IBM Planning Analytics vs MicroStrategy comparison

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IBM Planning Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Performance Management Report (Updated: November 2024).

Business Performance Management

November 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (4th)

MicroStrategy

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

159

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 9.5%, up 8.4% compared to last year.
MicroStrategy, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.4% mindshare, down 3.5% 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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Azhagupandi Parthiban

Vice President Of Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Good for security and performance but lack of user-friendliness

MicroStrategy, for me, it's the visualization and user-friendliness that needs improvement. When compared to Power BI and Tableau, that's their sweet spot. They're super easy to pick up and use. Plus, they've got this cool association feature that updates when you change the timeframe. But with MicroStrategy, there's a lot of room for improvement, especially in integrating with developed mobile solutions using MicroStrategy. We struggled to deploy to iOS, and the Android adaptation was a big challenge for us. Everything that worked in iOS wouldn't work in Android, and videos and calendars were a whole other mess. So, user-friendliness for non-technical users and mobile performance on Android, particularly in India, where it's the dominant platform, those are my two big areas for improvement.

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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

"Planning Analytics' best features include automatic updates and slicing."

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

"The ease of use is valuable. The fact that it's plugged into Excel spreadsheets is also valuable. It provides additional functionality where you can slice and dice the information in a way that you can't do with spreadsheets"

"The tool is flexible."

"The flexibility of IBM Planning Analytics is a great feature of this solution. The design flexibility with data rules and defining calculations The ability to combine online and offline calculations are a benefit. Additionally, the forecasting features and predictive analytics is very good."

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

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

"All the different platforms are well integrated."

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

"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."

"Semi-automatic support of implementing date dimensions, including delta to prior year implementation."

"Stability is great, especially with package deployments. It is very consistent and stable."

"It scales well. It used to have only a max of four I-servers, but I think recently, somewhere in version 10, they doubled that, so you can have eight I-servers now."

"I haven't come across any bugs."

"Workstation and Desktop on the client side will speed up some development activities."

"The hyperintelligence is the most valuable feature."

"It has landing pages, and that makes life easy for exhibiting things."

More MicroStrategy pros

Cons

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

"Planning Analytics could be improved by adding automation features."

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

"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."

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

"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

"MicroStrategy's mobile dashboard is still not a RESTful design."

"I would like to see the enterprise version available in a demo or as a trial version."

"One of the things that I want to see MicroStrategy do is become more cloud native. Right now, the deployment on cloud is very easy to ruin, it is very much like spinning up separate VMs."

"Currently, the client view looks completely different depending on what you are building."

"If there are some advanced visualization features - maybe I'm not aware of them - but if there were a Vitara which could work on top of MicroStrategy, it would make sense for MicroStrategy to have that within their own library. So they should add more visualizations to the library."

"Getting our data to work with the tool is where we are having issues."

"The solution's licensing could be improved because its cost is heavy on the pockets."

"There is room for improvement on the graphs."

More MicroStrategy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."

"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."

"They gave us a good deal."

"All BI software vendors' list prices are high. It's about a price that fits the customer's needs. And I think MicroStrategy has some flexibility in its pricing model where we can easily demonstrate a total cost of ownership comparison against any of the other players."

"The pricing is fair."

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

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

"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

48%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

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?

There is a need to improve the automatic generation of metrics in MicroStrategy, as currently everything must be done manually. Additionally, the hierarchy creation process in MicroStrategy could b...

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Product Reports

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

IBM Planning Analytics

December 2024

Download MicroStrategy product report

December 2024

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

No data available

Learn More

IBM

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.

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.