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IBM Planning Analytics vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (4th)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

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.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 22.4% mindshare, up 22.4% since last year.
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Amol Rane - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics
The only issue is with permissions. Sometimes, despite granting granular permissions, dashboards are visible to people who shouldn't have access. It's difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. Sometimes dashboards are visible to stakeholders even though they should not have permission. It's a bit difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance, and the permissions should be easier to understand. At this point, we have to go through a lot of details. It takes a lot of time to understand the permissions, so if there were better options available within the Power BI setup, it would be quite beneficial, especially for admins. So, there should be a more user-friendly dashboard appearance and easier-to-understand permissions.

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 that it is able to slice and dice the data."
"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."
"It's a very stable, robust product."
"Planning Analytics' best features include automatic updates and slicing."
"Navigating through the data to make analysis is really quick."
"The product's stability is good."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use and flexible."
"I like that I can use Power BI to upload data. That is very important for me. The visualization is also convenient and easy to use."
"Good CS and administration."
"Data integration is very useful in Power BI. It lets me collect data from many sources. For example, I can get data from Oracle databases and SQL Server databases at the same time."
"The Microsoft Power BI app is very good. It's also very flexible."
"The visualization and reporting are the most valuable features of this solution."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects are used."
"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."
"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 wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."
"Extracting data is a little slow."
"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."
"Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way."
"here are still better UI designs they can go through. I'm assuming they are focusing more on capabilities rather than look-and-feel designs."
"Real-time updating needs improvement."
"I would like to see a feature that connects with a Machine Learning platform like a RapidMiner or Azure Machine Learning Studio. It would be great to have a Machine Learning application link to connect."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"I am taking a course to be able to use the solution better. Some aspects of the solution are not straightforward."
"Sluggish performance when handling large amounts of data."
"The solution is somewhat costly in comparison with MSBI tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."
"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."
"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."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."
"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."
"Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."
"I have never worked on licensing, but I have heard that it is reasonable."
"All of the licenses are on an annual basis, but Microsoft will amortize it to an extent. If it's five years, they'll include the possible interest they might have the following year. Ideally, their licensing scheme is an annual license, but they make it easier for some of our clients to take a five-year license but package everything inside for them to buy the license for five years."
"From a cost point of view, it's competitive in the enterprise space, although it's not as competitive when you add up all of the additional costs. Things like integrations cost extra and it's probably where Microsoft makes more of the money."
"As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution."
"The price of the solution can be expensive if you want to synchronize your data more."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
report
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
 

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

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
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.