Most surveys on budgeting and planning find that respondents using Excel as their primary budgeting tool say it is an extremely painful and unreliable process. However, those same surveys also find that the majority of companies still rely on Excel for budgeting! Why is that? For larger companies it tends to be that the senior decision makers who can do something about it aren't close enough to the line managers and finance analysts to truly understand what a chaotic and labor-intensive process they are going through. The executives in small to mid-size companies are closer to the front lines and tend to understand the issues. Their challenge though is that they don't have the dollars, IT resources, and infrastructure in place to solve the problem. A BPM vendor targeting this market thinks they have the answer.
Adaptive Planning announced this week a hosted, SaaS budgeting solution that is free for up to 50 users. When we were briefed on this development several weeks ago our first reactions were: if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, and how are these guys going to make any money from this? I believe we now understand the method to the apparent madness. Adaptive Planning is banking on the fact that they believe once a company starts using their solution they will want to broaden its reach and add more users beyond the initial 50. In addition, while the product is fully functional for core budgeting, if someone wants to move into other aspects of BPM or more complex reporting they will need to upgrade. What about smaller companies that are happy with the functionality and fit comfortably within the 50 user limit? Well, while Adaptive may not be making money from them, neither are their competitors. To try the product yourself go here: Free Express Edition On-Demand.
Posted April 6, 2007 9:29 AM
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