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IBM Planning Analytics vs SAS Visual Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
IBM Planning Analytics boosts budgeting productivity but faces challenges from rising costs, prompting some companies to explore alternatives.
Sentiment score
6.3
Organizations saw varied ROI from SAS Visual Analytics, noting improved efficiency and financial tracking despite initial cost challenges.
The enterprise subscription offers more benefits, ensuring valuable outcomes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
IBM Planning Analytics support is positive, yet response times vary; documentation, training, and multi-level support are valued.
Sentiment score
6.8
SAS Visual Analytics customer service is mixed, with praise for technical support but noted gaps in business needs and regional availability.
We have a multi-level support system, with the initial level handled by the company we bought the license from and subsequent support from IBM.
Instead, we rely on third-party partners recognized by IBM, who provide cost-effective support.
They provide callbacks to ensure clarity and resolution of any queries.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Planning Analytics excels in scalability and real-time data, though complexity and pricing pose challenges for some users.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAS Visual Analytics effectively scales for large datasets and users, though high resource demands and expenses may concern some.
Scalability is straightforward but it is pricey since it's a SaaS model priced per user.
Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
IBM Planning Analytics is stable and reliable, praised for robustness, supporting budgeting in various industries with few issues.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAS Visual Analytics is generally reliable but can face performance issues with large data, often due to user practices.
This stability is really important as we use it for budget calculation, which is time-consuming.
SAS Visual Analytics is stable and manages data effectively without crashing.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Planning Analytics needs improved integration, pricing, visualization, user interface, functionality, automation, design, speed, and predictive analytics support.
SAS Visual Analytics is complex and costly, with challenges in integration, performance, user-friendliness, and external language support.
IBM's visualization needs significant improvement.
The abundance of features results in complexity, requiring strict guidelines for developers to ensure simplistic approaches are adhered to.
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise IBM Planning Analytics has setup costs from consulting fees and varied licensing, offering market-standard ROI and compatibility.
SAS Visual Analytics is costly for small enterprises, but offers strong analytics and simplicity, though consulting and scaling add expenses.
Given the product's old architecture and interface, they need to make it more affordable.
While IBM's solutions were costly before, the introduction of SaaS models has reduced prices significantly.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Planning Analytics enhances planning with flexible design, Excel integration, sandbox testing, machine learning, and user-friendly interface.
SAS Visual Analytics excels in data visualization, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interface with rapid processing and seamless integration.
It also integrates machine learning and AI engines, enabling us to use algorithms for inventory forecasting which optimizes our inventory and replenishment rates.
Its stability helps controllers win time in their planning processes.
The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (3rd)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 8.6%, down 9.4% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 4.2% mindshare, down 6.0% since last year.
Business Performance Management
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy
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.
Renato Vazamin - PeerSpot reviewer
Single environment for multiple phases saves us time, and has good visualizations
We had that solution installed previously in another solution, Selvaya, but I don't think we used it at the time. We are now using SAS Detect Investigation as a complementary solution, in which we have part of the process, use a gene, SAS collects information and identifies some business situations, and the business guys use Visual Analytics to explore the results of the process. We previously used the FICO platform, but we switched because FICO's pricing was not scalable. Bringing more data or workloads to the platform required a significant investment in order to scale. We needed to change because we have a lot of data to process every day. FICO was also a little more complicated than SAS Visual Analytics.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?
The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?
TM1 is quite expensive, and I'd rate the pricing as an eight out of ten. While we do get what we want in terms of functionalities and compatibility with other IBM tools, given the product's old arc...
What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?
Since I'm using TM1 as an old version of Planning Analytics, it wouldn't be fair to specify what needs improvement because it's possible these issues have already been addressed in newer versions. ...
What do you like most about SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
 

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
SAS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: April 2025.
850,043 professionals have used our research since 2012.