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Alfabet IT Planning & Portfolio Management vs ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

Alfabet IT Planning & Portf...
Ranking in Project Portfolio Management
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow Strategic Portfo...
Ranking in Project Portfolio Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Project Portfolio Management category, the mindshare of Alfabet IT Planning & Portfolio Management is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management is 12.2%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Portfolio Management
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Helps us to implement and understand the status of our projects
The initial setup is straightforward. The solution's deployment takes around two months time. We have to set up the solution. We have to put in the data to ensure that the solution is working. We need to fill out our process, our tools, and our data. Two developers were involved in the deployment process. It is a self-maintained solution that requires updates from time to time. I rate the setup an eight out of ten.
Srinivasa Neelapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Strategies and goals are aligned with demands and partners, making it a strategic approach for the enterprise but the finance part needs improvement
SPM is definitely strong for project management, but its finance capabilities are not as robust. While there is a separate Financial Management product, it would be beneficial to have more out-of-the-box support for finance integrations within SPM. I’m not suggesting replacing systems like SAP for finance, but there should be better support for financial integrations. Currently, connecting to SaaS solutions is complicated, and getting into detailed financial calculations is challenging. Forecasting is manageable, but handling actual financials is not as straightforward. The finance area needs improvement, specifically making finance application integrations easier. Generic finance capabilities should be more user-friendly and integrated into SPM. Although they have started this journey, it hasn’t been fully released yet. There seems to be a roadmap, and once complete, it will be very useful. Additionally, incorporating a Q&A feature for entire strategies or project demands and enhancing text analytics within SPM would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The dashboard is the most valuable feature."
"The solution was quite easy to use. The interface was quite user-friendly, and I've become quite familiar with it."
"It's a very complete solution."
"Stable and scalable solution."
"ServiceNow support is awesome."
"The resource manager is useful."
"Everything is valuable. It is tough to choose a particular feature, but project portfolio management along with agile 2.0 are two key product features that I would suggest for services companies like us."
"The alignment feature between projects from the idea phase until it is finalized is highly valuable."
"The product is quite convenient and user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The user-experience, enhanced performance, and in-hand governance can be improved."
"The pricing is average."
"We track salaries or paychecks of the resources. They change from time to time, such as every six months or every year. If they can come up with a default or out-of-the-box feature to manage those multiple payable costs so that we can automatically calculate the project costs rolled up. That would be the coolest feature that we can expect from ServiceNow. We would like to have an automatic feature to manage the payable costs. We should be able to manage or maintain multiple pay costs so that while calculating the project roll-up costs for individual projects, the respective pay costs in a particular period are picked up automatically from the backend. Currently, we have to customize that. It is doable. We have done it but through customization."
"SPM is definitely strong for project management, but its finance capabilities are not as robust."
"ServiceNow need to focus on internal empowerment rather than awareness to drive the change."
"When we originally set it up, we had some kind of success manager free of charge, and now it's an additional charge over and above what we're paying."
"The portfolio management tool is not as good as DevOps or Jira because it requires a Russian site and BitLocker to train users or run projects."
"When we import a really big project with a lot of tasks on it, we face some issues with dependencies. The links between tasks are not working very well. There is definitely room for improvement there. Microsoft Project, in my opinion, is the best option for such a use case."
"The adoption of the Common Service Data Model in an organization to leverage best practices is where the challenge lies. It's not that the product lacks features, but rather organizations often adopt it at a maturity level beyond their capacity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. There is a yearly licensing cost. There are no additional costs, only the standard license, and the cloud license."
"It's more suitable for larger companies as the licensing cost is relatively high. Not everyone can afford this tool."
"I would rate the cost as five out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing is based on metrics and is tailored to customer's needs."
"The cost of the solution should not be more than $50,000 annually."
"It is a little expensive. We are in Brazil, and for us, it is a little expensive."
"They sell some things in bundles, and it could be handier that some of those things could be sold in another way, like purity models and other packages. Another thing that I'm struggling with is the pricing of ServiceNow's FYE experience, which includes the tools that are positioned for supporting HR."
"The solution was quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfabet IT Planning & Portfolio Management?
The solution is expensive. There is a yearly licensing cost. There are no additional costs, only the standard license, and the cloud license.
What needs improvement with Alfabet IT Planning & Portfolio Management?
The user-experience, enhanced performance, and in-hand governance can be improved.
What do you like most about ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
We mainly use the solution to support operations and align our ITSM operations with our business goals. This involves coordinating between our application development, support teams, and network en...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
If a company is prepared to get a return on the investment, the price is worth it. ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management is ready for a future organization, but if the organization isn't ready,...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
The adoption of the Common Service Data Model in an organization to leverage best practices is where the challenge lies. It's not that the product lacks features, but rather organizations often ado...
 

Also Known As

planningIT, alfabet planningIT, Alfabet IT Planning and Portfolio Management
IT Business Management, ServiceNow IT Business Management Suite, ServiceNow ITBM Suite, ServiceNow ITBM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FUJITSU, Coca Cola, ING, CreditSuisse, CosmosDirekt, GTA, Echo Entertainment Group, Electrolux, Cern
Proximus, UNT SYSTEM, SAP SuccessFactors
Find out what your peers are saying about Alfabet IT Planning & Portfolio Management vs. ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.