New retail store forecasts and budgets are considered essential planning tools in retail corporations and are used by financial managers and analysts to forecast revenues and expenses for a planned store opening. Some of the main functionality in this type of forecast model is that it allows the user to select data from a similar existing store that automatically will be pulled into the model. The user also selects the start (store opening) month, which will zero out prior months that year. At this point the forecast can be saved and it is done, or you can adjust any of the figures and then save.. An example of this type of forecast model can be found below.
Purpose of Automated Forecasts for New Store Openings
Retail businesses use Automated Forecast Models to provide a very quick and easy way to create a forecast for a new store location based on actual or budget data from a similar size, existing store. It also makes it easy to perform what-if analysis and simulations related to potential store openings. When used as part of good business practices in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) department, a company can improve its decisions, timing and success with business expansions as well as reduce the chances that poor financial planning results in bigger, operational issues.
Automated Forecasts for New Store Opening – Example
Here is an example of an Automated Financial Forecast Model for a new store based on data from an existing store location.
Example of an Automated Forecast for New Retail Store Opening
The typical users of this type of forecast model are: Store planners, CFOs and analysts.
Other Forecast models Often Used in Conjunction with Automated Forecasts for New Store Openings
Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Automated Profit & Loss forecasts, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, KPI dashboards, consolidation reports, balance sheets and cash flow statements and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail14-scaled-1.jpg14382560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-21 07:31:122021-01-21 07:33:25Automated Forecast for New Retail Store Opening
Sales trend reports are considered critical management tools and are used by sales and product category managers to better understand year-over-year variances and monthly trends. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard report is that it combines detailed monthly metrics with powerful analytical charts. The top section of the report shows two years of monthly sales in addition to variances in amounts and percent. The traffic lights helps focus the user’s attention to significant variances. The rows display products by category. The bottom portion of the report provides trend and variance charts. You find an example of this type of dashboard report below.
Purpose of Sales Trend by Product Class Reports
Retail businesses use Sales by Product Class reports to give managers a multi-year overview of sales for each of its product categories. When used as part of good business practices in retail operations, a company can improve its product decisions related to sales performance as well as reduce the chances that important product sales trends go undetected.
Sales Trend by Product Class Report Example
Here is an example of a Sales Trend by Product Class report with detailed monthly figures for current and prior year as well as a section for graphical analysis.
Example of a Sales Trend by Product Class Report for a Retail Company
The typical users of this type of dashboard report are: Executives, store and regional managers, category managers.
Other Dashboard and Reports Often Used in Conjunction with Sales by Product Class Reports
Progressive retail operations departments sometimes use several different Sales by Product Class Reports, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, KPI dashboards and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail13-scaled-1.jpg14402560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-21 07:06:462021-01-21 07:34:56Sales Trend by Product Class Report for a Retail Company
Product and store sales reports are considered essential operational analysis tools and are used by sales and product category managers to compare performance by store and region. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard report is that it combines variance analysis with store benchmarking. The columns display major product categories and within each of these the user finds current month, same period last year and variances. The rows dynamically list the chosen regions and the store locations within each region. You find an example of this type of dashboard report below.
Purpose of Product and Store Sales Reports
Retail businesses use Product and Store Sales Reports to benchmark sales performance across stores and regions. When used as part of good business practices in retail operations, a company can improve its store and territory decisions as well as reduce the chances that to underperformers go undetected for longer periods of time.
Product and Store Sales Report Example
Here is an example of a Sales Report comparing stores and product categories.
Example of a Sales Report by Product and Store for a Retail Company
The typical users of this type of dashboard report are: Executives, store and regional managers, category managers.
Other Dashboard reports Often Used in Conjunction with Product and Store Sales Reports
Progressive retail operations departments sometimes use several different Product and Store Sales Reports, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, KPI dashboards, consolidation reports and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail12-scaled-1.jpg14392560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-20 04:12:352021-01-21 07:36:05Sales Report by Product and Store for a Retail Company
Product dashboards are considered operational reports and are used by product managers and store managers to analyze trends and budget variances. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it has seven different KPI charts. These include: Sales and gross margin by product class, monthly sales and gross margin trend, top and bottom products, and product inventory. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of Product Dashboards
Retail businesses use Product Dashboards to provide managers with an easy, self-service solution to monitor product performance. When used as part of good business practices in retail operations, a company can improve its inventory, marketing and sales decisions as well as reduce the chances that to product performance goes under the radar for managers.
Product Dashboard Example
Here is an example of a Product Dashboard with budget variances and trend analysis.
Example of a Product Dashboard for a Retail Company
The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Product managers, store and regional managers.
Other Dashboards Often Used in Conjunction with Product Dashboards
Progressive retail operations departments sometimes use several different Product Dashboards, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, inventory reports, profit & loss reports and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail11-scaled-1.jpg14402560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-20 03:36:022021-01-21 07:40:04Product Dashboard for a Retail Company
What is aStore Performance Dashboard for a Retail Company?
Store performance reports are considered operational dashboards and are used by corporate offices and regional managers to analyze store sales and to benchmark performance. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it it compares actual and budget revenues and profit across stores. It also shows the monthly trend for these two metrics. The two pie charts displays the top 5 and bottom 5 store locations. The dashboard also shows square foot per store and revenue per square foot per store. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of Store Performance Dashboards
Retailers use Store Performance Dashboards to make it easy for managers to analyze and benchmark KPIs across a chosen group of store locations. When used as part of good business practices in a retail operations department, a company can improve its decision-making related to store management, products and other performance variables as well as reduce the chances that executives donât have good visibility to the large variations in store performance as soon as numbers are available.
Store Performance Dashboard Example
Here is an example of a Store Performance Dashboard with budget variance analysis and benchmarking.
Example of a Store Performance Dashboard for a Retail Company
The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Retail executives, CFOs, regional managers, store managers.
Other Dashboards Often Used in Conjunction with Store Performance Dashboards
Progressive retail operations departments sometimes use several different Store Performance Dashboards, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, profit & loss reports and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail10-scaled-1.jpg14402560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 15:58:352021-01-18 15:58:35Store Performance Dashboard for a Retail Company
What is an Executive Dashboard for a Retail Company?
Executive dashboards are considered essential management tools and are used by senior managers to analyze and monitor the key performance drivers of the company. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it can be viewed for any period and retail entity. It contains eight charts that provides analysis of revenue, profit and headcount. These include Revenue by region, by month, by full time employee equivalent (FTE), as well as for the top products and top stores. Other charts display profit by region and monthly profit trend. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of Executive Dashboards for Retailers
Retailers use Executive Dashboards to make it easy for top management to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) for the retail business. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Executive Department, a company can improve its speed and agility of decision-making as well as reduce the chances that executives operate in the dark because of lack of real-time, self-service analysis.
Executive Dashboards for a Retailer – Example
Here is an example of a Dashboard for Retail Executives with comparative and trend analysis.
Example of an Executive Dashboard for a Retail Company
The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Retail executives, board members, regional managers.
Other Dashboards Often Used in Conjunction with Executive Dashboards for Retailers
Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Executive departments sometimes use several different Executive Dashboards for Retailers, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, balance sheets, cash flow statements and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data for competitors typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
Native ERP report writers and query tools
Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Industry_Retail09-scaled-1.jpg14402560Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 15:18:112021-01-21 07:38:51Executive Dashboard for a Retail Company
This article is part 8 of an 8-part series on evaluating the best CPM tools for your business. Part 8 focuses on why and when to use third-party rankings from analysts when evaluating the best CPM software applications.
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While some companies donât need to go through a detailed selection process to come up with a list of the top Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software solutions for their organization, others have their work cut out for them. If you belong to the latter category, here is a vendor evaluation tool that may be of help.
One of the key items on many CPM product evaluation checklists is to look at how third-party firms, usually referred to as analysts or analyst websites, review and rank vendors.
Below, we will discuss the use of analysts to help evaluate and score the best financial reporting and planning solutions for your business requirements. This type of third-party research can complement the findings and opinions from your internal team.
When analyst firms are of less importance
Before we go into detail about analyst firms, letâs briefly cover some situations where analyst reports with CPM vendor rankings are not as useful and, in some cases, cost extra time and money in the selection process. One such example is when there is already a leading CPM solution partnered with your ERP vendor and offering pre-built integrations and other benefits that outweigh other potential vendor differences.
Another example is when multiple people on your staff have deep knowledge of a leading CPM solution that they have used before, ideally while they worked at a company from the same industry to ensure that there is still a fit.
Which analyst firms should you use?
While there are a few firms with analysts that are CPM industry experts who do months of research every year to analyze trends and rank vendors, there are many more analysts that are a waste of time or are even directly misleading in their rankings.
Examples of professional CPM analyst firms
Analyst and survey-driven rankings: Gartner and Dresner Advisory Services
User-driven rankings: G2
Unqualified or misleading âanalystâ firms
Clickbait websites that will come up with their own vendor lists with no proper research, purely to get ranked on a search engine in order to sell advertising or get âsponsorshipâ money vendors pay to be on (e.g., a âTop 10 CPM Vendorsâ list)
Websites owned by CPM vendors ranking themselves
âResearch reportsâ from âanalystsâ paid for by a specific CPM vendor
So, if you consult analyst reports to help find the best CPM tool for your company, be conscious of who or what is proving the advice.
How do you know if analyst reports are biased or fair representations of vendors?
It is clear that almost all research performed by a human being is biased one way or another, either consciously (e.g., based on vendor sponsorships or who they speak with the most) or unconsciously (e.g., based on the knowledge of the analyst). Even a firm as well-known as Gartner arguably has some bias in their reports because they include analyst comments, and they include vendor revenue as one of the drivers in their âMagic Quadrantsâ â something which may or may not indicate who a âleaderâ should be in a specific industry. Especially with the pace of technology changes and acquisitions in the marketplace, the best CPM solution for your business 6 months ago may no longer be the top choice today.
Other analyst reports or vendor rankings are websites that are driven by user feedback as compared to analyst research. You could argue that these websites provide the most neutral feedback although not as detailed and analytical as the major reports produced by full-fledged analyst firms.
Then there are the countless firms that provide âawardsâ and rankings based on payments from vendors. These are highly biased and should be avoided. It is fairly easy to detect them by reviewing the firmâs website and observing the lack of depth in CPM research and content.
What professional analysts get right (and sometimes donât)
The top CPM analyst firms typically do one major CPM report per year. All or parts of the data in the report is driven by customer surveys completed by each vendorâs customers. Because of all the work that goes into these reports and because customers donât want to be constantly bombarded with surveys, the reports will represent data that is up to 15-16 months old. This lag is because customer surveys typically start 3-4 months before the report is released and then the report will be out on the market for a year until next yearâs report is out.
Because many cloud software vendors have monthly releases, and new features arrive all the time, these reports could be missing important vendor features. Websites like G2 and others are starting to follow the same model; they are constantly updated whenever a customer decides to leave their feedback. However, they are less detailed and structured.
Examples of analyst firms that review CPM software
There are a number of companies that provide CPM vendor reviews and market research. Here are examples of three different categories of such firms:
Gartner: Analyst + customer survey-driven vendor rankings. Also provides research reports across almost all categories of IT firms. A major CPM report is produced once per year.
Dresner Advisory Services: Customer survey-driven vendor rankings. Also provides research reports. Almost exclusively focused on CPM (they refer to it as EPM, or Enterprise Performance Management). A major CPM report is produced once per year.
G2: Customer feedback driven. Ranking reports are produced automatically on their website (g2.com). Rankings are continually updated as customers enter their feedback on the G2 website.
How much does it cost to use an analyst firm?
Some CPM vendor research reports are free while many are licensed by the CPM vendors themselves and shared with customers. However, be aware that vendors naturally will only license and share research reports that shed a good light on their product, so there is a bias here to be cognizant of.
Some analyst firms also provide selection services, either as paid calls with their CPM advisors or as full-blown gigs where they will lead or participate in the entire selection process as a âconsultant.â In past years, they used to then provide clients with RFP templates with hundreds of pre-defined questions. These have become less popular in recent times as both vendors and internal evaluation teams dread lengthy narratives always shaped to sound good, or they can miss entire functionality areas that are up and coming.
In any case, it is almost always beneficial to do your own homework first by listing your current pain points in as much detail as possible and quantifying ($$) the cost and effort of running the current reporting and planning processes. This âhomeworkâ should also include the management teamâs vision of the business benefits they want to achieve with a new CPM solution.
Conclusion
The leading cloud CPM software solutions have a lot of features and functionality, and changes and improvements are being released all the time. So, when you and your internal team are coming up with a shortlist of the best CPM solutions for the companyâs needs, it is advisable to do your own research, review product demonstrations, and make sure the top candidates integrate easily with your ERP and other important systems. If you have special complexities or a lack of time and evaluation skills on your team, then an analyst firm can assist you in various ways.
Links to useful software research and evaluation assets
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.png00Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 04:18:062021-01-18 04:21:19Using Analyst Rankings to Help Select the Best CPM Software Apps
This article is part 7 of an 8-part series on evaluating the best CPM tools for your business. Part 7 focuses on methods for calculating ROI to find the best CPM software applications.
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A business software selection process can be exhausting, involving weeks or months of product demonstrations, meetings, vendor scoring, and other time-consuming tasks. Usually, the most attention is paid to the product demos. However, one of the most important but ignored areas of a vendor evaluation is a Return on Investment (ROI) estimate.
As the name implies, an ROI calculation aims at estimating the return the company is expecting to get over time based on the investment they put into the software subscription, training, and implementation.
A best practice to select the best CPM software and vendor is to perform an ROI calculation and make it part of the total vendor score as you compare the finalist candidates with each other. Here is a free interactive vendor comparison tool that has three dashboard pages:
Scoring of 8 major functionality areas (insert screenshot below this section)
Calculator to arrive at ROI
Summary dashboard comparing your top two CPM software finalists
Your team can use the sliders to adjust all scores according to your evaluation results:
Why should ROI always be used when you evaluate business software?
Many companies skip or miss the ROI step in their evaluation process to compare the top CPM vendors on their finalist scorecard. Why are so many organizations missing this ROI step? Usually it is due to one or more of these reasons:
They donât have an ROI calculator
They feel there are too many variables to come up with a good ROI estimate
They have a bias toward a solution known or recommended to them
The vendor in the lead does not want to be compared to the runner-up competitor
However, because the vendorsâ CPM features and prices both change over time, a good ROI estimate helps capture this to provide a picture of what business benefits would look like compared to the investment in subscriptions and implementation services.
How to calculate ROI for the best CPM software selection
It is almost always easy to get software costs and implementation estimates from the vendor because these are already part of standard price lists and quoting tools they use in their sales processes. Â However, what is harder is to calculate your own costs and savings related to the project.
It is important to do your own homework first by listing and quantifying ($$) the pains of NOT having the new solution. Many organizations do list current pains before approving a new software purchase. Such metrics are also valuable after the project implementation in order to validate the degree of success. It also helps keep vendors and internal project members accountable for promises of outcomes, and keeps them focused on what is most important when there are obstacles in the implementation and to help support hard choices that have to be made.
Here is a list of the typical ingredients in an ROI calculation:
Benefits
This part of an ROI calculation is always the hardest to estimate. Here is where you quantify the annual value (amount) your business expects to gain from the improved and speedier decisions you expect to achieve from the CPM vendors you evaluate. Try to put a number on the resulting benefit to the business when managers can make faster and better decisions because the new solution provides self-service access, drilldown to answer questions, charting for better analysis, more accurate budgets, and other advantages.
Note: Donât include any costs or time savings from the cost section (see below).
Costs
Here is where you capture the costs of the new and old solutions. Your numbers should include software, hardware, and labor expenses.
Cost of New Solution:
Annual software subscription
One-time implementation services
Cost of Old Solution:
IT costs to operate: This includes any server hardware and electricity, upgrade costs, annual maintenance/renewal costs, etc.
Cost of manual labor: This should be the excess time your IT and finance staff spends compared to what you expect from the new solution. Use a fully loaded hourly cost of own and/or contractor staff.
Cost of risk: This is where you capture the estimated annual cost of risks like errors in monthly reports, and the resulting cost of managers not having access to timely and detailed information.
If you leave all the figures in the ROI calculation as positive numbers, then the calculation can look like this: (Cost of Old Solution â Cost of New Solution + Benefit of New Solution) / Cost of Old Solution
Using one year or multiple years in your ROI calculation
Although there may be some firms that provide industry benchmarks to quantify the standard ROI of a new CPM software solution and its expected automation of financial reporting and planning processes, results can be highly individual based on how good or bad the old solution was and how well the new solution is implemented and utilized.
In very special cases, you may achieve a positive ROI in year 1, but in most cases it will take longer. For this reason, a good rule of thumb is to calculate both the 1st year and the 5-year (accumulated) ROI. This will also better capture discounts that vendors provide for one or more years before their price resets to list price.
Also, when you ask for the 5-year subscription cost from each vendor, make sure it includes annual price increases.
Do ROI calculations have an extra cost?
All decision makers like to see ROI calculations when staff members propose investments in new technologies. Sometimes, these calculations can be the major deciding factor in a decision if all other areas are somewhat equal. In other words, it may be well worth the hours it takes to come up with the estimates for ROI.
If you are using a professional software selection firm or third-party consultant to help with your selection, make sure to ask if their services include assistance with an ROI calculation or if this a separate cost.
You can use this vendor comparison tool, which includes an ROI calculator. It has three tabs: 1) Feature comparison, 2) ROI comparison, and 3) Summary score. You can use it as-is, or it may give you some ideas if you want to apply it, for example, to an Excel spreadsheet model that calculates ROI in a different way.
Conclusion
The best CPM software solutions have a lot of features and functionality. They are also very flexible. This means that implementation estimates can vary greatly based on the number of your reports or the complexity of your budget and forecast models.
Assuming you have a successful implementation, it is typical to stay with a solution for five to ten years or more. In such time periods, and if you choose a stable vendor, you can expect to see numerous improvements along the way that should further support your managers in making faster and better decisions. This future expected value can be captured in your multi-year ROI calculation to help ensure that you are making the best possible decision to pick the top CPM vendor for your organization to partner with.
Links to useful software research and evaluation assets
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.png00Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 04:16:412021-01-19 07:15:25Using Return on Investment (ROI) to Help Select the Best CPM Software Apps
This article is part 6 of an 8-part series on evaluating the best CPM tools for your business. Part 6 focuses on the many Microsoft integration capabilities to look for in the best CPM software applications.
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Most organizations in the world use one or more technologies from Microsoft. So, when selecting a new cloud Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solution the benefit of close Microsoft alignment can be from âslightâ to âvery importantâ or ârequired.â
As the worldâs businesses have migrated one application after another to the cloud, they have had to re-establish whatever connectivity they had between their solutions when they hosted them in their own server room.
For the reasons mentioned above, most of the top CPM vendors have integrations to the most popular Microsoft technologies in order to increase their customersâ productivity.
Here are some of the top Microsoft integrations to look for in the best CPM solutions
Based on which Microsoft technologies your organization uses, one or more of these integrations may be beneficial (or even highly important):
Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365 integration
The below CPM integrations to Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365 can probably be ranked in this order of importance to a Finance and Accounting team:
Excel integrations can offer everything from the CPM report designer being an Excel add-in, to report export to Excel and data import from Excel.
PowerPoint integrations are typically used to display and refresh reports or dashboards within a corporate financial presentation.
Word integrations are less popular but can be critical for governments and other organizations that need to refresh financial and other figures inside lengthy annual or quarterly report documents.
Example of a Power BI dashboard live inside a PowerPoint presentation:
Power BI integration
Power BI (closely followed by Tableau) has risen to be the most popular dashboard tool in the world. A large number of companies use it already and more will do so in the future. For this reason, an increasing number of CPM vendors have developed Microsoft-certified connectors that easily transfer data and dimensions to Power BI.
Some CPM vendors even go as far as offering Power BI as their main best-of-breed dashboard solution and include out-of-the-box financial dashboards to get customers ramped up quickly. If you already own or plan to buy Power BI, this approach eliminates the need to buy a CPM vendorâs proprietary dashboard licenses and enables the finance team to learn only one visualization tool.
Microsoft Teams integration
Teams is Microsoftâs widely popular collaboration portal. Numerous third-party vendors have built apps to surface their cloud applications inside the Teams portal.
While all of the best CPM solutions can export fully formatted reports to Excel, and these can be imported to Teams, not many have built apps that enable you to open the CPM app from Teams and, for example, run reports while inside a Teams group discussing profitability or liquidity with other managers.
Microsoft Dynamics integrations
Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Business Central are Microsoftâs cloud ERP applications. If you already own or plan to implement one of these ERPs, it is important to closely review how well the CPM vendors you are evaluating connect to those solutions.
A tight and easy integration between your ERP system and the CPM solution enables dynamic reporting, as well as budgets and forecasts that have updated historical data. Some integrations even allow for easy write-back of budgets to the General Ledger (GL).
If you are on a legacy Microsoft Dynamics ERP such as GP, SL, NAV, or AX, the new CPM solutions integration is equally as important. If you plan to migrate to Dynamics 365, you can even use the CPM as a storage of your old historical ERP data, making the migration to the new ERP faster and easier.
Azure deployment
Since CPM vendors manage their own cloud applications, it is typically not visible to an end user which cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, their CPM portal is running on. Azure may be more important for certain IT departments if they already have plans or projects using other Microsoft Azure tools such as Power Apps.
Does deep Microsoft alignment have an extra cost?
This will depend on each CPM vendor. The cloud platform (in this case Azure) is always built into vendor pricing, but oftentimes vendors charge a price per integration connector (e.g., to Power BI, PowerPoint, or Dynamics 365).
While it is important to do your homework to ensure that the vendor you choose has the key Microsoft integrations needed for a successful and efficient deployment, the total savings in time and effort, as well as improved decision making, are just as important.
Here is a free vendor comparison tool to help you compare vendors across a number of different features. This tool also includes a simple return on investment (ROI) calculator that is part of the total vendor score.
Conclusion
In summary, ensuring that a new CPM solution integrates well with productivity and ERP applications helps ensure longevity of the solution as well as user satisfaction. In other words, integration should be on the checklist of features to review in demonstrations and vendor conversations.
Links to useful software research and evaluation assets
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.png00Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 04:03:212021-01-19 07:09:43Top Microsoft Features in the Best CPM Software Apps
This article is part 5 of an 8-part series on evaluating the best CPM tools for your business. Part 5 focuses on data warehouse considerations to focus on as you are evaluating the best CPM software applications.
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In the Digital Era, companies that make faster and better decisions than their counterparts are the most successful â yet accurate decisions require accurate information. Because all businesses have numerous data sources in addition to their ERP system, it takes a lot of time and effort to extract and compile information from all the internal systems. The fact that most of these systems are now based in the cloud does not make it easier.
This fast decision-making requirement has led an increasing number of companies to now implement a cloud data warehouse in order to streamline data collection, reporting, and analysis. Some of these data warehouse platforms are included with Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solutions. Because CPM solutions already use databases to store financial data and budgets, these vendors sometimes offer an expandable CPM that can also serve as a data warehouse. More about this later.
However, implementing a corporate data warehouse can be risky and expensive without proper technology selection and planning. And, of course, the return on investment (ROI) needs to be positive.
When working through a software selection process to find the best data warehouse platform for your organization, there are some features that are more important than others.
Here are some of the top features to look for in a data warehouse app
While most vendors can probably showcase more than 100 features in their product â something which can make software selection a virtual nightmare â there is a clear 80/20 rule that can be applied to zoom in on critical success factors.
Here is a list of five major functionality areas to consider:
Data warehouse platform
In todayâs world, IT departments and business managers are eager to move their applications out of their server room and into the cloud. Therefore, most new data warehouses are now being deployed in the cloud. All the big database vendors offer their own data warehouse platforms including Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon (AWS), IBM, Snowflake, and others.
Internal knowledge, cost, and other factors should be evaluated when choosing a solution. Any cloud CPM vendor that has a solution that expands into a full data warehouse generally also runs on one of these platforms, either with the cloud vendorâs database or a proprietary database.
Homegrown versus commercial data warehouse
In the past, the majority of all businesses either managed to operate without a data warehouse or they purchased a database license like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle and designed a homegrown system. For a mid-sized company, such a project could take upwards to nine months or more and often cost more than $100,000 in consulting fees (much more for a large enterprise).
Today, however, there are a number of commercial cloud-based data warehouses with user-friendly interfaces that provide menu-driven configuration requiring few technical skills to run. As a result, most companies, especially smaller and mid-sized businesses, utilize commercial cloud data warehouses that are pre-designed and configurable through a web interface.
Of course, it is critical to easily get data in and out of a data warehouse, so any good data warehouse must provide application programming interfaces (API) to allow integration tools and business intelligence (BI) solutions to connect to it.
Here is an example of a commercial data warehouse interface:
Separate data warehouse or combined with CPM solution?
If a selection process is driven by an IT department and the data warehouse solution will be managed by their team, they often prefer a stand-alone commercial data warehouse or may already have an enterprise data warehouse in use. A CPM solution that includes data warehouse functionality becomes a one-stop reporting and planning database that can leverage the data stored in the enterprise data warehouse (where one already exists), as well in the ERP, payroll, and other systems.
This combination approach may offer a lower cost and has the added advantage that CPM tools offer strong report writers, which make it easy to query the reporting and planning data warehouse directly without purchasing yet another third-party reporting tool.
Data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL)
ETL tends to be the most technical and tedious part of a data warehousing project. This is because it involves extracting data from various transaction sources, transforming it into the format required to store it in the data warehouse, and then setting up automated data loading. Many of the leading data warehouse and CPM solutions offer their own native ETL tools, often with pre-built connectors to popular data sources. In addition, there is a whole industry of third-party ETL vendors that can be âmiddlewareâ between your transaction sources and the data warehouse. Of course, these come with their own subscription cost.
You should always request detailed information about the vendorâs integration to your systems, including the time and cost it takes to get them configured. A really good, pre-built integration should take at the most an hour to configure while âtoolboxesâ can take days to set up and connect to each data source. Which one your vendor offers will therefore usually become clear when you see their estimates for the integration step in the implementation.
Without good, automated integrations to your source systems, your users will end up spending a lot of wasted time on loading and possible âcleaningâ of data.
Modules, dimensions, and trees
In general, data warehouses store transactions and dimensions and connect these in their schema. In commercial data warehouse user interfaces, an administrator can typically add business logic to dimensions (accounts, companies, etc.) by setting up hierarchies represented as graphical trees or attributes. These hierarchies are then used by report writers and dashboards to automate reporting and consolidations.
To select the best data warehouse solution for your business needs, it is advisable to get a demonstration of the web portal. This gives you the ability to see how user friendly (or not) it is to manage the dimensions and data, and also to understand the effort it takes to set up user security as well as control access rights.
How much does a data warehouse solution cost?
Cloud-based data warehouses are sold on a subscription basis and vendors have various pricing models that could include factors like:
Number of users
Number of data source connectors
Number of transactions stored in the database
Amount of data processing
Vendors that offer multi-tenant solutions versus stand-alone systems per customer have a cost advantage as upgrades are simpler and processing resources can be shared.
Beyond features and the quoted price, here are some things to think about when you get prices from your vendor finalists:
Does the annual subscription from each vendor contain the same user count and modules?
If you are receiving a discount, how long until it resets to the list price?
Does the vendor provide a written policy for annual price increases?
Are the implementation estimates from each vendor for exactly the same work?
A good rule of thumb is to ask each vendor for the total subscription cost for the first 5 years. Make sure this includes any potential price increases. And, if the vendor is owned by a private equity firm, chances are that they will be sold while you are still a customer, so ensure that you receive a document stating their policy for price increases in the future, including stipulations if they are sold to another company.
Here is a tool to help you compare vendors and calculate return on investment (ROI).
Why not use the ERP system as a data warehouse?
Some ERP vendors and implementation partners suggest that customers use the ERP system as a data warehouse. This could work if all or most of the data is from the ERP system itself. However, most data warehouse use cases do not work well inside an ERP database for these reasons:
Major data loads and processing could slow down the ERP system and make daily work difficult for accountants.
Licensing requirements for the ERP may become more costly than expected.
Some ERP APIs may not be suitable for flexible and fast data import and export.
ERP databases are generally not built to easily handle lots of detail from other data sources such as CRM data, helpdesk information, or other solutions.
ERP systems typically donât offer best-of-breed reporting, budgeting, and dashboards so chances are that you will end up exporting data out of the ERP âdata warehouseâ and into CPM and BI systems anyway.
Conclusion
In summary, choosing a new data warehouse solution to centralize your important data in order to support front-end tools that drive better and faster decision making has increasingly become a strategic priority for organizations across all industries. As we discussed earlier, certain features are more important than others and can be key success factors â in addition to a well-executed implementation process.
Here is a free vendor comparison and ROI tool to help you compare vendors across a number of different features. This tool also includes a simple return on investment (ROI) calculator that is part of the total vendor score.
Links to useful software research and evaluation assets
https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.png00Nils R.https://www.solverglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solver-logo-final.pngNils R.2021-01-18 03:54:472021-01-19 07:02:09Top Data Warehouse Features in the Best CPM Software Apps
