ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (12)

HiBob: A Modern HCM That Puts Culture and Simplicity at the Core

Posted by Matthew Brown on 05 March 2025

The HCM market has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. Legacy providers, long the dominant force, built their platforms primarily for administrative efficiency—streamlining HR processes but often overlooking the broader employee experience. However, today’s workforce expects more. Employees and managers now demand intuitive, engaging and connected HR experiences that extend... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Talent Management

Agentic AI: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Posted by David Menninger on 04 March 2025

AI, like analytics, must lead to action. Too often, in both cases, too much of the exercise is left to the reader. We have tools to provide sophisticated analyses, including AI platforms that can be used to predict many types of behavior, but we fall short in helping the workforce know what to do with that information. Some examples are more obvious, such as fraud detection. If a transaction is... Read More

Topics: Artificial intelligence

A Strategic Approach to Replacing ERP Systems for Modernization and AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 27 February 2025

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are comprehensive software platforms designed to integrate and manage all the core processes of an enterprise while recording transactions and their financial consequences to support the accounting and finance functions. ISG Software Research recently completed our Buyers Guide™ for ERP systems, designed to help enterprises that are replacing their... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

DataOps: Software for Operations and AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 27 February 2025

Late 2024 saw the publication of the 2024 ISG Buyers Guides for DataOps, providing an assessment of 49 software providers offering products used by data engineers, data scientists, and data and AI professionals to facilitate the use of data for analytics and AI needs. The DataOps Buyers Guide research includes five reports which are focused on overall DataOps, Data Observability, Data... Read More

Topics: Analytics, data operations, Analytics and Data

Agentic AI Reliability Requirements for Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 25 February 2025

It is now more than two years since the launch of ChatGPT introduced the world to generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs). GenAI-based assistants and co-pilots are now widely adopted, with individuals and enterprises adopting GenAI models to automate the generation of text, digital images, audio, video and code, amongst other things. More than four-fifths (81%) of participants in... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Analytics and Data

Trintech Provides Reliable Record-to-Report Productivity

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 February 2025

Trintech provides finance departments in larger and midsize enterprises with software to accelerate their accounting close processes while achieving hard and fast accuracy and compliance requirements with less effort. The financial records of an enterprise must be periodically reviewed and summarized to create financial statements that inform executives and interested third parties of the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

The Power of Payroll: It’s More than Just a Paycheck

Posted by Matthew Brown on 20 February 2025

Payroll is one of the most universal touchpoints within any organization, impacting every employee on a regular basis. It’s the one thing every employee notices if it does not work perfectly. Yet, despite its far-reaching presence, payroll often operates quietly in the background, treated as an administrative function focused solely on ensuring people are paid accurately and on time. This... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Payroll Management, employee experience

Zoho Evolves Portfolio for Enterprises Using AI

Posted by Keith Dawson on 20 February 2025

Zoho’s recent analyst conference was an opportunity to explore how the India-founded software company is faring in its efforts to extend its enterprise business, and to place AI at the center of its product portfolio. It appears the company is having some success on both fronts. Zoho’s software suite includes nearly 60 applications that extend into almost every facet of business activity, from... Read More

Topics: Contact Center

Prophix’s FP&A Plus Brings Higher Performance to Midsize Enterprises

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 February 2025

While headlines tend to focus on flashier topics, arguably the biggest business impact from technology advances over the past two decades has been on helping midsize enterprises improve their performance. These organizations have the same requirements as larger ones but have fewer resources to address those needs. Prophix has been at the forefront of using technology innovation to close that gap... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning

SugarCRM as a Revenue Platform with AI for Sellers

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 19 February 2025

I was recently a guest of SugarCRM at their 2025 Analyst summit with an opportunity to meet with the executive team and new CEO, David Roberts. SugarCRM is a venerable CRM offering that started as an open-source project and over the years has matured into a very flexible CRM system with offerings for sales, marketing and service. The new CEO, David Roberts joined the company toward the end of... Read More

Topics: Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue

How Software Can Help Usage Pricing Adoption

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 13 February 2025

Based on the number of invitations I have received to speak on the topic, usage pricing (also referred to as consumption pricing) is hot. But as I have remarked elsewhere, it is not new. I recall a conversation with a customer over 30 years ago when I was involved with analytic software who asked, “Why can’t we just pay for the software we use?” And this of course makes sense: only pay for what... Read More

Topics: Subscription Management, Office of Revenue

Adapting to Higher Inflation Longer with Profitability Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 February 2025

In anticipation of conditions that suggested accelerating price increases, I wrote in 2021 about how technology could be useful in an inflationary period, anticipating the world we live in now. Responding effectively to changes in costs is always challenging, but even more so because of the choppy and chaotic nature of the current environment. Inflation may have abated from its highs throughout... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Subscription Management

Redpanda Lowers the Complexity and Cost of Streaming and Event Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 04 February 2025

I recently wrote about the need for enterprises to harness events to process and act upon data at the speed of business. The core technologies that enable enterprises to process and analyze data in real time have been in existence for many years and are widely adopted. However, streaming and events technologies are also commonly seen as a niche requirement, separate from an enterprise’s primary... Read More

Topics: Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data

Databricks Scores Massive Funding Round, Continues to Expand Its Offerings

Posted by David Menninger on 29 January 2025

Databricks recently announced its Series J funding round, successfully raising $10 billion at a valuation of $62 billion. Led by Thrive Capital alongside high-profile investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Insight Partners, the company intends to invest this capital towards new artificial intelligence (AI) products, acquisitions and significant expansion of its international operations. In the... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Analytics and Data

Data Catalogs Serve Multiple Roles and Use Cases

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 January 2025

Metadata management has played a role in data governance and analytics for many years. It wasn’t until the emergence of the data catalog as a product category just over a decade ago that enterprises had a platform for metadata-driven data management that could span multiple departments and use cases across an entire enterprise. ISG defines a data catalog as an inventory of data assets that... Read More

Topics: Analytics and Data

ESG Management Software is Essential for Efficient Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 January 2025

Enterprises have been investing in software to manage their environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives and compliance requirements. The need to account for these considerations in parallel with financial accounting began growing early in the century and accelerated as governments and regulatory authorities began to require companies to measure and document activities and outcomes.... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

The Impact of the Cloud and AI on Evolving Data Platform Requirements

Posted by ISG Research on 23 January 2025

The degree to which data platforms are critical to efficient business operations cannot be overstated. Without data platforms, enterprises would be reliant on a combination of paper records, time-consuming manual processes and huge libraries of physical files to record, process and store business information. The extent to which that is unthinkable highlights the level at which today’s... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Analytics and Data

Intercompany Financial Management is Essential for Multinationals

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 January 2025

ISG Software Research coined the term intercompany financial management to define a discipline for structuring and handling transactions within an enterprise and between its legal entities. IFM is designed to maximize staff efficiency and accounting accuracy while optimizing tax exposure, minimizing tax leakage and ensuring consistent tax and regulatory compliance. Technology has advanced to a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Intercompany Financial Management

MongoDB Enhances Developer Data Platform

Posted by Matt Aslett on 21 January 2025

Despite all the interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI), ISG’s Buyers Guide for Data Platforms serves as a reminder of the ongoing importance of product experience functionality to address adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. While new and emerging capabilities might catch the eye, features that address data platform security, performance and... Read More

Topics: AI, Analytics and Data

External Data Supports More Accurate Planning

Posted by ISG Research on 15 January 2025

I recently completed the latest edition of our Business Planning Buyers Guide, which reviews and assesses the offerings of 14 providers of this software. One of the points that I look at is whether and to what extent the software provider offers out-of-the-box external data useful for forecasting, planning, analysis and evaluation. What I discovered is that the availability of this type of vital... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, AI and Machine Learning