Axiom Software by Syntellis Performance Solutions vs. IBM Planning Analytics

Axiom is ideal for organizations with multiple departments that need to collect, share, and integrate data from common internal data sources. The product is best for very large organizations with a lot of financial backing. I wouldn't suggest using Axiom if you're a small organization or only one department, for example.

Incentivized

For a CFO or a COO to do budgeting and planning, IBM Planning Analytics would be essential. It is a tool that can take in multiple data sources and showcase them in a multidimensional way. If you are looking just for a BI or reporting tool, Planning Analytics would be considered "overkill".

• Extremely flexible and dynamic allowing for customizations that align with our business needs
• The database structure within Axiom allows us to create custom tables for adhoc data analysis
• The processing time of Axiom (daily imports, monthly imports, Budgeting processes) are extremely favorable allowing us to cut our budget cycle time in half compared to our previous system.

Incentivized

• Handle very large data volumes.
• Scale to a large number of users.
• Not having to compromise on business complexity.
• It can be run by business users.
• Availability of highly qualified consultants to support businesses.
• REST API allows for an open eco system and a variety of solutions to extend the product.
• Vast integration possibilities.
• AI-infused engine with IBM Watson.

Incentivized

• Implementation is quite Complex and requires both IT and Financial buy-in
• Reporting solution has some learning curve for end users
• Calculation methods within reporting can be opaque and hard to trace

Incentivized

• sometimes it is hard to produce pixel perfect reports from the Web UI. I know it is not made for this, but still, it'll be great
• getting in e.g. an Excel file just by drag and drop, and the AI should "understand" what the data is all around

Incentivized

Since IBM Cognos Express is suitable only for medium data warehouse environment, we are not sure if this tool solves the long term need as the business keeps growing rapidly. So its a 50/50 ratio to renew Express license. But having said that, the components of IBM Cognos Express are also available in other Cognos BI suites like Cognos 10.x version. So we will probably upgrade our environment to IBM Cognos 10.x which comes with more new features.

IBM Planning Analytics is generally good in terms of functionalities. It can be used reduce time for budget planning, resource planning, demand forecasting, etc. The performance of IBM Planning Analytics is acceptable, but user interface can be improved. It would be good to see new features that allow users to customise the dashboard.

Incentivized

For the scale of our implementation, Axiom only assigned two consultants who were both completely new to the company. It felt like we were all learning about the product together, when you would expect them to already be experts at their own product. The team also made a good bit of mistakes throughout production and go-live, which then caused more work internally for us. The team lead for our project also just left the company, so we'll see how next year's planning goes

Incentivized

Although I find the IBM Planning analytics documentation quite time consuming, their support with email and call is something i can term as very considerate and patient, I have had few calls about the features and how i would want to implement them within my projects, and the teams have been super helpful to resolve my issues

Incentivized

The only other system I have worked with was the Fiserv MPC product, which is what we had Axiom replace. The Fiserv MPC product does not even come close to the functionality of Axiom. For our Budget, we would have to run an Excel Macro in Fiserv MPC overnight which took about 8 hours to process in order for us to to see the results of the inputs we did the previous day. With Axiom, the non-margin items (Non-Interest Expense, Non-Interest Income) are real time - as soon as you click Save, the data is available. On the Cash Flow Margin side (Loans & Deposits), it takes about 5 minutes to fully process in Axiom approx. 30,000 records, which is extremely favorable.

Incentivized

For strong technical teams and flexibility IBM Planning Analytics is the way to go. For quicker adoption and less technical teams Anaplan is the best option. If consolidation, financials, and moving from legacy tools are main focus than OneStream will be a really good choice. If deeply invested into SAP already than the SAP BPC will be the best fit to maintain the investment.

Incentivized

• Forecasting has improved
• Complexity of analysis has improved as well
• Our main data has been confused as we started using Axiom

• Much higher degree of accuracy in forecasting with the use of predictive analysis from historical data
• Dozens of man hours saved in routine processes that are now handled with minimal human interaction
• One system that holds the "source of truth," consolidating multiple systems together that were only accessible individually before

Incentivized