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Alemba Service Manager vs IFS Cloud Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
666
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Alemba Service Manager
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (34th)
IFS Cloud Platform
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
CRM (28th), Customer Experience Management (12th), Field Service Management (2nd), Help Desk Software (19th), ERP (20th), Activity Based Costing Software (10th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (4th), Local Government CRM (12th), IT Asset Management (13th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (15th), License Management (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
reviewer1099623 - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Fulfills all IT management needs, simple setup, but could be more user-friendly
Unfortunately, we were not able to implement the mobility feature so I won't be able to provide feedback on it (and it was something that has been requested since we have field workers and given the WFH case due to the pandemic). This is due to results of security tests and which we were not yet able to address in our environment. We've been also trying to integrate our current system with discovery solutions but it was not easy. I am not sure if it is due to the fact that we still have an older version of the AlembavFire product. Also, users are also requesting that the current system's UI can still be improved. For those of our users who had experienced ServiceNow, they cited that they can do RFC chats via the tool. In our group, we are using AlembavFire for recording the ticket and do other discussions/alignments via Teams chat.
reviewer2268153 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Operations Engineer
Integrated planning has improved production scheduling and now reduces downtime and costs
The biggest friction point I have run into with IFS Cloud Platform is user adoption, which has been the biggest challenge, as different users in the organization need to get accustomed to the new processes after years of using spreadsheets and legacy systems, requiring training and a mindset shift, along with challenging data migration and process standardization. My advice to someone considering IFS Cloud Platform with a similar workflow is to spend sufficient time understanding and standardizing their business processes before implementing it, as the technology is very powerful, but the real value comes when processes, data, and teams are all aligned. I would rate my overall experience with IFS Cloud Platform as a 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have been able to take resources that have been doing manual work and putting them into more productive work."
"If you are looking for a fast solution using minimal resources not requiring an advanced programming skill set this is your product."
"We recently switched to document automation that comes with the bundle. It is a good feature because earlier, we needed to purchase a separate license for IQ Bot, but now the enterprise license includes the DA license. This eliminates the need for an additional license for document automation."
"Its ease of deployment is the most valuable feature. We have found with many customers that it's quite easy to deploy."
"The ease of use for the end user and the very low complexity in trying to build a bot are the big factors for us. We are able to work on a project, identify a use case, come up with a design spec, and execute and build a bot within a span of six to eight weeks. In nine to ten weeks, we are able to go live, which reduced complexity. Once we go live, the user interface and the user experience are extremely good."
"It has improved the efficiency and reliability of the data in the systems."
"We saw a 70 percent decrease in manual steps. If something took 10 steps to do, we are doing it in three steps today."
"The digital worker is interesting."
"The workflow is very good, as well as customizable."
"Incident Management is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"From the time we started using vFire, we were able to ensure continuity tracking of Service Tickets (incident and request fulfillment-related)."
"When we met with the Alemba vFire from Australia, it was a good discussion and they have a good feature roadmap."
"There are fewer fields on the user screen compared to other products. This makes the UI a little bit easier to understand."
"The most valuable feature to us was the capability to quickly identify the tickets we have open with people and follow up them."
"Our ROI is 4.5 times our investment in 18 months."
"All the modules are valuable in their own right, but everything has to go through the ERP. IFS has done an excellent job integrating the various modules to complete these processes. My expertise is in the finance module, but I have used the other verticals. It's an all-around good product."
"IFS Applications is very user-friendly and easy to deploy, and it's suitable for small and medium enterprises."
"Individual user profiles that can be configured as templates to minimize data entry."
"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."
"The most valuable features of IFS Applications are their intuitiveness and ease of use. The navigations are also straightforward, which makes it easy to train users. The feedback I always receive is that it is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"My opinion is that we need to have a video or tutorial on how to implement these features, as well as seeing what results to expect."
"There should be a way to avoid recoding everything whenever there's an upgrade to the latest version."
"On the cognitive side, some of their competitors, when we were originally shopping, were a little more advanced in that space. Making use of probabilistic outcomes and presenting them to a business user is a feature that, at the time of our evaluation, did not feel like a strong, mature solution for Automation Anywhere. Nevertheless, they won our business. That is one feature where I feel they are trying to make investments to address those gaps."
"We have had some difficulty with ease of use. In addition, we have had some difficulties getting it to interact in predictable ways with our in-house software."
"We had a major issue when it came to single sign-on. We couldn't get it working."
"I'd like to see the stabilization of Co-Pilot and integration with multiple products... In the future, I will require integration with SAP Oracle, Atlassian, and Service Now. The contact center vertical is important..."
"While the community provides a platform for interaction and resource sharing, not all training content aligns with the specific needs of developers."
"Going on-cloud comes with security hiccups and concerns."
"We had issues with the user interface, the way it was structured wasn't that user-friendly."
"We had issues with the user interface, the way it was structured wasn't that user-friendly. The chat features could improve. For example, in change management, all the chat discussions can be done via ServiceNow. We are using two separate solutions, such as Teams, to chat, and the Alemba vFire tool to process."
"The product should improve its ability to integrate with third-party tools."
"The reporting needs to be improved."
"The next version has already been released, and some of the technical things are a little bit behind the curve in development. This is specifically security, maintenance, security role maintenance, and creation. This is in their new product, called IFS Cloud."
"However, if we had any bids with the other products Assyst unfortunately would have lost the bids."
"The biggest friction point I have run into with IFS Cloud Platform is user adoption, which has been the biggest challenge, as different users in the organization need to get accustomed to the new processes after years of using spreadsheets and legacy systems, requiring training and a mindset shift, along with challenging data migration and process standardization."
"The pricing could be a bit better. It's a little high."
"Some kind of bot assistance, some kind of artificial intelligence to help people solve the problems, would be interesting."
"The solution needs to improve its documentation and user-friendliness."
"Customization can only be done by IFS and not by the clients themselves."
"There are certain digital features that need to be incorporated, such as IOP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is reasonable, but it can always be a little bit cheaper."
"If we count the integrations that we have done with Appian, which is where a lot of our savings is from, we are well over a million dollars in savings. This is from only doing development for about a year and a half."
"The pricing and licensing are definitely moderate to costly but easily recoverable by achieving ROI quickly."
"I think the pricing is reasonable, but clients often perceive it as expensive."
"The certifications are free of cost."
"There is a free trial so that they can get an overview, and there are different licenses that are very affordable and can suit every business model."
"Because it reduced the time duration of our processes, our costs went down."
"It's an ideal pricing model to customize the components based on everyone's needs."
"Alemba vFire is more affordable than the other solutions on the market. The solution changes for the number of customers not per user or module. The price was reasonable overall. We paid for support and it was a fair price."
"The product is much cheaper than ServiceNow."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."
"The additional cost that comes with the solution includes the overhead of the people who are trying to fix the tool issues. These people are trying to reproduce the issue and report it to the technical support and testing with them which is huge. It is the cost of quality in the end."
"There's an additional yearly cost for support."
"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Government
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise561
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
Ask a question
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What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
There are features that came up during implementation that we are not actually using today, such as field service man...
What is your primary use case for IFS Applications?
My main use case for IFS Cloud Platform is for production planning, where I typically use it for production schedulin...
What advice do you have for others considering IFS Applications?
The biggest friction point I have run into with IFS Cloud Platform is user adoption, which has been the biggest chall...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
vFire
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Hiscox Liverpool City Council Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO) PPG Barnardo's Victoria University of Wellington
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Find out what your peers are saying about Alemba Service Manager vs. IFS Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.