Market Perspectives

Ventana Research is sharing insights about Vena Solutions, 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 Vena Solutions 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.

Vena targets midsize organizations, and is explicitly designed to give Microsoft Excel users the best of both worlds: an application that offers the simplicity, familiarity and ease-of-use of a stand-alone spreadsheet, but built on a multidimensional data structure with strong administrative and process control capabilities. Compared to using spreadsheets, Vena enables organizations to simplify and accelerate financial budgeting and operational planning.

Vena Solutions was categorized as a Vendor of Merit, ranking ninth overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked 12th in Product Experience, where it was designated as a Value Index Leader in Adaptability. It ranked eighth in Customer Experience, and ranked best and sixth in Validation. Vena’s overall performance was impacted by its lower ranking in Capability Manageability and Usability, which represent 50% of the weighting in the overall Value Index.

Vena Solutions could perform better in Capability, where it ranked 13th, in the depth of support for strategy, goals and scorecards as well as underlying technology direction for more effective planning. In Usability, where it ranked 12th, Vena could examine its depth in accessibility, enabling easier planning access across all roles in the enterprise. This assessment was based on Vena Solution’s product available in August 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.