Analyst Perspectives


Search within Analyst Perspectives blog:

TopBar Analyst Perspectives BottomBar

Informatica is Exemplary and Leader in the 2021 PIM Value Index

Posted by Mark Smith on 09 July 2021
We are happy to share some insights about Informatica's Product 360 drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. We published the Ventana Research Value Index: Product Information Management, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. To assess functionality, one of the components of Capability, we... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, data operations, Office of Revenue

Sales Forecasting: Have the Process and Technology for a True Revenue Forecast?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 22 June 2021
There has been a lot of market activity around vendors offering sales-forecasting products (or functionality to address sales forecasting) as part of a wider technology offering for sales and revenue management. As I have discussed in my Analyst Perspective: The Art and Science of Sales from the Inside Out, the pandemic accelerated the prior trends that are now forcing sales leaders and sales... Read More

Topics: Sales, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, AI and Machine Learning

The 2021 Product Information Management Value Index: 16 Vendors to Assess and Select

Posted by Mark Smith on 17 June 2021
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 Information Management 2021 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: Sales, Marketing, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning

Reinventing Product Experiences Through Product Information Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 15 June 2021
Having just completed the 2021 Ventana Research Value Index for Product Information Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market and category have advanced since our first examination over 15 years ago. Even today, the market and category for PIM does not get sufficient attention in every organization. In essence, products and services are the foundation of every... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Revenue

Revenue Performance Management: Leadership and Operations for Optimal Outcomes

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 14 June 2021
As laid out in my recent Analyst Perspective, Revenue Management: The Opportunity for Innovation and Optimization, revenue management is a new way look at generating and managing the top line. It unifies multiple sources: the traditional focus on new customers to existing customers as well as all types of revenue from new, additional channels. This could include customer retention, upsell and... Read More

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Subscription Management, AI and Machine Learning

Subscription Pricing Changing for Sustained Customer Growth

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 20 May 2021
Subscription pricing models are no longer new. Many companies have experience with this pricing model even if there has not been complete adoption across their entire product and service offerings. Companies that use this model, or have spent time looking at the approach, understand the approach of a recurring revenue stream based on a repeating flat fee. By 2025, over one-fifth of organizations... Read More

Topics: Performance Management, Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Subscription Management

Unit4 Democratizes Agile, Data-Driven Decision-Making

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 May 2021
Unit4’s Financial Planning and Analysis (formerly Prevero) is a planning and budgeting application designed for the requirements of midsize corporations and the public sector. These organizations are challenged in buying software because they have almost all the requirements of larger enterprises but have a smaller budget and limited technical resources. Unit4 recently announced it has added... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Predictive Planning, collaborative computing, AI and Machine Learning

SugarCRM Brings the Sweetness in AI Driven Sales

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 04 May 2021
As I have discussed in my Analyst Perspective, The Art of Sales, from the Inside Out, the challenges facing direct sales leaders are not going away. Declining quota attainment, lack of visibility into deal health and difficulty in forecasting quarterly sales remain a challenge for sales leaders, resulting in a continuing reduction in duration of tenure. Increasingly, applications and tools that... Read More

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

The Experience of Digital Commerce

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 09 April 2021
Digital commerce affects almost everyone’s lives. It is hard to remember a time when one could not sign on to a website like Amazon, order a product, pay for it and have it delivered to your front door within days, not weeks. Although catalogues have been around for a century or so, the digital-commerce revolution has changed the way we think about shopping for many of our everyday and special... Read More

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, AI and Machine Learning

Robotic Process Automation is a Core Finance Competency

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 March 2021
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has emerged as a core digital technology for finance and accounting organizations. It can drive significant gains in productivity and efficiency by automating mechanical, repetitive accounting processes in a continuous, end-to-end fashion. RPA improves efficiency, ensures data integrity and enhances visibility into processes. There is a strong business case for... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning

Revenue Management: The Opportunity for Innovation and Optimization

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 15 March 2021
With modern enterprises adopting and expanding their digital business with subscription and usage business, organizations need to think beyond the primacy of sales as their source of business success. A sustained customer experience is key, representing an organizational and cultural shift from the traditional emphasis on new sales to an equally important focus on customer retention and... Read More

Topics: Sales, Marketing, Analytics, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Subscription Management

The Operations and Supply Chain Market Agenda for 2021: Increasing Agility and Resilience of the Supply Chain

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 February 2021
Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes. A new generation of innovative digital technology can help organizations optimize operations, aligning customer demand with fulfillment... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management

Profitability Management: A CFO Priority to Gain Competitive Advantage

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 February 2021
Profitability management produces a sustainable competitive advantage but by 2025 only one-third of companies will have implemented a profitability management initiative, explains Ventana Research SVP and Research Director Robert Kugel. This brief video shows why FP&A organizations must be part of a profitability management approach to pricing and costing. Read More

Topics: FP&A, Office of Finance, Sales Operations, CFO, Profitability, Price and Revenue Management

Profitability Management is a CFO Imperative

Posted by Robert Kugel on 27 November 2020
One of the oddities of corporate management is that, as a rule, nobody oversees managing profitability. CEOs are accountable for meeting company-wide financial targets and assign responsibility for achieving profitability levels to business unit owners across and down an organization. Sales quotas designed to achieve revenue goals are put in place, and budget owners have cost and margin... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Subscription Management

Zuora and Subscription Management: Suite and Platform to Address Digital Business

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 28 September 2020
The last decade has seen exponential growth amongst subscription-based business models. Pioneered in the B2C market with cloud-based SaaS offerings, the last decade has seen exponential growth in the share of the economy that is now subscription based. Increasingly, this modern business model is permeating throughout more traditional style industries and companies. But regardless of whether a... Read More

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

DADs Address the Mother of All Data Problems

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 September 2020
An important recent development in software designed for the Office of Finance is the addition of what we’re calling a data aggregation device (DAD) for analytical applications. A DAD automates the collection of data from disparate sources using, for example, application programming interfaces (APIs) and robotic process automation (RPA). With a DAD, users of the analytical application have... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, AI and Machine Learning

Subscription and Usage Management Technology Needs for the Modern Economy

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 11 September 2020
Subscription-based business models have seen exponential growth over the last decade. The growth of this recurring revenue business model, where a subscriber commits to repeatedly pay for a good or device for a fixed or indefinite timeline, has been caused by the shift from the one-time selling of physical products to selling digital services on a subscription basis. The first phase of this... Read More

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Why I Joined Ventana Research to Lead Office of Sales

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 21 August 2020
I’m very excited to announce to my network as well as the ever-expanding Ventana Research community that I’m now directing Ventana Research’s Office of Sales practice. The focus is to guide and educate sales and business professionals on the selling applications and technology including digital commerce, price and revenue management, product information management, sales enablement, sales... Read More

Topics: Sales, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

OneStream Wins Our Innovation Award in Office of Finance with Analytic Blend

Posted by Robert Kugel on 13 August 2020
One of the challenges of being a practically minded technology analyst is squaring the importance of “the next big thing” with the reality of what most organizations are doing. For decades it’s been the case that “the next big thing” in the world of information technology is easily several years ahead of where most organizations are in their use of technology. And before most organizations can... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Marketing, Work and Resource Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning

The Business Continuity Imperative: Price and Revenue Management for Resilience in 2020 and Beyond

Posted by Mark Smith on 02 August 2020
Economic dynamics and market pressures during a black-swan event can wreak havoc on efforts to effectively manage revenue operations and pricing for business continuity. For many organizations, environmental changes disrupt the methods by which these essential business processes are managed can be disrupted, damaging the revenue streams that create profitability. The array of pricing strategies... Read More

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning, Price and Revenue Management, Total Compensation Management, Conversational Computing

Browse by Analyst

Mark Smith

Mark Smith

 Robert Kugel

Robert Kugel

 David Menninger

David Menninger

 Jeff Orr

Jeff Orr

 Keith Dawson

Keith Dawson

 Matt Aslett

Matt Aslett

 Matthew Brown

Matthew Brown

 Barika Pace

Barika Pace

Posts by Topic

see all

Posts by Month

see all