BARC previews latest research study sponsored by Tagetik

Examining Planning and Budgeting in Europe

At Tagetik 2008 User Conference, Business Application Research Center (BARC) released the preliminary results of its latest study titled "Planning and Budgeting in Europe – Status quo and opportunities for performance management in large and medium corporations”. The independent analyst researched different planning requirements and approaches in 500 European companies.

"We focused on planning and budgeting due to the complex and changing nature of these processes," explains Dr. Carsten Bange, CEO at BARC. "As organisations grow and more stakeholders become involved both at national and international levels, these processes quickly become even more challenging."

The study found that in addition to traditional planning approaches a strong majority (68%) of the companies surveyed use cash-flow planning and 56% use, or are about to deploy, a balanced scorecard. While 54% of companies without subsidiaries rely on one-year, short-term planning, 31% plan 3-5 years in advance. The opposite trend, however, holds true for corporations with subsidiaries where the majority (52%) conducts long-term planning of 3-5 years and 36% plan only one year ahead.

How far do you plan into the future?

The study also reveals that there is a connection between compliance and planning requirements. The majority (72%) already incorporate plausibility checks and tracking features for users in their planning processes. Over a third of the companies surveyed even support tracking features for internal and external audits, process documentation and risk management.

Which of these compliance issues do you address as part of the planning process?

With regards to enabling technologies, 82% of companies still rely on Excel in some form for planning. But only 7% are satisfied with the choice, unless supported by other planning systems. Companies that work with specialised planning software have the highest approval level with 72% being rather or very satisfied.

Satisfaction with the current planning and budgeting system

The study also confirms that planning is a long, expensive process. The companies devoted an average of 42 days per year to planning activities. The results also show that planning is more time-consuming for multinational companies (annual average of 55 days) as well as those in the Banking and Insurance industry (45% longer than other industries). In addition, companies with specialised planning software had 25% shorter cycles compared to those only using Excel. Those who utilise a single solution had a 50% shorter cycle than those using a combination of four or more solutions.

Investment in the planning process
Median working days per year per entity

"Tagetik has always aligned its strategy with customer satisfaction and needs," explains Manuel Vellutini, Chief Operating Officer of Tagetik. "It is important to understand how these changes have affected the planning and budgeting processes for companies in Europe and throughout the world.”

“Our vision at Tagetik is to develop a software solution that unifies the processes of planning, budgeting and forecasting on both strategic and operational levels as well as with other processes such as financial closing and reporting,” summarises Vellutini. “The findings in BARC’s latest research study solidify our intuition and we are pleased that our software development is on target with what companies need and want.”

BARC Business Application Research Center

Business Application Research Center – BARC - is a leading independent software industry analyst delivering information to more than 1000 customers each year. For more than ten years, BARC has specialised in core research areas including Performance Management, Business Intelligence and Data Management as well as Enterprise Content Management. BARC publishes the largest end-user survey on Business Intelligence products – the BI Survey – and the most sophisticated in-depth BI product evaluation – The OLAP Report. More than 30 highly qualified professionals deliver 100% unbiased and well-founded knowledge about the software market with software evaluations, conferences, market research and consulting. BARC has offices in London, Wuerzburg/Germany and Barcelona and partners worldwide.

Tagetik

Tagetik is a global provider of the new generation of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and Financial Governance (FG) solutions. The extensive experience in the Corporate Performance Management market has enabled Tagetik to offer a software solution that helps companies automate processes, obtain the necessary transparency and data accuracy for compliance, improve governance, reduce costs as well as meet industry-specific requirements.

Tagetik CPM is an innovative single solution that leverages cross platform technology and delivers unified and faster process cycles, powerful scalability, short implementation time and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) thanks to its out-of-the-box CPM Processes. Tagetik CPM is the first completely financial closed-loop, double entry solution, that unifies in a single product all core CPM processes (budgeting, planning & forecasting, profitability modeling & optimisation, dashboard & scorecarding, financial consolidation, statutory & management reporting), extended CPM processes (such as credit reporting & analysis, ICT performance management, compliance), vertical CPM processes (such as regulatory accounting, cash flow management by project and regulatory reporting) and Financial Governance processes.

Tagetik CPM incorporates the knowledge and best practices gained in over a decade of real-world projects. Tagetik has over 300 customers representing all industries including Financial Services (Unicredit), Manufacturing (Barilla), Insurances (Talanx), Fashion (Gucci), Healthcare (SSL Healthcare), Automotive (Yamaha).