IBM Planning Analytics vs MicroStrategy comparison

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IBM Planning Analytics

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Planning Analytics and MicroStrategy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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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

IBM Planning Analytics

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (3rd)

MicroStrategy

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

160

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th), Embedded BI (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 9.2%, up 8.8% compared to last year.
MicroStrategy, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.4% mindshare, down 3.6% since last year.

Business Performance Management

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

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.

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AJIN S L

Technical Analyst at Allianz

Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements

The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"IBM Planning Analytics is easy to use and deploy. It is quick to develop. The calculation machine is also very fast."

"The product's stability is good."

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

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

"The scenario modeling capabilities are frequently used to create different scenarios, compare them, and see which action leads to which result."

"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."

"All the different platforms are well integrated."

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

"The option to use various administrative tools, like Integrity Manager, is a valuable feature."

"MicroStrategy has powerful data security features, which are crucial these days. For example, when users view data in MicroStrategy, they're only allowed to see a portion based on the permissions. When we evaluated other solutions like Power BI or Tableau, we found the security is very poor. They can't help us secure access to the data."

"I really like the visualizations. I like how you can put large data sets in there, then the user can quickly go through the data and drill down at various levels to understand things."

"The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs."

"It's useful if you need to create dashboards that you check every day. Also, we can create a queue, but it will be updated every day with scheduled updates."

"Provides us charts and graphs for reporting."

"The drill-down functionality is also very good."

"I have never had any problems with the stability."

More MicroStrategy pros

Cons

"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."

"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."

"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."

"It's wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."

"It is a bit expensive, but it does the job."

"Extracting data is a little slow."

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

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

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

"The In-Memory Capability (cubes) needs a lot of improvement."

"If you compare it with Power BI with the DAX language, it would be great to put that into MicroStrategy."

"They need to improve on having more professional, well-equipped premium support."

"This solution is missing enhanced features in the dashboards."

"There is room for improvement on the graphs."

"The online community page of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"There are a lot of offerings, and we are not fully using everything to its advantage."

"We have not invested nor are we planning to invest in MicroStrategy's mobile platform."

More MicroStrategy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"While initial cost of MicroStrategy is still on the higher side, the long-term benefits brings down overall cost of ownership significantly as compared to other tools like Tableau/Cognos."

"For larger businesses, the pricing is logical."

"MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product."

"They made a change in the licensing module some time ago and we can now use all the enterprise tools for free."

"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."

"We are waiting to switch to Microsoft Power BI because MicroStrategy is too costly."

"We have one of the best pricing available, but we can't disclose that information."

"They need to work on their license structure. They are not competitive against somebody like SAP BusinessObjects. We had a quote that was almost a third the price, coming from SAP BusinessObjects, and it's not a better platform. It's not cheaper. They do concurrent user licensing, while MicroStrategy does named user licensing, and that was literally the only difference. But it made a $500,000 difference. They've got to do something to make themselves more competitive. Maybe it's assessing your business users and what you really expect them to use, and maybe giving a reduced price on that. But they are already giving us a 60% discount and they were still a million or so above, over a three-year time period. That doesn't account for synergies as we get from on-site resources that are already available, but I thought that that was a big, big deficit for them."

More MicroStrategy pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

49%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?

The cost of IBM Planning Analytics is not cheap, considering the amount of money involved. However, it offers good ROI for customers.

What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?

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

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?

The stability of the product is good.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?

For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.

What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?

MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI. Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain as...

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Planning Analytics

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

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Tableau vs MicroStrategy

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs MicroStrategy

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs MicroStrategy

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Cognos vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM Planning Analytics

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

Download MicroStrategy product report

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

No data available

Overview

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

Company: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms. With direct operations in 26 countries worldwide and approximately 2,000 employees, our mission is to provide enterprise analytics, mobility, and security platforms that are flexible, powerful, scalable and user-friendly. To learn more, visit MicroStrategy online, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Product portfoilio:

MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise™ empowers leading organizations to analyze vast amounts of data and distribute actionable business insight throughout an enterprise through two distinct offerings: MicroStrategy Analytics™ and MicroStrategy Desktop™. MicroStrategy Analytics delivers reports and dashboards, and enables users to conduct ad hoc analysis and share insights anywhere, anytime, via mobile devices or the Web. It also combines the agility and productivity of self-service visual data discovery with the security, scalability, and governance features of enterprise-grade business intelligence. MicroStrategy Desktop is a standalone, on-premise visual data discovery tool designed to enable business users to analyze and understand their data. MicroStrategy Mobile™ enables organizations to rapidly build custom business applications that deliver analytics combined with transactions, multimedia, and custom workflows to mobile devices. MicroStrategy Secure Cloud™ combines all of the enterprise analytics, mobile, and security features in MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise with powerful and scalable data integration, validation, and warehousing services — all delivered in an environment where organizations can deploy transformational analytics applications in minutes.

Usher, MicroStrategy’s breakthrough security solution, is a powerful mobile security platform designed to dematerialize traditional forms of identity verification (such as passwords, tokens, and physical badges) and replace them with a single mobile identity badge that is cryptographically linked to its owner’s smartphone and dynamically linked to an enterprise’s existing identity repositories. Usher works on standard Android and iOS smartphones, and also boasts an Apple Watch™ integration.

Sample Customers

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

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.

Business Performance Management