OneStream Recognized as a Leader in BARC Score for FPM Software

The increasing pace of change and uncertainty in today’s global economic, geopolitical and regulatory environment has put an extreme amount of pressure on CFOs and Finance teams to lead their organizations in steering through market challenges.  Yet many organizations are struggling to keep pace and many Finance teams feel stuck on a treadmill, struggling just to get access to data they can trust to report on the past, much less move the business forward.   

Having modern, agile financial performance management (FPM) software and processes are critical to providing the insights needed to make informed decisions that have positive business impact.  This is the focus of the 2024 BARC Score for Financial Performance Management report.  

Managing Financial Performance in the Digital Age

The BARC FPM Score report focuses on the highly competitive market for FPM products and portfolios. It analyzes the strengths and challenges of 15 leading FPM software vendors that offer outstanding value to their customers.  In the report, the BARC analyst team highlights the importance of effective FPM as organizations seek to continuously monitor and accurately forecast financial targets in the age of digitalization and business disruption.   

Key focus areas that companies are pursuing right now in FPM include the following:  

• Providing an accelerated supply of information for decision makers.
• Increasing consideration of internal and external data for decision-making.
• Greater use of data and analytics in decision-making and management processes.
• Short-term planning and forecasts with a higher updating frequency.
• Digitalization and greater software support for internal processes as an essential basis for their optimization and further automation.

According to BARC, support from modern and requirements-oriented software solutions is an essential element in achieving these goals. Hereby, the integration of various FPM disciplines in common software platforms (e.g., financial planning and forecasting, financial consolidation and close, financial reporting and disclosure management and data analytics) is a means of avoiding problems and user dissatisfaction but also helps to streamline financial management processes within companies and to drive finance transformation.

Besides the shift towards unified FPM processes and systems, the BARC analyst team also highlights the increasing demand for cloud-based deployments, self-service in finance and accounting departments as well as AI and machine learning (ML) supported decision-making capabilities in FPM software.

OneStream Recognized as a Leader

So how did OneStream fare in this evaluation?  We are pleased to report that for the fourth year in a row, OneStream has been recognized as a Leader in the BARC Score for FPM software.  Our Leadership position improved in the 2024 report, with OneStream now sharing the highest-rated Portfolio Capabilities and improving our placement on Market Execution. (see figure 1 below)

Figure 1 – BARC Score for FPM Software

Commenting on OneStream’s placement in the BARC Score for FPM, Dr. Christian Fuchs, Senior Analyst and head of Data and Analytics Research at BARC said, “OneStream is recognized as a Market Leader for its unified platform that supports the full range of CPM processes across the enterprise.  OneStream can meet the needs of medium to large organizations across all industries looking for a unified and robust CPM solution.”

Here’s a look at the key strengths of OneStream that were highlighted in the report:

• Integrated CPM platform for financial consolidation and close, planning, budgeting and forecasting, reporting and analytics with built-in financial intelligence and financial data quality capabilities.
• Integrated BI and analytics functionality for (print-oriented) production reporting, financial reporting (disclosure management) with self-service dashboards and visualizations, and ad hoc analysis via Microsoft Excel add-in.
• OneStream Solution Exchange with more than 75 prebuilt business and productivity solutions that allow customers to extend the platform with additional capabilities.
• Excellent customer feedback for many important KPIs in BARC’s ‘The Planning Survey’ including customer satisfaction with vendor and product, price-to-value, and functionality.  The vast majority of customers surveyed said they would recommend the platform to other organizations.

This recognition is great validation of our strategic vision and execution as it demonstrates the power of OneStream to “take finance further” with a unified CPM platform that spans a broad range of financial and operational processes.  It highlights the broad range of built-in reporting and analytics functionality, including our innovation and ability to empower users with AI and ML for tasks such as predictions, scenario analyses and to automatically find insights and take action. And it recognizes our ability to meet today’s needs and adapt to future needs with our extensible platform and Solutions Exchange.

In a related report, BARC’s Financial Consolidation Survey 24, OneStream received 6 Top Ranks and 14 Leading Positions in a survey of over 500 practitioners evaluating 9 leading Financial Consolidation solutions.  This report provides further validation of OneStream’s market-leading functionality and ability to address the complex requirements of the world’s largest enterprises.

Evaluating Portfolio Capabilities vs. Market Execution

To be evaluated in the BARC FPM Score, a vendor must have a strong focus on providing FPM functionality (not only analytics functionality) and supply at least four out of five following capabilities: 

• Financial planning and forecasting
• Financial consolidation and close
• Financial reporting
• Ad hoc query and analysis of financial data
• Operational planning and forecasting

Every vendor is evaluated on two dimensions: Portfolio Capabilities and Market Execution. Portfolio Capabilities include functional and architectural criteria with a special emphasis on seamless integration and ease of use for business users.  Market Execution focuses on factors such as product strategy, customer satisfaction, financial results and geographic coverage. 

Learn More

Having modern, agile financial performance management (FPM) software and processes are critical for Finance teams to effectively steer their organizations through today’s market challenges.  Over 1,400 organizations have chosen OneStream’s market-leading platform to unify and streamline critical Finance processes and deliver actionable insights across the enterprise. To learn more, download a complimentary copy of the BARC FPM Score report, and contact OneStream if your organization is ready to take Finance further and thrive in the digital age.