According to Nucleus Research’s 2020 Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Technology Value Matrix, corporate finance professionals are looking for flexibility and ease-of-use from CPM software solutions—and today’s leading vendors are delivering.
The analyst firm’s annual report ranks CPM vendors based on functionality and usability, as well as the value customers realize from each product’s capabilities. Vendors are sorted into one of four quadrants: Core Providers, Facilitators, Experts and Leaders. Vendors included in this year’s CPM Technology Value Matrix Leaders quadrant are investing heavily in functionality innovation while staying laser-focused on increasing usability.
Flexibility and ease-of-use lead the way for top CPM software vendors
According to Andrew MacMillen, an analyst with Nucleus and author of the report,buyer expectations are driving this trend as more finance teams look to adopt flexible, “full-platform” solutions that operational teams outside the office of finance can easily adopt.
“Beyond planning, CPM solutions must now be able to handle a wide array of tasks related to finances ranging from closing the books and consolidation, to analytics and business intelligence,” said MacMillen. “The value proposition of a CPM solution that consolidates multiple lines of work into a single interface has become too attractive to ignore.”
This really isn’t surprising considering the challenges finance teams are facing today. According to a survey from the Association for Financial Professionals, 61% of finance leaders consider inadequate software systems to be the biggest roadblock holding back their FP&A efforts.
A challenge like that is hard to overcome without flexible, user-friendly CPM software. That’s why functionality and usability rankings are what separate the Experts from the Leaders in the CPM Value Matrix.
So, what does this mean for your finance team?
If you’re a finance professional who’s exploring the CPM software market, don’t lose sight of the end-user experience when evaluating potential vendors. No matter what solution you choose to level-up your finance processes, product usability and flexible functionality will always be the difference between a rocky software experience and a smooth one.
Vena Solutions earned Leader status in the CPM Value Matrix for the seventh straight year, with our platform claiming top marks for usability. Vena’s ease-of-use is attributed to its front-end integration with Excel, which allows users to keep using a tool that they already know and love.