IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

Plan for anything, be ready for everything

Highlights Overview

Volatility, uncertainty and risk have been with us for years – and they’re not going
• Automates manual planning,
away any time soon. But most planning teams, whether in Finance, Operations, HR,
budgeting, forecasting, re-
Sales or elsewhere in the organization, still spend an inordinate amount of time on
porting and analysis
manual, spreadsheet-based processes – collecting, consolidating and validating data
before they can even begin to analyze it.
• Links operational tactics to
financial plans
In response, leading organizations are seeking faster, more flexible solutions to deliver
deeper insights into both financial and operational performance. Too often, however,
• Facilitates flexible profitability
they believe they have to choose between the ease of use and fast deployment of a
analysis and what-if scenario
cloud solution or the powerful analytics capabilities traditionally available only in on-
modeling
premises solutions. But now they don’t have to choose. Now they can have it all with
IBM® Planning Analytics with Watson. One solution – multiple deployment options.
• Embedded predictive and
artificial intelligence (AI) ca-
pabilities to augment human
intelligence
Accelerated planning and forecasting cycles,
• Lets users create compelling
visualizations in a self-service
collaboration across the organization and agile
Workspace planning – all in one Extended Planning &
• Integrates with the familiar
Analysis (xP&A) solution
Microsoft Excel interface to
speed adoption IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is a fast, flexible and AI-powered Extended
Planning and Analysis (xP&A) solution. It can be deployed on-cloud, on-premises, on
• Managed and governed work- IBM Cloud Pak® for Data, or as a hybrid option, and it helps organizations large and
flows small drive greater process efficiency and deliver the foresight they need to steer
business performance effectively. It has been praised for its ease of use by customers
• Flexible deployment options and analysts alike. This solution not only automates manual tasks to accelerate
planning and forecasting cycles, but goes beyond automation to help you uncover new
insights directly from your data.

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson breaks down the traditional silos between
business unit planning. It unifies data into a central repository and integrates data
from diverse data sources such as ERPs, CRMs, and HRMs, allowing all users to access
one, governed database that acts as the single source of truth. It enables a cross-
departmental framework that acts to streamline planning and create transparency,
collaboration (high participation planning) and alignment across the organization.
And it does more than just plan –it analyzes data, reveals trends, and allows real-time
iteration for continuous planning. In IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, all of your
plans, budgets and forecasts are created and stored in the same application, meaning,
all users are working with the same data. Changes to one plan will automatically
update and flow to other plans and centralized business rules can be applied to all
plans, if required.
1 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson
 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

Fueled by AI, IBM Planning Analytics with Watson enables users to forecast outcomes
based on evolving trends or predictive insights and perform in-depth, what-if scenario
analysis to test alternative assumptions. It lets users create more timely, reliable, agile
plans that can pivot in real time to address changing market demands. IBM Planning
Analytics with Watson accelerates decision making and improves decision quality.

With a customizable planning and analytics Workspace, IBM Planning Analytics with
Watson helps you synthesize information and infer trends. It facilitates best practices
such as driver-based planning and rolling forecasts, and allows individuals, groups and
enterprise leaders to break free of the constraints of previous generations of planning
tools.

Interactive planning and analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson features a customizable user interface that can be
deployed to Finance, operational and departmental users across the organization. It
provides a single, consistent view of KPIs and enables users to evaluate plans, identify
performance gaps and diagnose the root causes of problems. Users can test business
assumptions and model scenarios, then immediately see the impact of alternative
courses of action on a range of business drivers.

Intelligent queries allow quick analysis and report creation based on common
business terms. Powerful multidimensional expression-based (MDX) queries allow
data analysis for any combination of hierarchies and dimensions. Power users can
build sophisticated queries, such as those involving asymmetrical nested reports.
But users don’t need to be experts in order to deploy multidimensional analyses and
reports quickly, to whoever needs them.

Guided planning

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson provides managed and governed workflows to
ensure a smooth and streamlined planning process. Users can create customized
applications to manage, facilitate, and increase participation in the planning,
budgeting, forecasting and reporting processes. Budget and Planning Managers
can create plans with multiple stages - and multiple steps within each stage. Once
created, they can then invite participants, outline submission requirements, assign
due dates and monitor the progress of plan activities. IBM Planning Analytics with
Watson creates a guided planning experience that is transparent and easy to navigate
and complete.

2 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

Figure 1:

IBM Planning Analytics

with Watson provides an
interactive, customizable
Workspace.

Multidimensional analysis

Built on the powerful in-memory IBM TM1® calculation engine, IBM Planning Analytics
with Watson enables multidimensional analysis of large, historical and future-oriented
data sets. It integrates multiple data sources and enables comparative analysis
of information from all relevant systems. Users can perform complex dimensional
calculations and analysis of, for example, product and customer profitability, supply
chain options, sales mix, and price/volume variance.

Complex hierarchies and dimensions can be handled easily to gain new insights
into business performance – or business problems. The solution’s ability to support
enterprise-scale data volumes (thanks to its ability to manage data sparsity in
multidimensional planning cubes) reduces the need to move or replicate data, and
helps analysts deliver a “single version of the truth” to management.

The “hierarchies” capability in IBM Planning Analytics with Watson provides both
technical advantages and business-user benefits. With hierarchies, you’re not limited
to the traditional definition of cubes. You can perform in depth, granular analysis using
“attributes” to describe the characteristics of products, customers, regions, and more.
Attribute data can be leveraged in the form of ”virtual dimensions” using data that
existed at the time the cube was created or introduced later on.

Distributed administration enables all geographies and departments to participate in

a well-managed, collaborative process. The result is a more reliable, forward-looking
view of business structures such as product families and sales territories. It also
helps define targets for use in planning and forecasting as well as in profit and growth
initiatives.

3 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

Visualizations, scorecards Advanced self-service modeling

and dashboards
Advanced sandboxing and modeling capabilities in IBM Planning Analytics
with Watson enable everyday finance and business analysts to create and
The IBM Planning Analytics Workspace
maintain sophisticated plans and forecasts with little to no IT support. Built
features a highly visual, freeform design that
on the mature, multidimensional technology of IBM TM1, IBM Planning
offers a wide variety of graphics, including
Analytics with Watson enables analysis and calculations for even the most
charts, maps, images and shapes, plus text and
demanding profitability and scenario models.
video. These automated visualizations help you
create vivid, impactful reports to share insights
Analysts can build models that integrate virtually any business driver into
with decision makers. Quick searching and
plans, budgets and forecasts. The models can reflect company structures,
Snap Commands give the interface a natu-
business rules and relationships, and then be revised as those structures,
ral-language-like feel.
rules and relationships change. Users can define operational drivers and
link them to financial and operational outcomes throughout the planning
You can develop dashboards and scorecards
process to see how a change in one variable ripples through the organiza-
linked to plans and budgets and then share
tion. This improves visibility into leading performance indicators and shows
them across the enterprise. Scorecards and
the likely impact of different operational drivers on plans and forecasts,
dashboards help business users measure and
thus increasing the lead time available to assess alternatives.
monitor performance in the context of their
specific roles and functions, which drives
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson also helps shorten planning cycles and
strategy management and execution by helping
reduce the errors common to manual, spreadsheet-based processes. The
align initiatives, resources and actions with
result is that analysts can spend more time on value-added analysis, and
corporate objectives.
less time verifying data and maintaining spreadsheets.

Figure 2:

Scorecards and dashboards offer fast,

intuitive insight into the organization’s
progress toward its objectives.

4 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

IBM Planning Analytics for Predictive Forecasting

Excel
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson puts the power of algorithmic
forecasting in the hands of every day users — even those without data
Spreadsheets are among the most popular
science skills — for more accurate, consistent, and timely forecasts.
software tools ever invented. But they
do have their limitations. That’s why IBM
Predictive forecasting augments human intelligence by using statistical and
Planning Analytics with Watson enables users
predictive analytics to identify and assess trends and seasonality patterns
to continue working in the Microsoft Excel
in historic values, greatly improving forecast accuracy. It also reduces the
interface where needed, rather than replace
time required to produce an accurate forecast, allowing users to focus on
their spreadsheets.
process optimization, managing exceptions and making adjustments. IBM
Planning Analytics with Watson embeds statistical algorithms directly into
The IBM Planning Analytics for Excel interface
the solution so users don’t have to export data to an external solution.
retains full Excel functionality and formatting,
The algorithms assess the historical values and applies the algorithm that
including capabilities such as graphing and
yields the best accuracy and fewest errors, to predict a future value. Once
built-in functions. Finance and business
a prediction has been generated, the statistical details page provides
professionals can work in the familiar Excel
easy-to-understand facts about how it was generated - providing users
interface while enjoying all the capabilities of a
with more granular information as well as increased explainability and
modern planning and analytics solution.
accountability in their forecasts.

Figure 3:

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson allows

users to retain the familiar Excel interface.

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 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson benefits

• Enables finance, operational and departmental • Facilitates best practices such as driver-based planning and
business users to create timely, reliable, agile plans, rolling forecasts.
budgets and forecasts in a customizable analytics
Workspace. • Creates compelling visualizations automatically, with a wide
variety of charts, tables, maps, images and shapes – plus
• Automated workflow for process visibility and text and video – to choose from.
streamlined planning participation
• Incorporates scorecards and dashboards to monitor key
• Allows users to analyze data from multidimensional performance indicators (KPIs).
planning models in the familiar Microsoft Excel
interface. • Enhances forecast accuracy with embedded predictive
forecasting capabilities
• Supports fast, flexible, what-if scenario modeling.
• Provides a unified Web, Excel, and mobile experience for all
• Manages enterprise-scale data volumes in user roles.
multidimensional planning cubes.
• Supports natural language searching and multidimensional
• Leverages internal and external data, including expressions-based (MDX) queries for fast, powerful
data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and analysis.
customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
• Provides role-based security to support multiple users and
• Performs complex cost allocations and profitability user types and ensure that users see only what they need
analysis, letting users drill down for a granular view to.
of profitability.by product, customer, region, sales
channel and more. • Facilitates deployment on cloud, on premises, on IBM Cloud
Pak for Data or hybrid options.

For further information please visit: Request a call

https://www.ibm.com/products/planning-analytics To request a call or to ask a question, go to:

www.ibm.com/contact/us/en/

An IBM representative will respond to your

inquiry within two business days.

6 IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

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January 2021

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virtual-agent-technology

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