Yphise Software Product Assessment, Strategy Management, December 2008

Yphise portfolio of valuable projects
Independent research since 1985

Software Product Assessment EXECUTIVE VOLUME

SELECTED BUSINESS CASE
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

STRATEGY MANAGEMENT

To effectively meet preservation, improvement or disruption
objectives

IS Information
GM Governance
Systems

SO Service
PR Projects
Management

Abstract 3
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW
Benefits 4
Yphise shortlist 8
Yphise ranking 14
APPENDIX
Assessment overview 19

Yphise ISO 9001:2000-certified independent quotations
of software products

Yphise ISO 9001:2000-certified ongoing research program since 1985

Yphise independent research continuously monitors the strategies and solutions of all successful software
vendors in order to select valuable and high-priority projects for improving the business performance. Each
year, Yphise research draws up the portfolio of valuable projects that the executives should consider when
making investment decisions. Yphise transforms high-level strategies or complicated problems in concrete
projects with accurate benefits and valuable software solutions.

Yphise puts forth investment recommendations on software solutions based on accurate assessment
according to valuable business cases. Yphise judgment relies on a detailed assessment of each solution.
Yphise has unique experience in identifying the useful functional and technical requirements in order to score
solutions according to benefits expected by large companies.

The Yphise ongoing research program has helped executives plan, prioritize, conduct and control the useful
software projects in order to increase business performance since 1985. Our independence since 1985
proves our unparalleled expertise in helping the executives stand back from operational pressure and arrive
at sound decisions focused on the issues of large companies. ISO 9001:2000-certification of our research
program is evidence of this expertise. This unique distinction states independence and robust methodology
for assessing products according to issues and priorities of large companies.

The portfolio of valuable software projects SIPP report
aimed at IT steering committee Software Investment & Project Planning

Each selected business case

The project qualified at executive level: benefits, scope, EXECUTIVE vol
key requirements, final short-list of valuable solutions,
ranking of the solutions

The detailed assessment of the project

− The shortlist of solutions of interest, the detailed ASSESSMENT vol
assessment of each shortlisted solution, our final and selection ASSISTANT
ranking of the solutions
− The results in Excel format

− The business and IT benefits REQUIREMENTS vol
− The useful set of requirements

The business cases that represent valuable Selected Business Cases
investments and lead to pragmatic projects
according to issues of interest to executives

Continuous monitoring of the marketplace Ongoing monitoring

yphise@yphise.com
PO BOX 142, Southbury, CT 06488 - USA T 1 203-405-2549 - F 1 203-405-2569
6 rue Beaubourg - F-75004 PARIS T (33) 1 44 59 93 00 - F (33) 1 44 59 93 09

This report is produced and edited by Yphise. Yphise is an independent analysis company. Yphise cannot be
held responsible for the use made of the opinions and results provided. No part of this document may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express written consent of Yphise.
© Yphise. December 2008.

ABSTRACT

We are pleased to provide you with our opinion on the Strategy Management business
case.

Our research demonstrates that the Strategy Management business case represents a
priority investment. Executives can invest in all confidence because this business case
leads to concrete projects with strong benefits, accurate scope and valuable software
solutions, backed by the commitment of vendors and by useful strengths.

Consequently, we select the Strategy Management business case in the Yphise portfolio
of valuable projects that executives should consider when making investment decisions.

The Strategy Management business case is essential for all companies in any activity
sector. Each company or business line must be successful in conducting continuous
transformation in order to survive. Conducting strategies is always a difficult challenge
because it is extremely difficult in real life to stand back from operational pressure.
Strategy Management solutions are an essential foundation for effective management of
business strategies.

This business case is selected in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities for the
second time. We increase our commitment to Strategy Management solutions because
they are aligned on the challenging demand for change in any company or business line.

We put forth this investment recommendation based on our independent ongoing
research. We remind you that, since 1985, this independent research has been
continuously monitoring the strategies and solutions of all successful software vendors in
order to select high-priority projects for improving the business performance. This
research is ISO 9001:2000-certified (since 1999). This unique distinction is evidence of
independence and robust methodology for assessing software solutions according to
issues and priorities of large companies.

We were very pleased to closely work with the experts of each shortlisted vendor during
this research. We are sure that you will be excited by this investment opportunity and by
launching the corresponding project.

Yphise research team
December 2008

3 © Yphise

BENEFITS

Strategy Management solutions help assess company overall performance. They help
drive business objectives, whether financial or nonfinancial (e.g. customer satisfaction,
risks), tangible or intangible (e.g. brand, customer capital, human capital).

Strategy Management solutions help define business objectives and associated indicators.
They provide population, reporting functions and dashboards to effectively monitor these
indicators. They offer analytical and predictive functions in order to anticipate changes
and trends.

Strategy Management solutions also help manage the operational strategies associated
with objectives. Strategies include all actions to be implemented in order to meet the
objectives (action plans, budgets and resources management, collaboration). They
facilitate and promote objectives and strategies management over time, whether in the
short, medium or long term.

Benefits for the business

Our research demonstrates that Strategy Management solutions are a key investment for
all companies in any activity sector.

Each company and business line must be successful in conducting continuous
transformation in order to survive. Conducting strategies is always a difficult challenge
because it is extremely difficult in real life to stand back from operational pressure.
Effective conducting of strategies requires intelligent use of Strategy Management
solutions.

Strategies are conducted at any level in a company, from departments to business lines
and to the overall company. They can combine preservation, improvement and disruption
objectives. Consistent management of strategies throughout the company requires
effective Strategy Management solutions.

Successful achievement of business transformation and objectives

Business lines need to be very successful in attaining their objectives, at any level.
These objectives are not only quantified or financial (e.g. revenues, productivity) but
can also be qualitative or intangible targets (e.g. quality of service delivered to
customers, innovation, risks). The business lines need dedicated solutions in order to
easily manage and monitor indicators related to their overall targets.

Business lines also need more than just indicators and dashboards in order to meet
their objectives. They need to successfully conduct the associated strategies. It is
therefore essential to define relationships between high-level objectives and
operational actions (e.g. budgets, resources, action plans) in order to achieve the
goals.

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Finally, a strategy can be short-, medium or long-term. Business lines need to
anticipate, simulate and analyze their strategies in progress. It is essential to provide
simulation or analytical functions in order to assess the strategies.

Strategy Management solutions address these issues. They help define and drive
indicators, whether tangible or intangible. They provide operational management
functions in order to conduct and monitor the strategies. They facilitate strategy
management over time via trend analysis, simulation or advanced analytical functions.

Successful business involvement in achieving the objectives

A key challenge in strategy management is to involve the useful stakeholders, from
executives to employees, including middle management and experts. Each business
line and department has to understand the overall strategy and its contribution.
People need clear understanding of their individual responsibility. This is extremely
difficult to achieve. Strategy Management solutions help involve and challenge the
various stakeholders over time.

Strategy Management solutions give visibility on the strategies. They help individual
collaborators understand their objectives, contributions and deadlines. They also
enable adequate communication and collaboration in order to challenge collaborators
and help team building. They are essential for guaranteeing adequate involvement and
motivation of individual stakeholders.

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Benefits for the IT processes

The main benefits Effectiveness

for the IT processes
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Architecture
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Data Publishing
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Maintenance
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Security
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Productivity

Useful Essential

Benefits for the IT processes

Architecture

The architecture process guarantees that the information system is in line with
requirements of the business lines, in terms of operations or strategies. It manages
the flexibility of the operational or decisional systems in order to sustain this
alignment over time.

Strategy Management solutions are essential in order to ensure flexibility in systems
aimed at assessing, conducting and controlling the strategies. They are effective
platforms that include useful functions in order to define or change strategies. They
enable easy definition and population of indicators from multiple and heterogeneous
data sources (including structured and unstructured data). They provide
comprehensive and integrated functions for helping collaboration between all
stakeholders, for planning and monitoring the actions in order to meet the objectives
and for defining adequate dashboard.

Data publishing

The data publishing process manages the useful propagation of data from operational
to business intelligence or collaborative systems and within these systems (e.g. from a
data warehouse to specialized datamarts).

Strategy Management solutions are essential for managing unified dashboards for a
strategy. They are effective platforms for building the indicators that integrate

6 ©Yphise

information from multiple data sources. They provide out-of-the box features for
managing the processes from data extraction on heterogeneous data sources to
building the useful indicators. They help guarantee consistency of these indicators by
providing accurate understanding and monitoring of the data used to build the
indicators.

Maintenance

The maintenance process conducts scope-limited changes. These changes must bring
added value to the business, quickly and at low cost. A key challenge of maintenance
is the guarantee of non-regression of existing systems when budgets and time frames
are tight.

Strategy Management solutions avoid many maintenance tasks by the IT teams. They
provide business users with effective features in order to define or change strategies.
They can define indicators or dashboards according to their needs. Strategy
Management solutions are also effective platforms for securing the changes that
require intervention by IT Teams. They ensure flexibility and consistency in defining
and operating the processes that build the indicators.

Security

The security process guarantees the meeting of confidentiality objectives and the
providing of robustness against fraud.

Strategy Management solutions provide accurate management of confidentiality issues
pertaining to strategies. They manage the useful security policies and the access
control to data. They define and control the authorization required to access the
indicators and to drill down to detailed information. Strategy Management solutions
also control and track the changes made to data by the users.

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YPHISE SHORTLIST

Positioning of the market segment

The evaluated market segment is a specific one, with a precise positioning and list of
solutions. To avoid confusion, we differentiate it from the following list of market
segments. A solution belonging to one of these market segments is inappropriate for
attaining the expected benefits.

Investment and Project Portfolio Management (IPPM) solutions

IPPM solutions help prioritize, plan and monitor the various projects of a portfolio.
They manage requests from the business lines. They facilitate effective qualification of
these requests. They help build consistent projects and portfolios of projects. They
allocate the resources to each project and monitor their use.

Strategy Management solutions focus on defining and managing the strategies. IPPM
solutions focus on selecting and conducting the projects and on managing the
resources allocated to the various projects of a portfolio. The actions defined by a
strategy are sometimes projects that should be managed by using IPPM solutions.
However, most actions needed in order to meet objectives are not projects requiring
IPPM solutions. Strategy Management solutions are effective platforms for defining and
managing the strategies. Strategy Management and IPPM solutions are
complementary and distinct.

E.g. Changepoint (Compuware), Clarity (CA), Planview Portfolio Management
(Planview) and Rational Portfolio Manager (IBM).

Data Integration Services (DIS) solutions

DIS solutions manage information manufacturing processes. They drive operational
access to information built through aggregation, computing and reconciliation from
various heterogeneous distributed data sources. They are key middleware to ensure
effective and reliable access to consistent, cleansed, valuable data within operational
business processes.

DIS solutions bring the right data to the right applications at the right time. They are
used for building operational systems based on service-oriented architecture (SOA).
They can also be used in front of Strategy Management solutions for providing them
with data. Strategy Management solutions help define and manage business
strategies, while DIS solutions are technical middleware used by IT experts. Strategy
Management and DIS solutions are complementary and distinct.

E.g. Business Objects Data Services (SAP), IBM Information Server (IBM) and SAS
Dataflux (Dataflux).

8 ©Yphise

This business case is included in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities (August
2008).

Integrated risk management and control (IRMC) solutions

IRMC solutions help understand and manage operational risks. They provide tools for
identifying, describing, quantifying and assessing the risks. They help define and
manage action plans in order to implement consistent risk response. They track and
monitor the advancement of action plans. IRMC solutions help define the control
activities required to mitigate the risks.

IRMC solutions are dedicated to risk management and especially internal controls,
while Strategy Management solutions focus on managing all the objectives and
business issues of a company. Risk or compliance issues may be included in the
objectives in order to manage and monitor by means of Strategy Management
solutions. However, Strategy Management solutions are not aimed at accurately
managing the risks and internal controls. The two solutions are distinct and
complementary.

E.g. Aris Governance, Risk & Compliance Management (IDS Scheer), BWise GRC
solution (BWise) and Mega GRC Suite (Mega).

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) solutions

BAM solutions monitor how the business runs. They provide business users with real-
time intelligence on business risks and opportunities. They alert the appropriate
stakeholders of any dysfunction or unusual situation. They deliver the information
required to drive the business and make appropriate and consistent decisions for the
business. They highlight the actual business situation and the expected trend based on
information collected from the applications or any other sources.

BAM solutions focus on operational and real-time control of business activities.
Strategy Management solutions help define and conduct strategies that change the
business activities in order to meet preservation, improvement or disruption
objectives. Strategy Management and BAM solutions are distinct.

E.g. BusinessBridge (Systar), Websphere Business Monitor (IBM), webMethods
Optimize (Software AG) and Tibco Business Factors (Tibco).

Business intelligence (BI) solutions

BI solutions help managers, business operators or analysts monitor and understand
business activity for the purpose of decision making. They focus on providing user-
friendly functions for querying and reporting the data in datamarts, data warehouses
or operational databases.

BI solutions help prepare reports and define dashboards, while Strategy Management
solutions help define and conduct strategies. BI solutions are used for accurate
understanding of business activities in order to define new objectives. Strategy

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Management solutions are then used to plan the useful strategy associated with the
objectives and to monitor its implementation. Strategy Management and BI solutions
are complementary and distinct.

E.g. BusinessObjects (BusinessObjects), Cognos BI (Cognos), Hyperion BI+ (Oracle)
and SAS Business Intelligence (SAS Institute).

Operational predictive analysis (OPA) solutions

OPA solutions manage real-time predictive analysis within applications in order to
support decision making. Predictive analysis forecasts and identifies outcomes based
on history and on past complex and uncertain behaviors. Predictive analysis is based
on analytical models. OPA solutions help accurately define and deploy analytical
models according to business needs.

OPA solutions are aimed at embedding predictive analysis functions in operational
systems. They help optimize operational decisions within defined business processes,
while Strategy Management solutions manage strategies in order to improve processes
or invent new ones. Strategy Management and OPA solutions are distinct.

E.g. KXEN Data Mining Automation Solution (KXEN), SAS Analytics (SAS) and SPSS
Predictive Enterprise Services platform (SPSS).

This business case is included in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities (June
2008).

Text Mining (TM) solutions

TM solutions help discover and extract information from text sources. They provide
algorithms, models or other mathematical techniques for discovering significant
patterns within huge and heterogeneous sources of data.

TM solutions do not define or manage strategies. However, Strategy Management
solutions need text-mining features in order to manage strategies related to intangible
objectives. Strategy Management and TM solutions are complementary.

E.g. Statistica (StatSoft), Model Builder (Fair Isaac), SAS Enterprise Miner (SAS) and
Clementine (SPSS).

The short list for the evaluated business case

Strategy Management solutions are an essential foundation for managing the business
strategies. All companies need an effective platform for easy definition and
implementation of strategies at any level, from departments to business lines and
throughout the company.

This business case is selected in the Yphise portfolio of project opportunities for the
second time. The first time was in early of 2007. We increase our commitment to

10 ©Yphise

Strategy Management solutions because all companies have a tremendous need of
ongoing business transformation in order to survive.

In the past, the solutions focused on managing the strategies related to financial
objectives. All companies also face difficult challenges related to nonfinancial or
intangible issues. They need to respond to a wide diversity of risks and opportunities.
Strategy Management solutions are aligned on the challenging demand for change in any
company and business line.

Strategy Management solutions populate, manage and monitor any kind of objectives. A
key challenge is to retrieve and present information from various data sources (e.g.
business applications such as risk management solutions, nonstructured data from call
centers or customer emails). Strategy Management solutions manage and retrieve
information from several sources in order to provide a unified and up-to-date view of
company performance. Another challenge is to support operational management of
strategies. These strategies evolve over time according to the attained performance on
the objectives. Strategy Management solutions help define, analyze and reassess the
strategies over time. A limited short list of software vendors can meet these demanding
issues.

The shortlisted solutions contribute to the definition, communication and monitoring of
objectives and operational strategies. They include data integration and population
functions.

The ISO 9001:2000 certification of our process is evidence of independence and robust
methodology for assessing software solutions according to issues and priorities of large
companies. All shortlisted vendors demonstrate their commitment to responding to the
requirements of this process. This process challenges them, as in a customer situation. It
is evidence of the vendors' commitment to responding to a demanding independent
assessment.

Our final short list is as follows:

− Cognos Metric Studio (IBM/Cognos) ;
− Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft);
− SAS Strategic Performance Management — SPM (SAS); and
− SAP Strategy Management — SSM (SAP).

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM/Cognos), Version 8.4

Cognos specializes in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance
management (CPM). The company provides a unified platform, Cognos 8 Business
Intelligence. This platform includes various capabilities in BI (reporting, dashboarding,
analysis and metrics management, event management or data management) and CPM
(scorecarding, planning, budgeting, forecasting or financial consolidation).

The Cognos Business Intelligence platform includes several modules that meet our list
of requirements, especially Cognos Metric Studio for objectives and metrics
management. The vendor also provides Cognos Planning (financial planning,

11 ©Yphise

consolidation, budgeting, scorecarding, dashboarding) and Cognos Report Studio
(analysis, reporting). Release 8.4 was launched in October 2008.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft), Version 1

Microsoft software product lines include operating systems, server applications,
business applications, high performance computing applications and software
development tools.

The business applications include business intelligence (BI) solutions, based on
Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft focuses on three main BI domains: predictive analysis
and data mining, master data management, and performance management.

The Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server is the Microsoft performance
management solution. It includes three modules: Monitoring (dashboards and
scorecards), Analytics (data analysis) and Planning (forecasting and planning). Version
1 of MS Office PerformancePoint Server relies on Office 2007. The solution was
launched in October 2007. A new release is announced for late 2009.

SAS Strategic Performance Management — SPM (SAS), Version 2.4

SAS focuses on the business intelligence market segment with its SAS Enterprise
Intelligence Platform. Part of this solution is the SAS Financial Intelligence solution.
SAS Financial Intelligence includes three solutions: SAS Strategic Performance
Management (strategy management, improvement, monitoring), SAS Financial
Management Solution (planning and financial reporting) and SAS Activity-Based
Management. All the solutions are independent and complementary.

The SAS Strategic Performance Management (SPM) solution relies on the SAS
Enterprise Intelligence Platform (Version 9.1.4). It includes three levels and tools:
monitoring (SAS Information Delivery Portal), modeling (SAS SPM) and population
(SAS Data Integration Server). The solution was launched in September 2008. A new
release is announced for late 2009 (with 9.2 release).

SAP Strategy Management — SSM (SAP), Version 7.0

SAP is a worldwide business software company. The vendor provides enterprise
applications and business solutions to meet operational needs for enterprise
management. The business solutions include four lines: EPM (Enterprise Performance
Management), GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance), IM (Information Management)
and IDD (Information Discovery & Delivery).

The SSM solution is part of the EPM line. EPM includes four objectives: strategy
management (SSM solution, formerly Pilot software), business planning (SAP BPC,
formerly Outlooksoft), consolidations (SAP BPC, formerly Cartesis), as well as
profitability and cost management (SAP PCM, formerly ALG). The vendor’s objective is
to improve integration of its various products and integration of SAP Netweaver and
Business Objects BI Integration. The current version of SSM was released in October
2008.

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Oracle provides a performance management solution, from its Hyperion acquisition.
However, vendor commitment is not clear on the strategy management business case.
The vendor provides financial solutions and facilitates financial objectives management
but does not demonstrate a commitment to managing all performance objectives,
financial or nonfinancial, tangible or intangible.

Planview provides a solution called EPM (Enterprise Portfolio Management). The vendor
supports definition and management of objectives and operational strategies. However, it
does not include functions in order to comprehensively define, populate and monitor
indicators related to these objectives over time. The solution does not currently cover the
full scope of our requirements.

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YPHISE RANKING

SAS Strategic Performance Management

1. FACILITATING THE INDICATOR DEFINITION
ACCORDING TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE 2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGY
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT RELATED TO THE OBJECTIVES

3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OVER TIME

SAS SPM Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation

SAP Strategy Management




SAP Strategy Management Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation

14 ©Yphise

Microsoft Office PPS




Microsoft Office PPS Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation

Cognos Metric Studio




Cognos Metric Studio Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation

The above charts are presented in order of final top-down ranking of the shortlisted
solutions after their in-depth ISO 9001:2000-certified assessment by Yphise.

The four assessment dimensions show the expected benefits by large companies. They
aggregate more than 160 functional or technical control items. This list of requirements is

15 ©Yphise

practical, in order to evaluate the capacity of the solutions to provide an adequate return
on investment. It is also proactive in order to appreciate the upcoming perspectives.

Assessment dimensions

1. Facilitating the indicator definition according to business objectives

Companies must define their objectives and adequate associated indicators according
to their needs. It is essential to provide the business with easy-to-use functions in
order to create the indicators. Predefined elements can be provided to accelerate
deployment (e.g. predefined objectives or indicators to manage risks or compliance
issues).

2. Improving the operational strategy management related to objectives

To achieve the objectives, operational management of strategies is essential. This
includes the definition of deadlines, priority and costs associated with objectives. It
also involves the definition and assignment of action plans. Collaboration between the
involved stakeholders is essential in order to challenge them and to attain the
objectives.

3. Monitoring the business performance over time

Reliable and up-to-date information is required to improve decision making. The
population and update of indicators is a crucial element in order to achieve the
expected benefits of this business case. It is essential to provide comprehensive
functions in order to populate the indicators from various data sources and data
formats, structured or nonstructured. The ability to manage the evolution of strategies
over time is also important.

4. Controlling and improving the business performance

The monitoring of business performance is facilitated by efficient and comprehensive
performance dashboards. This includes portlet management, easy customization,
collaborative functions or advanced graphical views (e.g. strategy maps). Business
performance can be improved by using analytical, predictive and simulation functions.

The REQUIREMENTS volume provides the detailed requirements.

Comments

The detailed assessment of the shortlisted solutions demonstrates that the best ones
have the strengths that would be useful for large companies and would represent a
valuable investment. The assessment results demonstrate that the shortlisted solutions
are valuable. However, there are significant differences among the solutions in the
coverage of the different assessment dimensions.

We remind you that building a Proof of Concept in the targeted technical environment
and for the expected value-added benefits remains a requirement.

16 ©Yphise

Strategic Performance Management (SAS) provides the best coverage of our list
of requirements. The solution stands out in each of the four dimensions. SAS SPM also
ranked first in our 2007 SPM software assessment. This highlights its maturity and
suitability for investing in this business case.

The vendor demonstrates its commitment to integrating nonfinancial and intangible
objectives into enterprise performance management. SAS SPM provides an easy-to-
use and easy-to-customize strategy management model that helps manage any kind
of objectives. SAS also provides predefined templates according to compliance issues,
risks, vertical sectors or business departments; these accelerate strategy definition.

Finally, the solution demonstrates strengths in managing operational actions related to
objectives and in easily populating the indicators, manually or automatically. The
dashboards and analytical functions provided and announced in the next release
demonstrate an interest in investing in this solution.

Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates comprehensive coverage of our list of
requirements. For our last report, we assessed the BO solutions for strategic
performance management. The new SAP solution, from the Pilot software acquisition,
demonstrates better strengths for this business case.

In particular, the solution provides efficient dashboards and graphical views that can
be easily customized to user needs. It also provides comprehensive initiatives
management functions in order to drive operational actions related to objectives.

The solution can be used usefully by SAP customers, as the vendor provides standard
integration into its other products. The solution can also be used by non-SAP
customers. The vendor has developed a strong and interesting integration into its GRC
(Governance Risk Compliance) solution in order to facilitate the management and
monitoring of objectives related to risk management.

Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) demonstrates advanced capabilities in
our four assessment dimensions. It includes the functions required to meet the main
needs for this business case.

The product provides an easy-to-use and user-friendly solution. Several wizards and
assistants are provided out-of-the-box, and the definition of elements can be done
easily, via drag-and-drop and a dropdown list.

The solution also provides useful integration into other Microsoft solutions, such as MS
Office, MS Sharepoint or MS SQL Server. Via these solutions, the vendor can provide
dashboards, collaborative and operational functions.

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage of our list of
requirements. The solution has not really evolved since our last report. Metric Studio
can be a useful investment for Cognos customers and a header of the Cognos financial
solutions.

17 ©Yphise

The solution provides efficient dashboards and reporting functions thanks to its
business intelligence capabilities. In particular, it focuses on financial management
with specific plan, budget or analysis functions.

18 ©Yphise

1. FACILITATING THE INDICATOR DEFINITION ACCORDING
TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

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©Yphise
Sorted Aggregated Table


1.1. Defining accurately the objectives according to business needs. All the shortlisted
solutions provide functions in order to define objectives and related indicators in a tree
structure. However, they do not all distinctively manage objectives and indicators. They
also differ in the functions provided to customize objectives and in the templates
provided out-of-the-box.

1.2. Defining the indicators related to objectives. Despite significant differences, all the
vendors help define advanced (e.g. composite) indicators, and they all support threshold
or alert management. There are some differences in the comprehensiveness of the
functions provided and in the ease to define indicators.

Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates high coverage of the two
assessment dimensions, because it provides efficient functions in order to define
strategies, objectives and indicators. The vendor provides several out-of-box
templates with predefined contents and indicators for operational directions (IT
scorecard, HR scorecard, marketing, finance), sectors (banking, insurance, telco,
retail, hospital, health care) or compliance issues (Basel II, SOX, LOLF, ITIL,
Sustainability scorecard/GRI, Six Sigma, Solvency II). Its advanced customization
functions help manage any kind of objectives and properties. The solution also
supports complete and easy-to-use business rules and formulas in order to define
indicators. It efficiently manages the thresholds related to indicators.

Strategy Management (SAP) especially demonstrates good coverage in “Defining
accurately the objectives according to business needs”, as it provides comprehensive
functions for defining the objectives, perspectives and KPIs. The perspectives (e.g.
international, activity sectors) can be used to classify the objectives by means of a
matrix. The solution also demonstrates advanced functions for managing the
objectives related to the risks. SAP provides a risk management solution, SAP GRC.
SSM can be linked to risk maps obtained from SAP GRC data.

Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) demonstrates good coverage of the
two assessment dimensions. The strategy and objectives management is not packaged
out-of-the-box, but the solution is flexible and offers an easy-to-customize model to
define KPIs that can be objectives. The vendor provides predefined models for the
telco and communication sectors.

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage in “Defining accurately
the objectives according to business needs”, as it provides the essential functions for
defining the objectives and the associated indicators. The solution relies on Cognos
Datawarehouse, and the indicators are built from the data managed in that data
warehouse.

20 ©Yphise

2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGY
MANAGEMENT RELATED TO THE OBJECTIVES

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©Yphise

2. IMPROVING THE OPERATIONAL STRATEGY
MANAGEMENT RELATED TO OBJECTIVES

2.1. Managing the operational strategy. All the shortlisted solutions help manage costs or
duration related to objectives. They all help define action plans or initiatives aimed at
meeting these objectives. However, they do not provide the same comprehensiveness to
define these action plans and to manage them over time.

2.2. Improving the collaboration and efficiency of business users. All the solutions provide
the essential functions for meeting the requirements in this dimension: objective
assignation, access rights management, e-mail or built-in communication, customized
dashboards. Some provide more advanced functions than others.

Strategic Performance Management (SAS) ranks high in the two dimensions. The
solution helps define comprehensively the duration and costs related to objectives. The
solution relies on the SAS Financial Management solution and the SAS Activity-Based
Management solution to retrieve cost information. It also supports action plan
management via definition of tasks and duration. Collaboration can occur via
comprehensive access rights, comments, e-mails and document management.

Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates high coverage of the two assessment
dimensions. The solution supports permissions and comments management and
includes efficient customized dashboards. In particular, the solution demonstrates
advanced capabilities for managing the project and initiatives. A project is a
transversal view of several initiatives and objectives. A budget, schedule and targets
can be defined for each initiative. This information can be monitored in the dashboards
and in a fishbone view. The solution also provides a “prioritization matrix” to display
the initiatives according to importance/urgency and progress. SSM is part of a strategy
management suite that includes BPC (planning), BFC (consolidation), PCM (costing).
In the current version of the suite, the ETL layer can be used to transfer data from one
application to another. The vendor announces integration improvements in its next
release.

Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) provides the essential functions in the
two assessment dimensions. The vendor provides MS Sharepoint (included with
Windows Server), which can be used for task management or customization of
business dashboards. PPS does not support out-of-the-box management of action
plans.

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage in “Improving the
collaboration and efficiency of business users”, as it provides all the required functions
in this dimension. The solution supports access rights or comment management, and it
provides two dashboards included in the solution or via its Web portal tool.

22 ©Yphise


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©Yphise

3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
OVER TIME

3.1. Populating the indicators from any relevant data source. The solutions differ in the
functions provided to manually populate the indicators. They also differ in the extraction
functions provided. Some solutions rely on a data warehouse to extract business
information. It is also possible to retrieve operational data via an ETL or import formats.
An upcoming perspective is to be able to retrieve and use nonstructured information in
order to build indicators. Some vendors already include text analytics tools.

3.2. Managing the indicators over time. All the solutions help populate the indicators over
time via batch or real-time functions. All the vendors include a scheduler to manage the
population via batch. They do not all provide capabilities for managing the changes to
indicators over time, i.e. via version management, change or impact management
functions.

Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates good coverage of the
two assessment dimensions and ranks especially high in “Populating the indicators
from any relevant data source”. The solution provides comprehensive functions in
order to populate the indicators. It includes an ETL, SAS Data Integration Server
(DIS), with predefined jobs for its SPM solution. It also provides various import format
and connectors with databases and business applications. The vendor provides a text
mining solution called SAS Text Miner. The data can be used via the ETL. Finally, the
solution helps in easily creating new forms for the entering or data manually via a
wizard. Impact analysis functions can be managed via its DIS tool, which helps
analysis where data is used in different transformation steps. Analytic functions (like
correlation, regression) are available through the SAS Analytics package. In the next
release, the vendor announces new functions such as correlation/ regression, what-if
analysis and trend analysis functions.

Strategy Management (SAP) meets the essential requirements in the two
assessment dimensions. The vendor offers a single data warehouse that populates the
SSM indicators. It also provides an ETL tool, BO Integrator, which can also be used to
populate indicator, and the Text Analytics solution (formerly InXight), which supports
semantic analysis. In particular, the SSM solution demonstrates interesting functions
for manual populating. The manual entries can be managed via Excel or via a Web
form. Monitoring of the data entered manually can be done through a workflow
process.

Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) ranks especially high in “Managing
the indicators over time”, as it supports comprehensive history functions. The solution
helps monitor changes over time (date of a change, user, field, old value, new value)
and includes “revert change” functions to roll back to an old version. PPS also provides
basic impact analysis functions, as it helps identify related indicators, related
scorecards and related data sources on an element.

24 ©Yphise

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) meets the essential requirements in the two
assessment dimensions. In particular, the solution provides a standard connection with
the Cognos Datawarehouse and Cognos solutions in order to retrieve data. It also
demonstrates useful impact functions, as it supports impact diagram management
according to relationships between indicators. The relationships must be defined
manually or retrieved from the “derived indexes” formulas (i.e. composite indicators).

25 ©Yphise

4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE BUSINESS
PERFORMANCE

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©Yphise

4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING
THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

4.1. Providing efficient dashboards. All the solutions provide customized dashboards and
monitoring functions in order to control enterprise performance. They all include
graphical view and strategy maps to identify easily the relationships between indicators
and objectives and progress. They differ in the comprehensiveness of the provided
functions.

4.2. Providing the analysis functions. All the solutions help monitor over time the
objectives via target and trend management. They all include reporting functions in the
solution or with a third-party tool. They do not all offer advanced analytic functions (such
as predictive analysis or simulation) in order to assess changes in performance.

Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates high coverage of the two
assessment dimensions. The solution provides comprehensive and easy-to-customize
dashboards. The vendor provides advanced reporting functions. Some reports are
predefined and can be customized according to business needs. The dashboards
include some collaborative functions via advanced comment management; they also
include dynamic strategy maps that can be automatically updated or used to define
relationships between any elements. SAS also demonstrates commitment to providing
analytic functions in the next release (what-if, predictive, impact analysis
management) and already supports integration into its SAS Analytics platform.

Strategy Management (SAP) demonstrates good coverage of the two assessment
dimensions. It provides efficient and easy-to-use dashboards that can be customized
for each user (e.g. “my bookmarks”, “my performance summary”). SSM also includes
a comprehensive graphical editor (Diagram Manager) to define strategy maps and
layouts. Reporting is managed via a third-party tool, Xcelsius or Crystal report. The
vendor also demonstrates interesting capabilities for analysis, via its KPI comparison
functions and relationships management. The objectives themselves are linked on a
cause/effect cascade that allows representation of the impact on one another.

Office PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft) provides the required functions in the
two assessment dimensions. The dashboards are provided with the Monitoring tool
(included in the PPS solution) or via MS Sharepoint. PPS demonstrates analytic
functions via its SQL Server solution and also provides a “trend analysis chart” that
can provide forecast trend. This component will evolve in the next releases.

Cognos Metric Studio (IBM) demonstrates good coverage of the two assessment
dimensions. In particular, it demonstrates good collaborative functions via its Cognos
Portal solution and efficient reporting functions via third-party tools. Business forums,
workflows or comments management are supported and help manage actions
according to indicator results.

The ASSESSMENT volume provides the detailed assessment of each shortlisted solution.

27 ©Yphise

Yphise Software Product Assessment, Strategy Management, December 2008

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Yphise Software Product Assessment, Strategy Management, December 2008