IBM Operational Decision Manager vs Pega Platform comparison

IBM and Pega are both solutions in the Business Rules Management category. IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while Pega is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Pega users who would recommend it.

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Read 15 IBM Operational Decision Manager reviews

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587 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pega Platform

Read 78 Pega Platform reviews

456 Views
369 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Pega Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

Pega Platform and IBM Operational Decision Manager are leading contenders in decision management solutions. Pega Platform holds a competitive edge in pricing and customer support, while IBM supports its higher pricing with advanced features that deliver significant value.

Features: Pega Platform offers automation tools that efficiently streamline complex processes and configure custom solutions tailored to user needs. IBM Operational Decision Manager stands out with detailed rule management capabilities, seamless integration across systems, and specialized capabilities for complex requirements.

Room for Improvement: Pega Platform could improve its learning curve to facilitate easier user adaptation and address complexity in initial training and navigation. IBM Operational Decision Manager users suggest enhancements in documentation and system performance, along with simplifying its user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pega Platform features straightforward deployment with responsive customer service praised for clarity. IBM's deployment process is more complex and requires specialized support but provides comprehensive service valued by experienced users.

Pricing and ROI: Pega Platform is cost-effective with a favorable ROI attributed to its strategic pricing model and efficient deployment. IBM Operational Decision Manager, although higher in initial cost, is perceived as delivering high ROI through its advanced functionalities that align value with pricing over time.

To learn more, read our detailed FICO Blaze Advisor vs. IBM Operational Decision Manager Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

FICO Blaze Advisor vs. IBM Operational Decision Manager

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Ranking in Business Rules Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pega Platform

Ranking in Business Rules Management

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (3rd), Process Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (7th)

Featured Reviews

Bhasker ReddyPIdintla

Technical Delivery Head at Tech Mahindra Limited

May 26, 2022

The solution provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage polices for all the applications.

We use ODM to set complex business rules. For instance, we deploy this solution for most of our banking customers because there are frequent changes in the policies and business rules. These are complex to manage for enterprise applications. ODM provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage…

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Balaji Choda

Manager Acquisition at American Express

May 9, 2024

Provides built-in frameworks that can be reused and reduces time and cost

The frameworks are built over the core Pega platform. All the codes are already built. A user can directly use the framework according to their needs. All the corresponding data models and processes already built in the framework can be reused with our custom layer. The tool reduces our costs. It is faster to implement. The solution has everything. It is model-driven. It generates its own code. It has a rules engine. Previously, Pega had its own UI. Now, we have Constellation DX API. It helps us have any user interface we need, like Angular or React. API helps create work objects in the workflow.

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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

"It has benefited our organization by having less coding changes. Thus, we save time and don't have to hire as many people."

"There are absolutely benefits to managing business rules with IBM ODM instead of hard coding them into our applications. Business can change things on the fly and they don't have to deal with us in IT to do so."

"So far, the usability is great. It's also easy to set up."

"ODM's most valuable features are that it's easy to define and divide business rules, and it can handle very large numbers of transactions per second."

"The most valuable features are the Decision center, a web UI that allows us to make direct edits to our policies or rules; the Rule Execution Server, which allows us to analyze the rules and performance; and Rule Designer, where you can write rules and decision tables."

"The business owns the rules and they're taken away from IT, so business doesn't need to ask IT to implement them, and IT doesn't need to implement them. So the business owns their decisions and their rules, and therefore, finally, they take proper ownership, and model and maintain them properly."

"With ODM as a centralized rules engine, it's easy to track. You can version the rules in the ODM engine itself."

"The effects of allowing business users to update business rules instead of IT are business users have a closer relationship with what rules they need and are able to make those rules a lot quicker in the tools that ODM provides than if an IT person had to do it, and do it in code, requiring compiling code and deploying it."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager pros

"In general, we use web services to integrate this solution with our other tools. It is the main approach we use with this solution and it integrates with all tools that we need. If you want to integrate with other solutions such ThreatFire or similar, it is possible as well."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the various workflows."

"This solution is useful for business process management if you have any banking solutions or need to manage a process."

"When our clients automate the KYC and onboarding processes, they can reduce their manual force and then deploy them in much better tasks rather than the mundane activities of selecting forms and gathering information."

"Pega BPM offers a lot of out-of-the-box functionalities."

"The new PEGA underwriting platform replaced the former underwriting system and helped to integrate other legacy systems and functionalities in one application. It also helped to save licence costs for other legacy systems."

"We find the product to be scalable."

"The solution has very helpful technical support."

More Pega Platform pros

Cons

"If merging could be just like SVN, that would help. It should be a lot simpler. That's the only thing I don't like about ODM, merging from our local computer up to the Decision Server. I feel like it could be a lot easier."

"I would like to have integration of the user interfaces, and they are putting them together in the next version of the solution."

"One area for improvement is master data integration. That should be more fluid. The others are hierarchical drop-down lists, and hierarchical master data."

"Extracting specific rules could be better. We've had to do a lot of custom work on that. The testing, we've played a little bit with it, but we have our own testing methods. If it could be as simple as we have for our custom work, that would be great."

"I think there should be a facility for business to really create rules from scratch. The only part for IT should be to make sure the platform is stable, the technology platform, but everything else, the business should be able to create those rules."

"ODM could be improved with better integration with other platforms."

"There is some promise of how decisions could take advantage of machine learning and artificial intelligence. That has been slow to develop. It is still not clear where the market will take it, but that is something that I am looking forward to down the road."

"The only thing we have trouble with is integrating IBM ODM with the cloud. The product is on-prem, and we need to migrate the rules to the cloud. It's a hectic process."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager cons

"There have been some performance scalability issues. Suppose you want to add more users. You go from, say, 800 users to 1,500 users, and sometimes that creates issues for which there is no clear explanation. To fix it you have to escalate it with customer service and sometimes the response is not up to the mark in resolving those issues."

"From a technical point of view, it would be helpful to have some advanced analytics to help with configuration. We have a lot of unwanted features and it would be good to configure it more appropriately so that we are using just exactly what we need."

"I believe that Pega's strategy when it comes to the UX part is not that great currently as compared to the other emerging BPM tools in the market."

"First-time customers will find its licensing tricky. The technical support team for this solution could be faster in resolving tickets."

"The product's artificial intelligence capabilities could be improved. More advanced AI features could further optimize process automation and decision-making."

"The UI layer is a concern since it is native to them and embedded into the code."

"We need more light retail BPM tools within the Pega system. However, Pega is mostly for big companies."

"PegaRULES should provide a more drag-and-drop interface to make it a low-code, no-code product."

More Pega Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ODM's pricing could be more competitive as there are open-source business rules engines that are becoming standard."

"We have a client who had a three-month ROI on this tool, just in additional sales, from sort of the next best action of what product that they should offer to their clients. ROI can be very quick with this product."

"We made a lifetime purchase. We purchased it by number of PVUs for our stage and product environments."

"It will definitely improve the cash flow of our clients, thereby it will improve the cash flow to us."

"It is an expensive solution."

"It was not a large cost. It was a one-time cost."

"The price could be lower."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. Because of our special relationship, all the training certifications are free of cost. All our employees can do Pega certifications at zero cost. It is all on Pega."

"They have both on-premise and cloud licensing. If you are a small to medium company, go for the cloud option because that eliminates a lot of the setting up of your DevTest and performance environments, multiple environments, because you can buy that from Pega with the cloud option. So your setup time really goes down. If you're a large company, then you're better off putting it within your company. You have other skill resources within your company to create environments."

"Pega is expensive."

"Its pricing is on the higher side, but they have come up with different plans and different small products that can be used by smaller organizations that don't have that much money to spend. They have different pricing packages depending on the number of users or depending upon the number of cases created in the production or live environment."

"The price of Pega BPM falls on the higher side of the spectrum if I were to compare it with other solutions in the market."

"It is cost-effective for medium enterprises. It is cheaper than ServiceNow."

"The product pricing is considered reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."

More Pega Platform pricing and cost advice

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813,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Operational Decision Manager?

It is a scalable solution.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Operational Decision Manager?

I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Operational Decision Manager?

The solution's licensing cost needs improvement.

See all answers

Is Pega BPM easy to work with and can beginners utilize this software?

You do need some preparation to be able to use all functions of Pega BPM. However, all users of this platform are in luck as it comes with good documentation and you can learn pretty much everythin...

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Have you encountered any issues while using Pega BPM and were you assisted by the company?

My company has been using this tool for years and the only issue we have had, if you can call it that, was while setting it up. When we were setting it up initially, we had some drawbacks and could...

See all answers

When you consider the features and benefits of Pega BPM, would you say this product is fairly priced?

Pega BPM can be considered overpriced for some; it all depends on the size of your company and the requirements of your customers. Sure, there are products out there that do the things that Pega B...

See all answers

Comparisons

FICO Blaze Advisor vs IBM Operational Decision Manager

Compared 73% of the time

More IBM Operational Decision Manager Competitors

ServiceNow vs Pega Platform

Compared 24% of the time

Camunda vs Pega Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Appian vs Pega Platform

Compared 7% of the time

IBM BPM vs Pega Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More Pega Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager

October 2024

Download IBM Operational Decision Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Pega Platform

September 2024

Download Pega Platform product report

Also Known As

IBM Operational Decision Management, ILOG JRules, IBM ODM

Pega BPM, Pegasystems, SmartBPM, PegaRULES

Learn More

IBM

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Pega

Overview

IBM Operational Decision Manager is a comprehensive decision automation platform that helps you discover, capture, analyze, automate and govern rules-based business decisions. Anyone can work with it―from IT to business-line leaders. In seconds, it can authorize a loan, decide on a promotion or detect a cross-sell opportunity with high precision and customization. With IBM Operational Decision Manager, your applications will continuously remain up to date and well aligned with the changing business objectives of your organization. It is available in editions for both cloud and private cloud environments.

Pega Platform facilitates business process management, case management, and workflow automation for industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare. It supports digital transformation and customer service enhancements with its low-code capabilities and seamless integrations.

Pega Platform enables users to create efficient systems for case management, financial operations, and digital transformations. It provides tools for client onboarding, quoting, claims processing, customer experience improvements, and content management. Pega's low-code approach allows for the automation of complex processes, making it suitable for enterprises looking for adaptability and rapid deployment. While it offers strong real-time analytics and decision automation, users acknowledge challenges in user interface, integration, and performance aspects. High costs and a learning curve need attention, and enhancements in AI features and cloud services are desired.

What are the key features of Pega Platform?

Easy Implementation: Quick setup for fast project kick-off.
Seamless Process Adaptation: Adapts processes efficiently as business needs evolve.
Fast Prototyping: Enables rapid model creation and testing.
Unified Architecture: Streamlines operations across the platform.
Low-Code Environment: Facilitates swift application development.
Scalability: Supports growth and high-demand scenarios.
Real-Time Analytics: Provides immediate insights into operations.
Decision Automation: Automates standard decision-making processes.
Reusable Components: Encourages efficiency in development through component reuse.

What benefits do organizations find with Pega Platform?

Rapid Deployment: Quick launch of new processes saves time and resources.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces costs through automation and streamlined workflows.
Customer-Centric Solutions: Enhances customer experiences through integrated systems.
Improved Productivity: Automation frees up employee resources for other tasks.
Reliable Performance: Consistent platform performance ensures business continuity.

In banking, Pega Platform automates loan processing, accelerates customer onboarding, and manages compliance. Insurance companies benefit from streamlined claims processing and policy management. Healthcare sectors use the platform for patient engagement and care coordination, enabling organizations to adapt quickly to changing industry requirements.

Sample Customers

Odyssey Transportation & Logistics Corporation, Swiss Customs, Athletes' Performance, L_elo, Versicherungskammer Bayern

The State of Maine, ANZ, Coca-Cola, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ME, New South Wales, OptumRx, Texas Department of Transportation, UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement

See our list of best Business Rules Management vendors.

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