Unit4 FP&A receives 17 leading positions in 2023 BARC Planning Survey
We’re very pleased to say that we’ve had another great result for Unit4 FP&A in BARC’s 2023 Planning Survey! With 17 leading positions across 5 different Peer Groups, Unit4 FP&A has once again achieved a great set of results in BARC’s annual Planning Survey. Strong ratings in several important KPIs such as Reporting/Analysis, Flexibility, Ease of Use and Product Satisfaction help to consolidate our position as a market-leading CPM platform that delivers considerable benefits to its customers.
About the survey
BARC Research are experts in business intelligence software selection and strategy and have helped thousands of companies worldwide over 20 years to select software to meet their strategic requirements and deliver business benefits. Based on extensive research and proven methodologies, BARC’s vendor-independent approach helps businesses save time and money and enables them to choose the right software with confidence.
The Planning Survey 2023 is a specially produced summary by BARC into FP&A software market vendors, with ratings based on customer feedback. It provides the reader with well-designed KPI dashboards packed with concise information, which can be absorbed at-a-glance.
This is the 9th edition of the BARC planning survey, in which FP&A vendors have been rated across 8 peer groups, 19 different product types, and 33 KPIs. BARC have surveyed over 1,300 FP&A users in over 50 countries, and it’s fair to say that these results represent “the voice of the planning software user community”.
KPIs include Business Value, Customer Satisfaction, Functionality, User Experience and Innovation. Vendors are also rated on Product Satisfaction, Vendor Support, Price to Value, Self-Service, Reporting/Analysis, Ease of Use and Flexibility, Recommendation, Customer Satisfaction, Planning Functionality, and Competitiveness.
Unit4 has been rated within the Peer Groups Planning-Focused Products, Financial Consolidation-Focused Product, and Business Software Generalists, Midsize/Departmental Implementations and Global Vendors.
Click to read FP&A product brochure gated
Key Unit4 Findings
- 81% of users rate Unit4 FP&A’s coverage of BI/analytics-specific requirements as very good or good. Compared to 78% for the average planning tool.
- 66% chose Unit4 FP&A because of its flexibility. Compared to 51% for the average planning tool.
- 66% of surveyed users chose Unit4 FP&A because of its coverage of planning-specific requirements. Compared to 37% for the average planning tool.
- 41% of surveyed users chose Unit4 FP&A because of its price-performance ratio. Compared to 34% for the average planning tool.
- 17 leading positions for Unit4 in 5 different peer groups.
- Unit4 FP&A rated 7.5 (out of 10) for Implementer Support (Leader) – Financial Consolidation-Focused Products
- Unit4 FP&A rated 8.0 for Product Satisfaction (Leader) – Business Software Generalists
- Unit4 FP&A rated 8.4 for Reporting/Analysis (Leader) – Business Software Generalists
- Unit4 FP&A rated 8.9 for Self-Service (Leader) – Planning Focused Products & Mid-size/departmental implementations
- Unit4 FP&A rated 8.7 for Flexibility (Leader) – Global Vendors
- Unit4 FP&A rated 7.8 for Ease of use (Leader) – Business Software Generalists
Unit4 vs Excel
Year after year, BARC’s Planning Survey reveals that Excel remains one of the world’s most widely used products for planning and analytics. However, many users and companies are dissatisfied with it, with 20% stating they are very or somewhat dissatisfied. Unit4 FP&A users have far fewer complaints than Excel users, with Unit4 FP&A also rating as:
- Better at operating with a large number of users than Excel
- More flexible than Excel
- Better at handling large volumes of data than Excel
Unit4FP&A users have far fewer complaints than Excel users. Common issues in planning projects such as inflexibility and handling of large numbers of users or data volumes do not seem to be a major problem for Unit4 FP&A customers.
Unit4 FP&A in the Planning Survey 2023
Unit4 in BARC’s words
“Companies can benefit from using Unit4 FP&A in terms of more precise/detailed planning, improved integration of planning with BI/analytics and increased transparency of planning. Overall, these benefits lead to a better quality of planning results for many customers. 72% of Unit4 FP&A users say they would “definitely” or “probably” recommend their planning product to other organizations – a good result and a solid indicator of customer satisfaction with the vendor and its product.” For more information on the BARC Planning Survey 2023 please visit this page.
How could Unit4 help your business?
At Unit4, we create FP&A technology specifically designed for the unique needs of people-centric organizations. We take a flexible, integrated approach to cover all your organization’s financial planning needs, whether planning cash flow, managing operational budgets, or forecasting sales, costs, and revenue.
Together with our next-generation ERP and HCM tools, our integrated planning solutions make budgeting more effective, efficient, and up to date, allowing you to help your people get the most out of what you can offer them so they can, in turn, contribute effectively to your organization’s goals.
Read the BARC Planning Survey 2023 Highlights report for Unit4 FP&A here.
