Budgeting Software Journal

Budgeting and Forecasting Software News And Reviews

Archives for January 2007

Sage Hospitality Resources combines financial metrics with guest information for real-time budgets and forecasting

By Budgeting Software Journal

Sage Hospitality Resources, LLC sets high standards for itself in every operational area and meeting its goals is driving company growth. The Denver, Colorado-based hotel company has 48 properties in its portfolio and delivers solid profitability to its owners, personalized service to guests, and professional support to its associates. An impressive list of deliverables and one that Sage is leveraging its extensive technology resources and hotel computer systems to achieve.

“Sage is unique because instead of choosing which of its stakeholders to satisfy first — owners, guests, or associates — it is successfully fulfilling the requirements of all three simultaneously,” said Courteney Parker, Senior Vice President — Financial Services for Sage Hospitality Resources. “We designed our entire corporate technology infrastructure, hospitality accounting software and hotel management software to accomplish this task.”

Until recently Sage used a number of separate systems that included accounting, guest services, and ADP reporting applications to generate information to be manually entered into a corporate macro-based version of Excel. The process was lengthy and labor intensive, and the output was not available to managers until month-end. This changed in mid 2005 when Sage upgraded its corporate information systems by consolidating all of its operating, accounting, and guest data in a single centralized business intelligence software database for instant management access to operating information. [Read more…]

Adaptive Planning Wins BPM Partners ”Mid-Market Vendor of the Year” Award

By Budgeting Software Journal

BPM Partners named Adaptive Planning “Mid-Market Vendor of the Year.” In granting the award, BPM Partners cited Adaptive Planning’s leading-edge product offerings, which include on-demand, on-premises, and free open source solutions for budgeting, forecasting, and reporting, as well as the company’s outstanding customer satisfaction marks.

The “Mid-Market Vendor of the Year” award was presented during BPM Partners’ fifth-annual “Beyond the Hype” webcast. The event, produced in conjunction with Business Finance Magazine, reviewed industry trends and revealed the results of vendors’ customer satisfaction ratings collected in BPM Partners’ “BPM Pulse Survey.”

“Adaptive Planning stands out as a company that clearly understands the mid-market, delivering innovative new solutions optimized for the needs of midsized companies,” said Craig Schiff, chief executive officer, BPM Partners. “They recognize that mid-market companies have the same information needs as major corporations, but lack the resources—personnel, time, and capital—typically enjoyed by large enterprises. And by aggressively leveraging new ‘BPM 2.0’ technologies, such as software as a service and open source, Adaptive Planning provides midsize companies with exciting new alternatives to spreadsheets for managing their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.” [Read more…]

Cartesis Signs Up a Record Number of New Customers

By Budgeting Software Journal

CartesisCartesis announced a long list of accomplishments for the first half of its fiscal year 2007 – the time period from July 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006. These accomplishments include a record number of wins, an 81 percent increase of mid-market product license revenue, the delivery of two key products – Cartesis Analytics and Cartesis Intercompany – and the introduction of a new channel program.Cartesis closed a record number of wins in H1 FY07, up 33 percent from the same period last year. Important wins and completed deployments occurred at ABN Amro, Atari, Cargill, CH2M Hill, Delhaize, IXIS, Lehman Bros, LVMH, Meggitt, Nestle, Nomura, PepsiAmericas, PSA, Standard Life, Swiss RE, SYSCO, TD Securities, Tesco and Wachovia.

A notable trend in H1 FY07 was Cartesis’ success in the mid-market, or clients with annual revenues of $300 mill to $750 mill. Much of this growth can be linked to the development of the Cartesis 10 Standard Edition product line, which grew license revenue by 81 percent when compared to the previous year’s first six months. The company sees this as very positive as it indicates a broader market acceptance of sophisticated performance management products. Historically, larger companies were more likely to understand the return on investment that performance management solutions provide. [Read more…]

Workbrain Announces “Bottom-up” Labor Budget Management Solution

By Budgeting Software Journal

Workbrain announced today the launch of Budget Creation and Management, the second generation of its Workforce Planning application. Built for leading retailers, the solution is designed to optimize the allocation of labor expenses by uniting fiscal and operational budget planning processes. The solution provides a unique top-down and bottom-up approach to labor budgeting to help align store execution with corporate goals. The solution is being showcased at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 96th Annual Convention & Expo being held in New York from January 15-17. Workbrain is exhibiting in booth #1901.

“The ability for retailers to accurately forecast labor and effectively deploy the workforce is critical to successfully manage the intricate balance of workforce supply and customer demand,” said Tony Marzulli, Senior Vice President of Products and Marketing at Workbrain. “But even the most efficient execution of these day-of-operation processes can be wasted if upstream activities such as labor budgeting are inadequate. For the first time in the industry, clients can consider each location’s needs and provide stores with an accurate labor budget from which to forecast, deploy and manage their workforce. We are proud that a number of leading retailers have endorsed our vision of total workforce management by implementing Budget Creation and Management.” [Read more…]

Cognos Ranked As A Leading Vendor For Performance Management by Ventana Research

By Budgeting Software Journal

CognosCognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN) announced today that an independent research report by Ventana Research has ranked Cognos as a top vendor in performance management.In the newly updated Ventana Research 2007 Performance Management Scorecard TM (Ventana Research Scorecard), Cognos scored 94% overall for Cognos 8 BI, the company’s flagship business intelligence platform which includes capabilities for query, reporting, analysis, scorecarding and dashboarding, and event management.

Cognos’ overall score increased by 4.3% over last year’s study, with Cognos 8 BI scoring highest for its ability to “align the business, and coordinate and drive individual actions based on information and performance targets.”

The Ventana Research Scorecard covers more than 11 vendors and is representative of independent analysis conducted over the past five years. Each participating company’s products were scored for functional requirements and capabilities to determine the level of compliance against Ventana Research’s PerformanceCycleâ„¢ across three categories – Align, Optimize and Understand. [Read more…]