Market Perspectives

Ventana Research is sharing insights about Unit4, drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2022 Ventana Research Value Index: Business Planning is a distillation of a year of market and product research efforts.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal and vendor selection process for business planning. We evaluated Unit4 and 13 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability) and two related to the vendor (Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment 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 expertise and research.

Unit4 provides applications that meet the specific vertical industry needs of organizations. The planning software is designed for midsize organizations, enabling them to focus on action-oriented planning and budgeting. Unit4 Finance, Planning and Analysis is built on a process that brings together financial and operational planning with analytics, and enables finance to advance its effectiveness.

Unit4 was categorized as a Vendor of Merit, ranking 13th overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked last in Product Experience, 10th in Usability, and 11th in Manageability. It ranked 13th in Customer Experience and TCO/ROI, and 12th in Validation. Unit4’s overall performance was impacted by its lower ranking in Adaptability, Capability and Reliability, which represent 50% of the weighting in the overall Value Index.

Our assessment finds that Unit4 could perform better in Adaptability, where it ranked 14th, and could improve in its depth for business integration to applications across the enterprise. In Capability, where it also ranked 14th, Unit4 could examine the depth of its support for management and participants in planning, the depth of its support for collaboration, and its support for strategic and long-term planning. The company has been making ongoing investments in broadening and deepening the capabilities of the software. This assessment was based on Unit4 Financial Planning and Analysis, available in September of 2021.

As a result of the rapidly changing business landscape since 2020, and the need to quickly – and intelligently – change business plans and budgets to be agile and build resiliency, many organizations have decided to adopt dedicated software to support a planning approach that offers speed and flexibility. Transforming how organizations plan and budget has become a top-of-mind issue for chief financial officers and CEOs. Our Value Index can help organizations make better informed decisions on software that is best suited to business needs.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of business planning software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here, and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.