Blog: Craig Schiff

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February 22, 2007

High Risk Vendor Tactics

In the highly competitive race to win more business performance management deals, a new approach has recently emerged. It goes something like this - the first vendor in says 'If you agree to not look at any other vendors, I will give you the best possible deal'. For most people wise to the software purchasing process this should clearly be a red flag. First of all, many companies have specific policies that require them to look at multiple vendors before they make any major purchase. There is good reason for this - you have to do your homework. The world is littered with failed IT initiatives where the appropriate level of due diligence was not performed. What is the vendor afraid of anyway? If they truly have the best solution for your needs they'll win in the end.

Do you really think if you looked at their competitors and were seriously considering going with one of them the original vendor wouldn't put their best deal on the table? In other words, you should still be able to get their best deal after going through an appropriate due diligence process. Just looking at one vendor is a big mistake. While most BPM products appear to perform the same basic tasks, they differ widely on how they actually perform those tasks. You wouldn't want to end up with a solution that was difficult to use or difficult to maintain or slow performing or required a lot of consulting customization in the key areas that were most important to your business. The only way to be sure you have the best solution for your needs is to examine multiple products in detail and compare how they address your requirements. While I often hear people say 'you can't go wrong with (insert name of leading vendor here)', I think you can go wrong, Minimally you may end up paying for many bells and whistles, features, and perhaps even modules that you simply don't need. In addition, I strongly believe that there is not one solution available today that is right for everyone. On the other hand there is one solution that is just right for you. The only way to find it is to go through an in depth vendor evalutation process.

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SAP Acquires Pilot Software

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but yet another vendor has done an acquisition to flesh out their BPM 2.0 capabilities. In this case it's SAP purchasing Pilot Software. Pilot Software has been around for many years and in many different forms. In its latest incarnation it was focused on operational performance management with the PilotWorks product set. Our 2007 BPM Pulse survey confirmed the growing importance of this area of performance management. SAP had previously announced its intention to use 'fill-in' acquisitions to supplement organic growth. I'm glad to see them focusing some attention on performance management. As a matter of fact, we have been seeing them more and more lately in the field competing for business performance management deals.

Technorati Tags: SAP, Pilot, BPM

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February 1, 2007

Microsoft PerformancePoint Update - Pricing

Microsoft has just announced its pricing model for PerformancePoint and it's a game changer. It is orders of magnitude less than current business performance management offerings. As such it is a major step forward for the potential of pervasive BI and BPM. It will be licensed like other Office products with a single server + single client access license (CAL). The price will be $20,000 per server and $195 per CAL. The license will include scorecarding, analytics, planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and financial reporting. Basically a full performance suite for a fraction of the price of today's offerings. Now of course questions still remain about the depth of fucntionality in version 1.0, but at that price point even if they just cover the basics its still a good deal. We will have to wait a little while longer to see commercial product though. They have changed their release timeframe from 'mid 2007' to 'second-half 2007'.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, PerformancePoint, BPM

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