The Forrester Wave™: Business Performance Solutions, Q4 2007

Forrester assessed 10 leading business performance solutions (BPS) vendors across 83 criteria in a product evaluation. Cognos, Oracle, and SAS Institute were found to lead the category with overall breadth of functionality and aggressive strategies for competing in this rapidly evolving market. Business Objects and SAP both showed strong solution functionality, but have considerable work ahead to integrate recent pure-play acquisitions into more seamless BPS offerings. Clarity Systems leads the BPS pure plays with a very strong planning and budgeting solution. Applix and Longview Solutions, though lacking as much out-of-the-box functionality and scorecarding capabilities as the large vendors, made solid Strong Performer showings as well based on their flexibility to handle unique customer requirements. Infor is also a Strong Performer with a mature BPS suite, but needs a more aggressive strategy for competing outside of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) installed base. Microsoft's initial release of Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 in September puts it in the mix as a Strong Performer with an assertive vision and a solid technology foundation, but the solution needs to mature in terms of breadth and depth of functionality.

Source: Forrester
The Forrester Wave

Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites - 2008

Magic Quadrant 2008


The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 19 December 2008 by Gartner, Inc. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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Magic Quadrant 2008 for CPM Suites

CPM- Roads ahead

source: mediaproduct.gartner

The market landscape for corporate performance management suites continues to dramatically change and grow. Users should evaluate vendors carefully according to business needs and their broader business intelligence and performance management strategies.


CPM suites can bring greater rigor, accuracy and transparency to many management processes, such as budgeting, planning and forecasting (BP&F), financials and regulatory reporting (and associated compliance challenges), and they can deliver a better understanding of the drivers of corporate profitability. The current economic climate is driving demands from the board of directors to minimize costs and maximize profits, and organizations are increasingly deploying CPM applications to help management teams make the right strategic vendor selection decisions.

CPM Deployment Patterns

CPM is dominated by financial reporting …



… and finance drives the implementation



Source: Gartner