this landscape. An obvious early conclusion: your approach to leveraging AI in Finance will largely determine success or failure in receiving the potential benefits.

The Hype

Newly minted AI ‘experts’ will tell you all you need is their training, consulting guidance, or book of prompts, combined with the most popular AI tool of the moment, and you are all set. Just point AI at a data set and you can kick back and relax as the accolades pour in.

These same experts, along with some FP&A software vendors looking to reinvent themselves, may say ‘FP&A software is dead’ and ‘EPM will be wiped out in the SaaSpocalypse’.

You might even be excited to jump in and experiment with AI to create models, or vibe code a more complete solution. But before you do that ask yourself: are you ready to build—and take accountability for—a financial application that your entire organization will rely on? Finance demands 100% accuracy; what if you miss the mark? Unfortunately, even the most promising pilot is often followed by the realization that turning it into a trustworthy and scalable solution will take a lot more time, effort, and money (tokens).

The tools-and-prompts approach to AI is high risk. It lacks focus on the most important element of an AI platform for finance: high-quality unified data. Our BPM Pulse data shows that of organizations not currently pursuing AI 40% say it’s because they recognize that their data is not yet AI-ready.

The good news: there’s a better, safer way to leverage AI in Finance, and you may already own the necessary software.

The Reality

In spite of all the hype around standalone AI tools, many finance teams have started by leveraging the AI capabilities already embedded in their EPM solutions. While perhaps not as flashy and fun, this approach is much more practical and rewarding. It enhances accuracy, analysis, and productivity while minimizing risk.

When utilizing the AI capabilities in your EPM solution you gain access to:

  • A governed data foundation (the CFO’s system of record)
  • Governed, human-in-the-loop AI with guardrails
  • Decades of deep domain expertise built in
  • Existing dimensions, data definitions, business rules and workflows
  • Security, transparency, and trust
  • Auditability

The leading EPM vendors offer proven FP&A and Consolidation and Close solutions that have now been augmented with a suite of ML, GenAI, and agentic AI capabilities embedded in their platforms. These AI capabilities support a wide range of use cases including predictive forecasting, data quality, report generation, model creation, transaction matching (account reconciliation, intercompany), agents to automate tasks for planners, analysts, controllers and more.

AI offerings from leading EPM vendors that we have evaluated include: Anaplan Intelligence, CCH® Tagetik Expert AI by Wolters Kluwer, Jedox AI, JustPerform Lineos from insightsoftware, OneStream SensibleAI™, Pigment AI, Prophix One™ Intelligence, Una AI, and Vena AI. While documented ROI is still scarce, early feedback from customers is that they are in fact seeing measurable benefits from leveraging AI inside their EPM solutions.

Most EPM vendors are also rolling out MCP support to allow your AI tools of choice to work easily with their EPM solution. This combines the flexibility of modern AI with the governance and expertise of a purpose-built platform.

Conclusion

The end result of combining AI with EPM is faster cycle times, greater accuracy, enhanced analysis,  increased productivity, and trustworthy, auditable results. Finance is freed up from routine tasks (and experimenting with standalone AI tools) to take a more strategic role and lead the discussion of results.

Learn More

If you are currently discussing how to leverage AI in your Finance department let us share our research data and provide input. You can talk to us, or add us to your team. Further reading: Buyers Guide: AI-Powered Planning and Analysis Solutions | BPM Partners, Buyers Guide: AI-Powered Financial Consolidation and Close | BPM Partners

This post previously appeared in a condensed version on LinkedIn

 

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.

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. 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.

How a Complete CPM Solution Boosts Enterprise Resilience

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Anaplan

  • This white paper describes how an end-to-end CPM solution boosts enterprise resilience and fuels finance leadership, especially under volatile conditions.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: December 2025
  • Pages: 17
  • End-user organizations request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

Enterprise finance has to contend with not only familiar business cycles and periods, but also disruptive circumstances that are marked by uncertainty. The latter conditions may be outside the experience of many managers and executives. Expected by organizational leadership to skillfully navigate these challenges, finance groups need assurance that their systems are up to the task.
To support analysis and decision-making in these complex situations, a complete CPM solution is more effective than a partial solution with limited and siloed functionality.

When a CPM solution covers the full spectrum of business performance management processes—from budgeting, planning and forecasting to consolidation, reporting, and analysis—within a unified platform, it can be described as an end-to-end or complete solution.

 

AI Evolution in Finance Drives a Productivity Revolution

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Prophix

  • 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.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: September 2025
  • Pages: 14
  • End-user organizations request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.
  • Consultants/vendors request your copy today from the Sponsor.

Watch: NYSE Wired – AI in EPM discussion with Craig Schiff

Executive Summary:

Enterprise finance has gone from a focus on machine learning (ML), to generative AI/language models, and now agentic AI.  Each of these three types represents a phase in the adoption and use of AI. Agentic AI enables key financial processes to become highly autonomous, while driving steady advances in efficiency and accuracy, enhancing Finance’s role as an enterprise value creator. Now is an ideal time period for finance teams to implement and test agentic AI.

 

Equip Your Finance Team to Lead Strategically and Survive the Chaos

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by insightsoftware

  • This white paper looks at how a unified, scalable EPM platform streamlines complex planning, closing, and reporting processes, enabling Finance to accurately guide the enterprise through volatile conditions.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: June 2025
  • Pages: 15
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

The people of the Office of the CFO have experienced a perfect storm of business changes, tariffs, regulatory shift in different geographies, uncertainties around the use of AI, geopolitics, and disruptive technology. These forces could overwhelm finance teams struggling with legacy processes and methods. Yet the same people are expected to progressively improve their planning, analysis, consolidation and reporting, and data quality.

EPM helps Finance meet the moment. To meet their imperative to lead strategically through chaotic conditions over the next decade or more, they need faster finance operations and the most reliable, complete data possible. That implies the automation and unification of data that an enterprise performance management (EPM) system can make available. Modernization via EPM can bring all finance workflows under one roof (one UX, one data foundation). It also enables more flexible, accurate planning, quicker reforecasting, and much faster closings.

How CPM Modernizes Finance for Banking and Financial Services

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by OneStream Software

  • 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.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: April 2025
  • Pages: 17
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.

Executive Summary:

When it comes to particular CPM capabilities, banks and other FSI entities need integrated business planning for their capital adequacy analysis, portfolio planning that integrates with the treasury area, and integrated sensitivity analysis for stress testing of their loan portfolios. Modern CPM solutions can help unify data, processes, technology, and people, making it easer to:

  • Manage the balance sheet to maximize net interest income, balancing profitability with interest rate, capital, and liquidity risks
  • Ensure compliance with complex regulatory requirements
  • Optimize the institution’s capital position
  • Manage risk efficiently while preserving capital flexibility
  • Integrate sensitivity and what-if analysis for stress-testing of loan portfolios
  • Analyze capital adequacy with consistent precision and accuracy
  • Maintain and update manual compensating controls
  • Monitor, report on and optimize their liquidity risk position

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.

FP&A Tools to Navigate Uncertainty

/in /by BPM Partners

Sponsored by Unit4

  • A review of the latest FP&A trends and product capabilities helping companies navigate through uncertainty.
  • Author: BPM Partners
  • Date: September 2024
  • Pages: 19
  • Request your copy today by completing the White Papers Request form.
  • View related webcast here.

Executive Summary:

Uncertainty ahead, for Finance, is all but certain. Accelerated change—driven by technology advances, geopolitical conflict, electoral and regulatory shifts—is a constant. Finance leaders know they must be equipped with new capabilities to navigate through turbulent periods. There are solutions available today that offer many of the required capabilities. They can prepare organizations to manage performance and optimize results in the face of business conditions with numerous unknowns and growing volatility. Many companies already take advantage of these solutions. It’s up to you to determine the timeline for your company to join them. Topics covered include:

  • AI (data quality with anomaly detection, automation, predictive forecasting, interactive analysis with Gen AI)
  • Extended Planning and Analysis
  • Scenario Planning
  • Continuous Forecasting
  • Ad hoc Reporting
  • Profitability Optimization
  • Finance Transformation

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.