ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

The Growing Strategic Importance of Sales and Operations Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 March 2026

The growing strategic importance of sales and operations planning (S&OP) reflects the confluence of two major trends evolving outside of enterprise operations. One is the ongoing disintegration of the post-World War 2 liberal trade environment that began in the early 2010s and has accelerated since. The second is the increasing sophistication and approachability of S&OP software. These... Read More

Topics: Supply Chain Planning, Analytics, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, supply chain management, Generative AI, AI and Machine Learning

The Saas-Pocalypse That Isn’t Happening Soon

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 February 2026

The term SaaS-pocalypse has been popularized lately to summarize the idea that the traditional business software providers’ business model is about to undergo a tectonic structural shift because artificial intelligence will change how work is performed, rendering applications and their subscription pricing models obsolete. In this telling, AI assistants or agents can reduce the need for humans to... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Operations & Supply Chain, Office of Revenue, AI & Technologies, Business & Technologies

AI Agents in the Supply Chain offer a Competitive Edge

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 August 2025

Agents offer almost effortless automation, so repetitive and boring tasks get done with the least amount of work and, perhaps, more consistently. Agents are an important evolutionary step in the design of business software, similar to the transition from procedural programming to event-driven programming that accelerated in the late 1980s. That paradigm shift created the business software... Read More

Topics: Supply Chain Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, supply chain management, Manufacturing, Automotive, Business & Technologies, CPG & Retail, Vertical Industry

Sustainability: Global Complexity Requires Software for Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2025

ISG Software Research is expanding our ISG Buyers Guide™ coverage to include the topic of sustainability. Our buyers guide will focus on sustainability exclusively rather than the full spectrum of environmental, social and governance topics. One reason is that gathering, managing, analyzing and reporting environmental data under the various frameworks and statutes presents enterprises with... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Operations & Supply Chain, ERP and Continuous Accounting, supply chain management, digital finance, Sustainability Management, Business & Technologies

Oracle Advances its AI-Enabled Supply Chain Management Suite

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 October 2024

Oracle announced significant updates to its Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM) software at the recently held Oracle Cloud World. The application suite includes procurement, inventory management, warehouse management, order management and transportation management. SCM tasks are mostly small-scale and repetitive, yet the processes they support are far from simple. They involve the... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, AI, continuous supply chain, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP, Digital Applications

Resilient Supply Chains and AI to Manage Costs

Posted by Robert Kugel on 23 May 2024

Rebalancing supply chains to improve resiliency has been a focus of enterprises with even moderately complex and long supply chains for the past four years. One aspect of this rebalancing is that it almost always involves higher costs. Volume discounts and bargaining power are reduced when more suppliers are used, or an alternate supplier may have higher factor costs and therefore must charge... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Stibo Systems Facilitates Trust in Data With AI-Driven MDM

Posted by Matt Aslett on 16 April 2024

I previously explained how master data management helps provide trust in data, making it one of the most significant aspects of an enterprise’s strategic approach to data management. More recently, I discussed how it has a role to play in accelerating data democratization as part of data intelligence initiatives. Along with data quality, MDM enables organizations to ensure data is accurate,... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Analytics and Data

Smart Manufacturing Increases Productivity and Resilience

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 March 2024

Smart manufacturing is a strategic operating approach that aligns advanced manufacturing technology with system and process design principles to promote adaptability. It is a digital, event-driven, collaborative orchestration of physical and digital processes designed to increase productivity, efficiency, adaptability and resilience. These systems use technologies to coordinate the planning and... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, S&OP, Operations & Supply Chain, supply chain management, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP, Smart Manufacturing

2024 Market Agenda for Operations and Supply Chain: Seize the Opportunity

Posted by Robert Kugel on 29 January 2024

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 market agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we have offered for more than two decades to help enterprises across industries derive optimal value and improved outcomes from business technology. After three years of reacting to disruption, enterprises that have made the right investments and restructured operations are able to... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Property Technology, Supplier Relationship Management, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Mining, Intelligence and Monitoring Achieve the Best Process Outcomes

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 January 2024

Since a majority of today’s workforce wasn’t around in the 1990s, it’s worth noting that “business process reengineering” was all the rage. The purpose was to review, restructure and redesign core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. One reason for its popularity (beyond being a money spinner for... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

2024 Market Agenda: Innovation in AI and Digital Modernization

Posted by Mark Smith on 23 January 2024

Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2024, continuing a 20-year tradition of credibility and trust in our objective efforts to educate and guide the technology industry. Our research and insights are backed by our expertise and independence, and we do not share our Market Agenda or our market research, including analyst and market perspectives, with any external party before it is... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, AI, Analytics and Data

AI Will Increase the Strategic Value of S&OP

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 January 2024

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is trending toward becoming more strategic in product-centric companies through the end of the decade. The purpose of S&OP has grown in importance. Since the mid-teens, the trade and economic environment has become less benign and more unpredictable, forcing many enterprises to redesign their supply chains for resiliency while still surmounting the dual... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Board Enables High-Performing FP&A Organizations

Posted by Robert Kugel on 29 November 2023

Board offers a platform that enables financial planning and analysis (FP&A) groups to forecast, plan, budget, analyze and report, using a consistent set of data from across the business to speed these processes, improve forecast and planning accuracy, and accelerate analysis and reporting. Board was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor in our Ventana Research Business Planning Value Index, with... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning

Reverse Factoring Lubricating the Wheels of Supply Chains

Posted by Robert Kugel on 02 August 2023

We added purchasing, sourcing and payments to our core Office of Finance focus areas this year to reflect new and important opportunities to use technology to gain effectiveness through greater efficiency. Technology continues to lubricate the wheels of commerce, aided by a financial services sector that is constantly innovating, responding to market-driven opportunities to reduce costs, increase... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Collaborative Supply Chain Forecasting Improves Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 20 June 2023

Organizations engage in collaborative supply chain planning in order to have more accurate, timely and actionable information, including forecasts and stock-on-hand. The objective is to achieve lower costs and reduce risk while ensuring order fulfillment to achieve optimal supplier and customer relationships. Unfortunately, our research shows that that few companies manage collaboration well in... Read More

Topics: Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Improving Supply Chain Management in the Post-Pandemic World

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 May 2023

In early 2019, I first wrote about the escalating strategic challenges facing organizations resulting from the decade-long dismantling of the liberal global trade environment and the shift to more restrictive regimes. Supply chain management was upended in 2020 as a series of extraordinary events, especially the pandemic-induced supply chain shocks, compounded the tactical challenges facing... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Product Experience Management Value Index Classifies and Rates Vendors

Posted by Mark Smith on 14 March 2023

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Product Experience Management 2023 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain

Product Experience Management Requires Next-Gen Digital Technology

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 March 2023

Having just completed the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index for Product Experience Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced over the last two years. The product information management software market is quite mature and products from any of the vendors we assess could be used to effectively deliver information to help your organization improve its... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain

Product Experience Management Market Requires Digital and Processes Excellence

Posted by Mark Smith on 09 March 2023

Having just completed the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index for Product Experience Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced over the last two years. The product information management software (PIM) market is quite mature and products from any of the vendors we assessed can be used to effectively deliver information to help your organization improve... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain

Foundational Blockchain Founders as TradeLens Shuts Down

Posted by Robert Kugel on 02 March 2023

Maersk is closing its TradeLens joint venture with IBM that began in 2018. It was intended to enable port operators, customs authorities, freight forwarders and importers to track containers and their contents. The system was designed to substantially reduce the inefficiencies and delays created by paper-based systems used for customs, trade finance, tariffs and taxes as well as supply chain and... Read More

Topics: Operations & Supply Chain, blockchain, continuous supply chain