BARC Score Integrated Planning & Analytics IP&A

In particular, the integration of CPM (above all planning) and CPM with analytics is becoming a decisive competitive factor for sound decision-making. The integration of corporate planning (e.g., operational planning with financial planning) and its integration with analytics (IP&A) in common platforms is essential to optimally support modern and integrated corporate management. To avoid time-consuming and error-prone data transfer processes between software systems, an integrated database for actuals and plan data represented in a consistent data model forms the basis for integrated software solutions. The centrally harmonized master data provides a single, common data basis for planning and analytics as well as other CPM processes such as financial consolidation and risk management.

Today, the reality in many companies is that IP&A is an often proclaimed but seldom achieved goal. Reasons such as internal policies or difficulties with historically grown system landscapes could account for this. So Excel, as the lowest common denominator, is often the default first choice for integrating planning with analytics. However, the lack of coherence of data and functionality resulting from using multiple tools for planning and analytics, and using Excel instead of specialized software tools, are frequently cited reasons for user dissatisfaction, inconsistencies and error susceptibility with planning and analytics in companies today. BARC research studies continuously reveal that companies consider the improvement of the software they use to be an important investment for optimizing planning, forecasting and analytics.