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The main customers and use cases for Planning Analytics are large companies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, typically with more than 2,000 employees.

The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized, similar to Microsoft Excel but with the advantage of centralized data storage. Another essential feature is sandboxing, allowing extensive analysis and testing without affecting core data. Additionally, the workflow functionality enables locking and approval processes for calculations and formulas, providing enhanced management control and collaboration compared to Microsoft Azure.

To improve IBM Planning Analytics, adding predefined templates could be beneficial. These templates could cover various business areas like volume planning, service levels, and more. Specific templates for functions such as sourcing based on criteria like minimum order quantity and stock levels would also be helpful. Additionally, having templates for P&Ls and cash flow could enhance usability.

I have been using Planning Analytics for about a year.

I would rate the stability of IBM Planning Analytics as a nine out of ten.

The product is highly scalable. Our customers for IBM Planning Analytics are mainly large enterprise businesses, typically with two thousand employees or more.

I would rate IBM's technical support as a seven out of ten. They could be a little faster.

Neutral

Setting up IBM Planning Analytics can vary depending on client expectations and needs. For someone covering just one area, it might be relatively easy. I would rate the setup at around a six out of ten in terms of ease.

The deployment duration for IBM Planning Analytics varies greatly depending on each client's needs and complexity. It can range from a minimum of one month to a maximum of one year.

Customers see ROI with IBM Planning Analytics. It improves internal processes, reducing the need for extensive control departments and resulting in operational cost savings. More importantly, it enhances predictability in business and provides better insights into the potential impacts and implications of decisions.

The cost of IBM Planning Analytics is not cheap, considering the amount of money involved. However, it offers good ROI for customers.

IBM Planning Analytics is used for cross-departmental planning and forecasting by our customers. Different versions of the planning can be used, such as budgets and projections based on monthly results. The system keeps all historical data and tracks the development from projected numbers.

IBM Planning Analytics supports compliance and risk management within financial operations. It enables the calculation of impacts, such as increased interest rates, across various business areas. The effectiveness of risk management depends on the system setup and how risks are defined by the company.

In financial planning, IBM Planning Analytics aligns with current trends, including the use of AI and leveraging unstructured data. It is capable of handling large amounts of diverse data types. While it is unclear if IBM fully incorporates AI, it likely follows the trend as many companies do.

Before using Planning Analytics by IBM, consider your planning process and how it can be simplified. Understand that the system won't solve all issues on its own. 

Overall, I would rate IBM Planning Analytics as a nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for our company's budgeting process; IBM Planning Analytics is used every year to manage different scenarios based on the needs of the users. The finance managers in our company use the product to change 90 percent of the budget processes and cash flows, along with some forecasting purposes.

The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required.

I have been using IBM Planning Analytics for six years. My company has a partnership with IBM.

The product's stability is good.

The scalability is very useful. Previously, in my company, we used IBM Cognos and IBM Accelerator, but presently, we use IBM Planning Analytics, which is a very useful tool compared with the past products we used.

I am satisfied with IBM's support. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The product is easy to deploy. The configuration of the authentication part with the tool is difficult. When I tried to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with LDAP, the configuration changed, so the config file changed. The integrations and certain syncs are sometimes difficult to match and authenticate.

The licensing part of the product is good. Every year, there is a need to renew the license. My company also uses multiple functionalities offered under IBM Cognos Analytics for ETL-related purposes. Compared to the regular licenses offered, the licensing model of IBM Planning Analytics is good. Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive.

The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool.

Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it.

The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases.

It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server.

When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics.

The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers.

The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.