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 8.1. 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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518 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pega Platform

Read 82 Pega Platform reviews

405 Views
336 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Pega Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Pega Platform and IBM Operational Decision Manager compete in business process management and decision automation. While Pega Platform stands out with strong integration capabilities and low-code development, IBM Operational Decision Manager excels in advanced decision management, making it the better option for complex decision-making needs.

Features: Pega Platform offers robust integration options, dynamic case management, and agility in low-code development. IBM Operational Decision Manager provides powerful decision automation, rule authoring, and rule execution capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Pega could enhance its advanced rule-handling capabilities and decision automation features. Improvements to update processes from older versions could be beneficial. IBM might simplify deployment to reduce complexity and improve initial user engagement. Enhancing ease of use for beginners might also be considered.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pega Platform simplifies deployment with cloud-native services and responsive support, facilitating faster implementation. IBM Operational Decision Manager requires more intricate configuration but offers comprehensive customer support for navigating complex features.

Pricing and ROI: Pega Platform presents a flexible pricing model that offers significant ROI through efficient development processes, lowering overall costs. IBM Operational Decision Manager involves higher setup costs but provides long-term value with its robust decision automation, making it a strategic investment for decision-heavy environments.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform

January 2025

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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 Operational Decision Ma...

Ranking in Business Rules Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

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

7.0

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

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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Shibankur Mishra

Senior Consultant at Capgemini

It lets you do any modifications easily compared to legacy solutions as it's a low-code, no-code tool

What PegaRULES should work on is the integration aspect. I can integrate it with other platforms, but that can take time. It would be good if integration could be automated or if the tool had more out-of-the-box integration features. Apart from that, I can do most of the integrations with other platforms in PegaRULES. Still, from a development perspective, as a software developer, I would like to see an easier way to implement integrations where I can click a few screens or do less coding for integration. Still, if I have to do any integration, it would be possible in PegaRULES, but it would take two to three hours to complete. I want a more straightforward integration process in the tool because compared to Microsoft Power Platform, another low-code, no-code tool, Microsoft Power Platform is relatively straightforward to integrate with Twitter. You can quickly get the feeds from Twitter. Microsoft Power Platform has an out-of-the-box integration setup with Twitter. Based on this example, PegaRULES could have a more straightforward integration piece. If the tool had more default integration pieces or out-of-the-box integrations with other platforms by default, that would help a lot. For example, Twitter integration, ChatGPT integration, etc., especially because ChatGPT is becoming popular. Otherwise, I'll have to write some custom code and then create the connectors and the HTTP connectors and connect the connectors to the system manually, which takes time. I want default integrations that I can plug and play to make integrations in PegaRULES easier. Integration with the latest AI is a feature I want to see in PegaRULES. For example, an out-of-the-box integration with ChatGPT because I'm working on an integration piece for one of my own POCs, but I need custom coding to build that feature. I need a feature that lets you click a button to integrate PegaRULES with multiple platforms to make the integration process very easy. Less custom coding when it comes to integration is also what I want to see in the tool, though that impacts developers like me rather than the customer experience because it's more the backend.

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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

"The most valuable feature is the deployment part because it is very easy to deploy. Even a businessperson or someone from a non-technical background can easily deploy it and the rules will work."

"Its ability to use decision tables to codify the rules and manage them better."

"The solution has reduced the backlog for IT."

"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."

"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."

"It is a scalable solution."

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

"It's easy to build, easy to adopt for the business. Business can change those rules. I think IBM has done a good job in re-architecting the product with Decision Center as its centralized view, where the business can make changes to the rules dynamically."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager pros

"We can use the rules as per the class."

"Fast prototyping."

"One of the key advantages of PegaRULES is its out-of-the-box capabilities, which eliminate the need to build certain functionalities from scratch. For instance, features like "get next" in process flows allow for the seamless continuation of a flow without the requirement of additional activity creation. This serves as an illustration of how existing components can be leveraged rather than starting from scratch. It provides a solid foundation, to begin with, and allows for enhancements at a higher level, making it a beneficial starting point."

"The case management functionality of this solution has been most valuable."

"The latest releases of PegaRULES are scalable, advanced, and can be easily integrated into your environment."

"Overall, the ability to integrate with multiple applications and effective case management is the most valuable."

"There are a lot of frameworks in the product. I use Pega PRPC the most."

"It cuts down the time taken for coding. Earlier it used take for us four hours to do a particular code. Now this can be done in less than 30 minutes. That's the kind of productivity gains you can get."

More Pega Platform pros

Cons

"An area for improvement is that the documentation for ODM is huge and not very clear."

"It hasn't totally helped our decision-making."

"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."

"The solution's licensing cost needs improvement."

"Get to the cloud."

"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."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager cons

"PEGA claims that they provide a LOW-CODE-PLATFORM which is easy to use - even for "citizen developers" (i.e. business employees). If you really want to use all the features out of this platform, you definitely need a lot of experience and a lot of training."

"Pega BPM's documentation should be improved, especially for freshers or new trainees."

"This is an expensive solution."

"Pega BPM could improve the UI, it is poorly designed to have a good UX experience."

"The initial setup takes time."

"Pega is claiming they're into low code but as per Gartner Magic Quadrant, Pega is not there now."

"The cost of licensing could be improved."

"There is a scarcity of resources who have worked with this solution before."

More Pega Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"It is an expensive solution."

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

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

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

"Pricing is good."

"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."

"There are multiple Pega licensing models, including outcome- and revenue-based licensing models"

"I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."

"The licensing model for Pega BPM needs to be improved."

"The price is a bit expensive."

"Licensing is expensive. You need to wisely select between per user and per case."

"In terms of the pricing for Pega BPM, other solutions may be cheaper, but it doesn't matter if Pega BPM has a higher price tag because what's important is that it's the best solution, and that is what people look for. If I would rate the pricing for the solution, I'd give it three out of five. You have to pay extra for additional features in Pega BPM."

More Pega Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

33%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

28%

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.

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What needs improvement with IBM Operational Decision Manager?

The solution's licensing cost needs improvement.

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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...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager

January 2025

Download IBM Operational Decision Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Pega Platform

December 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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform

January 2025

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