Board vs IBM Planning Analytics comparison

Board International and IBM are both solutions in the Business Performance Management category. Board International is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7. Board International holds a 6.8% mindshare in BPM, compared to IBM’s 8.7% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Board International users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Board

Read 37 Board reviews

1,143 Views
792 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Planning Analytics

Read 24 IBM Planning Analytics reviews

1,812 Views
1,188 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Board

IBM Planning Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Board and IBM Planning Analytics are products in the business performance management field. IBM Planning Analytics generally holds an advantage due to its comprehensive features and deep analytics.

Features: Board offers intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, allowing complex planning and forecasting tasks with seamless integration. Its interface is customizable to fit unique user needs without extensive IT involvement. It supports dynamic data integration for multidimensional analyses. IBM Planning Analytics provides robust analytics, using integration with Cognos TM1 for advanced scenario modeling. Its in-memory processing supports real-time calculations and diverse analytical interfaces.

Room for Improvement: Board could enhance its automation capabilities and expand the range of prebuilt templates to reduce implementation time. It may benefit from expanding training materials for non-technical users. Additionally, better integration with third-party applications could improve versatility. IBM Planning Analytics would improve with a more user-friendly setup process, reducing initial complexity. Enhancing visualization tools and expanding mobile functionality could broaden its appeal. More straightforward licensing options might also attract new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Board offers streamlined deployment with a focus on ease of integration, plus dedicated support for onboarding and troubleshooting. IBM Planning Analytics has a more substantial setup process due to its comprehensive features. It provides extensive support resources from IBM, ensuring detailed assistance throughout deployment and usage phases.

Pricing and ROI: Board is cost-effective with competitive setup costs, appealing to companies seeking quick savings and ROI. IBM Planning Analytics has higher initial costs but justifies its price through enhanced capabilities, potentially delivering superior long-term ROI for businesses requiring advanced planning solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,207 peers since 2012

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

Board

Ranking in Business Performance Management

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (23rd), Reporting (20th)

IBM Planning Analytics

Ranking in Business Performance Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Board is 6.8%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Planning Analytics is 8.7%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan

Senior Consultant at IMD Company Limited

Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features

I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

Read full review

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani

Junior Consultant at CMA CGM

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data."

"I think the product is good in terms of ease of use."

"The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts."

"Where it used to take me three days at the beginning of the year to create the new financial statement, now it is a matter of minutes because all the data is in the system."

"The ability to do write back and visualization, with minimal IT development orientation."

"My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily."

"By using Board we can do a lot of free analysis. We can change the layout of a table and even the end-user can change the layout of a table. And in Board 11.2 you can save the layout. That's very useful for the customer, it's a very good function."

"What is very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD."

More Board pros

"The tool is flexible."

"A lot of the platform is in-memory, so Planning Analytics can run calculations quite fast. It also offers several user interfaces. And in the newest version of Planning Analytics, there is a new one called the Planning Analytics Workspace. Maybe it could be useful for the business side."

"It's a very stable, robust product."

"The most valuable feature is that it is able to slice and dice the data."

"This level of stability is crucial for a product like Cognos TM1, as using an unstable platform would result in loss of time."

"The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized."

"The product's stability is good."

"All the different platforms are well integrated."

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

Cons

"I would like an eLearning platform for BOARD."

"What could be better is the manual... nowadays, most people use a web client, but on the Board manual website, a lot of the information is only about the Windows client. If they could update that, it would be helpful."

"Some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel."

"It's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive."

"It would be nice to be able to host your site and actually have BOARD be the driver of your site. So you could have anybody in your organization go to www.myorg.com, for example, and then go through what you allow them to go through. So rather than having to go through the application, to be able to go to actually host it to a website."

"The initial setup was very complex for us."

"It would be nice to see truly transferable processes from model to model, as well as a method of building repetitive processes."

"I'd like to see a more passive report user for enterprise report writers that aren't particularly technical."

More Board cons

"Extracting data is a little slow."

"The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects are used."

"The new frontend Planning Analytics Workspace is not very good, it could be improved. I like the Planning Analytics functionality but it would be helpful if it could be more customizable. You can create a prediction and receive information but you cannot do feature engineering regarding the predictive models. If this was added it would be helpful."

"It would have been better if the solution was not just a tool kit."

"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014. On a scale, I'd rate scalability at four, out of ten. It's difficult."

"It's highly competitive right now, and all the vendors are in a race to put out new versions with additional features. IBM comes out with new versions too often, and it has an impact on quality."

"The tool should include features for prediction. It can also improve the scalability."

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."

"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."

"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."

"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."

"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."

"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Performance Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

43%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

See all answers

What do you like most about Board?

All the reports are prepared automatically.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Board?

Some of my company's customers are interested to see the predictive analytics part of the tool. Some customers would like to leverage or prioritize predictive analytics as the main feature, but som...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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. ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 30% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 10% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud vs Board

Compared 6% of the time

More Board Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 26% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 19% of the time

Anaplan vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Jedox vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 8% of the time

OneStream XF vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM Planning Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Board

April 2025

Download Board product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Planning Analytics

April 2025

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

IBM Planning Analytics is an integrated planning solution that uses AI to automate planning, budgeting, and forecasting and drive more intelligent workflows.

Built on TM1, IBM’s powerful calculation engine, this enterprise performance management tool allows you to transcend the limits of manual planning and become the Analytics Hero your business needs. Quickly and easily drive faster, more accurate plans for FP&A, sales, supply chain and beyond.

IBM

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

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

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics

April 2025

Free Report: Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics

Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Board vs. IBM Planning Analytics report.

See our list of best Business Performance Management vendors.

We monitor all Business Performance Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.