Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Oracle drawn from our latest market research, Ventana Research Buyers Guide: Revenue Performance Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.  

In all of our Buyers Guides we utilize a structured research methodology called the Value Index that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for revenue performance management. We evaluated Oracle and six other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research on revenue performance management. 

Our analysis classified Oracle as an Exemplary vendor, placing first overall with an 89.5%. Oracle’s best performance came in Product Experience at 90.0%, ranking first, due in part to its first-place ranking in Capability. In Customer Experience, Oracle placed second at 87.6% due to its lower performance in TCO/ROI and Validation. Oracle is a Leader in all categories of this Buyers Guide.   

Oracle’s Product Experience was minimally impacted by its performance in Manageability, though it could enhance the effectiveness of automated notifications to enable intelligent license management. Customer Experience was impacted by its performance in Validation, where it should continue to promote and market the strengths and qualities of the Oracle platform.   

Oracle performed best in Product Experience, notably in Capability, due to its comprehensively featured platform and wide breadth of RPM capabilities. Oracle has invested in general usability with its Redwood initiative as well as pioneering the use of ML for next best action recommendations and its AI assisted search and navigation. In addition, Oracle’s continued commitment to supporting the customer lifecycle led to its strong performance in Customer Experience.  

This assessment was based on Oracle Sales, Sales Planning Cloud, Incentive Compensation, CPQ, Subscription Management, v.23B and was available in April of 2023. 

Oracle, like all revenue performance management vendors, should continue to move away from the traditional focus on new sales in a way that ensures the product fully supports the ability to plan and optimize across all potential sales and revenue channels. By making this central to their application, it provides not just a set of "what to do" tools, but also guidance on "how to" as buyers look to plan for all channels and types of revenue.  

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of revenue performance management software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Buyers Guide by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.