Decision Time

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:46:53 -0700

Most of the newly merged vendors have now stepped up to the plate and made the tough decisions they needed to about people and products. This has resulted in removal of staff redundancies, restructurings that have caused additional staff to consider new opportunities, and sunsetting of several products. While it is impressive that the vendors have made the tough decisions (in spite of earlier protestations that nothing will change), it now comes down to execution.

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Aren't Things Confusing Enough Already?

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:16:58 -0700

Companies evaluating business performance management (BPM) solutions in 2008 are still trying to make sense of all of 2007's mergers and acquisitions. Which vendor owns which products? Will all of these sometimes overlapping products survive? Do I need to own the transactional and/or BI products from a vendor to get the full benefits of their BPM solution? What is the timeline for integration? While BPM prospects are pondering these issues they don't need anything else to muddy the waters. Well, along comes IDS Scheer with an attempt to ride the performance management wave that can only serve to further confuse prospects.

Best and Worst of the Year Update

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:39:04 -0700

Since there is a lead time of several weeks from when an article is written until it is published there is always the possibility that some elements will be out of date the moment they come out. In the fast moving world of BPM it is even more likely. In our article 'Best and Worst of Performance Management in 2007' we lamented the fact that Applix and its solid mid-market offering got lost in the IBM/Cognos shuffle. Well, we are happy to report that all has now been made right with the world. What we anticipated in our article has actually come to pass - a new financial performance management offering for the mid-market: Cognos TM1 MidMarket Edition.

The New Vendor Landscape

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:15:43 -0700

As you would expect after all of last year's merger and acquisition activity, the business performance management (BPM) world looks very different in 2008. Conventional wisdom would lead you to believe that there are fewer, but larger vendors to choose from. While it's true that there certainly are some very large vendors now offering BPM, the actual number of viable BPM vendors has gone up, not down. Why? A handful of new entrants in the U.S. market coupled with ERP vendors that had marginal BPM solutions in the past now able to offer robust product sets from their recent acquisitions. To make sense of it all we have developed a BPM Vendor Landscape Matrix, viewable as part of our Beyond the Hype 2008 webcast. In addition, we list all of the viable BPM vendors in this PDF.

Vendors Benefit from Prior Relationships

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:53:35 -0700

I have noticed a disturbing new trend in BPM vendor selection in the past few months. There have now been several instances of vendors being selected solely on the basis of prior experiences or business relationship with that vendor. For example, a media company I am familiar with determined that a specific BPM application vendor was the best fit for their particular needs. However, the CEO stepped in and said that 'since our ERP provider, who we have a long and positive history with, has recently acquired a well-known BPM vendor that is who we are going with'.

Last of the Big BPM Purchases: IBM/Cognos?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:45:24 -0700

Just when I was about to blog about something other than all the BPM mergers, this comes along. Well, thankfully I think we have run out of large BPM vendors to be bought, and by now most of the companies doing the buying should have had their fill as well. Its time for everyone to settle down and digest what they bought, and then come out fighting. The purchase of Cognos by IBM combined with the other recent M&A activity has created a powerhouse field of huge performance vendors: IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle. Make no mistake about it, this is all about performance management. Business intelligence on its own would not have been as interesting to these companies. Business performance management is driving the purchase of BPM applications, as well as BI tools, as well as related applications, and even the underlying transactional systems they feed off of. That's why some of these new mega vendors, regardless of their roots, are billing themselves as performance vendors. BPM sells. Doesn't every company want to/need to improve their performance, or at least better understand what is going on? Now to the specifics of this particular transaction ...

Bet You Can't Eat Just One ... SAP to Acquire Business Objects

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:39:56 -0700

This performance management stuff must be addictive. These big vendors just can't stop acquiring more vendors in the BPM (business performance management) space. Coming on the heels of its acquisition of OutlookSoft in June, today SAP announced its planned acquisition of Business Objects. Both fine companies with good product sets. The issue is that, at least in the performance management space, they have much of the same product set. Let's see, over the years Business Objects acquired BPM vendors SRC, ALG, and most recently Cartesis. SAP had its own SEM, acquired Pilot and most recently OutlookSoft. In the combined company that means they will have about six different flavors of essentially the same thing (take that Oracle/Hyperion and your measly two flavors of BPM). Now I know that these products have different strengths and weaknesses. Still, someone has to figure out how each will be developed and marketed and how it all fits. That's a tough job, but not as tough as the job prospects will face trying to figure out which pieces make sense for them, and hoping those particular pieces actually work well together.

Technorati Tags: SAP, Business Objects, Oracle

Another One Bites the Dust: Longview to be Acquired

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:37:44 -0700

Exact Software of the Netherlands has announced its intention to acquire Canadian performance management vendor Longview Solutions for a little over US$ 50 million. Not as significant as other recent deals in dollars or the multiple paid, but significant in its ultimate impact on the business performance management market in the U.S. After the acquisitions of SRC, Geac, Cartesis, and OutlookSoft, they were one of the last of the truly independent (not part of an ERP or BI company) BPM application vendors.

Cognos to Acquire Applix

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 07:10:37 -0700

Cognos announced today a $ 339 million cash agreement to acquire Applix. Based on Applix trailing 12-month revenues of approximately $ 61 million it looks like a good deal for their shareholders. For the two companies, employees, customers, and prospects there is a lot that makes good sense about this deal. First of all, these are two growing, successful companies with highly satisfied customers and strong technologies. The recent major acquisitions in the space (SAP/OutlookSoft, Oracle/Hyperion, Business Objects/Cartesis) have changed the playing field. In the end, size does matter. By acquiring Applix Cognos picks up 3,000 more performance management customers they can sell their applications to, and 200 additional performance management experts join their staff in sales, services, and development. Applix has the high-performance TM1 OLAP engine, an extremely satisfied customer base, and strong partner network. However, as a relatively small company in a space dominated by big players they were missing out on being involved in many performance deals. With Cognos' larger sales force, marketing, and deep R&D pockets this is a big win for Applix. What about customers and prospects?

The Future Looks Bright for BPM

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:43:49 -0700

I recently met with the executives responsible for defining the product roadmaps at SAP/OutlookSoft and Business Objects/Cartesis. I am very impressed with what I heard. While many of the details discussed are still confidential, there are certain observations I can share. For starters, the executives in charge of these decisions are precisely the right people for the job. In both instances they have a depth and breadth of performance management expertise that is hard to match. These are not political appointments or rushed into mistakes made after a major merger. These guys (and women) know their stuff. Most surprising to me is the recognition by management of the true strengths and weaknesses of each component of their combined product set.

What's Next?

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:25:45 -0700

As we continue to work with vendors, end users, investors, and other industry experts we are getting a good sense of the next major trends in performance management. At the moment three particular areas stand out:

- Adoption by large companies. Specifically, some of the largest companies and best known brands are finally moving forward with business performance management (BPM). You may have thought that with all of their resources and massive amounts of data they would have been some of the first to pick up on BPM. However, their very size has held them back. The number of systems they have to deal with, the territoriality and politics around those systems, not to mention corporate bureaucracy has made this a very slow process for many companies. The good news is that most of them finally felt enough pain to bite the bullet and move forward. There are however still some big companies that are badly in need of performance management, but are so messed up they will not be moving forward anytime soon. There are BPM champions in those organizations to be sure, but they don't have the power and influence to cut through the politics and inertia.

Catchy New Phrases?

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:17:57 -0700

In talking with vendors recently some new phrases were used that I found intriguing. There are many phrases that I hear again and again in the business performance management world. These include things like: 'one version of the truth', 'profitability optimization', 'unified platform', and other equally boring stuff. It's refreshing to hear something new once in a while. I don't know if these two will catch on, but I like the concepts behind the words. The first one is 'BPM Squared'. This is based on the fact that BPM stands for both business performance management and business process management. The company using this term, Inforsense, is basically saying that their solutions bring business performance type analytics to everyday business processes throughout the organization. The other term is 'difference-maker'. In BPM we often talk about giving every decision-maker the information they need to make the right choices. Microsoft, in using this term when talking about PerformancePoint, is essentially saying there is a broader group of workers that have an impact on the business that should be included in the solution. This goes along with their 'pervasive BI' message. I doubt that these phrases are trademarked so feel free to use them and make them part of the language we use to discuss BI and BPM.

BPM/CPM Plays to Packed House

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:22:51 -0700

I just returned from CFO Magazine's Corporate Performance Management Conference in New York. Due to a torrential downpour the first morning I arrived a few minutes late and ended up having to stand as there were few if any open seats left. I would estimate that the room was packed with about 175 to 200 finance managers and executives (not as big as many IT events, but large for this type of audience). The crowd was very engaged and taking copious notes. I was the second speaker that morning and after my speech numerous people came up to me to ask for guidance on how to address their performance needs. Since most performance management projects still start in the finance department all of this bodes very well for continued momentum in performance management..

How Did I Miss This One?

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:53:15 -0700

It seems that during the recent rash of mega mergers in the business performance management space a smaller acquisition slipped in under the radar. Corvu, one of the early performance dashboard vendors has been acquired by a company called Rocket Software. Their long-term competitor performancesoft (PBViews) was acquired a while back by Actuate. It is difficult to be a dashboard only vendor and Corvu had been trying to branch out, with limited success. So, I guess the acquisition is good for them and their customers, but Rocket Software doesn't seem to be focused on performance management and has only a minimal focus on business intelligence.

Technorati tags: Corvu, Rocket Software, Actuate, performancesoft

SAP to Acquire OutlookSoft

Tue, 08 May 2007 16:02:26 -0700

There is no let up in acquisition activity in the performance management space. On the heels of Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion, Business Objects' purchase of Cartesis, we now have SAP announcing a deal to acquire OutlookSoft. How can end users looking to purchase a business performance solution (BPM) keep track of the players when it is difficult even for industry insiders to keep up? Is this a good deal? I believe so. SAP had to do something to answer Oracle's Hyperion deal. Neither SAP nor Oracle were as strong in the BPM space as the companies they acquired. However, while SAP users will now be far more likely to consider OutlookSoft for BPM, the big question that remains is this: will non-SAP users look to SAP/OutlookSoft for BPM? This is the same question that exists for Oracle/Hyperion and Infor/Extensity(Geac, Comshare).

Blog: Craig Schiff