The first faint scents of a recovery are in the air, and niche software vendors are straining at the leash.

This has been a super-tough year for tech investments of all kinds. The big IT analyst firms kicked off 2009 with dismal forecasts for the IT market and have been revising them downward ever since. The numbers turned negative even for the software segment, historically the most resilient. Gartner's June forecast for worldwide IT spending has software spend contracting by 1.6 percent for 2009; Forrester's global IT outlook (also published in June) is even bleaker, predicting a whopping 8.2 percent decline in software spend for the year.

But the worst may soon be over, the analyst houses agree. The decline in the software sector has almost stabilized, according to Gartner, and the firm predicts a return to positive growth of 3.2 percent in 2010 -- pretty anemic, but at least it's in the right direction. Forrester expects a turnaround in the overall IT market starting in Q4 as businesses realize that they overreacted in the first quarter. The U.S. market will lead, with Europe and Asia turning the corner in the first quarter of 2010.

This is good news for every one of the firms we list here in our annual roundup of best-of-breed software vendors. There's good news for buyers, too. The bargains are still out there, for now. The products and providers that survive in this frigid climate will be around for some time to come as the economy thaws. And the recession may actually have stepped up the pace of innovation; just as the features of Web 2.0 were forged in the 2001--2003 tech meltdown, expect the next wave of groundbreaking technologies to emerge from the current downturn.

BPM Tackles the Planning Crisis

Business performance management (BPM) software vendors are thriving even in these tough times, as companies cast about for ways to manage cost and risk and optimize profitability. In BPM Partners' BPM Pulse Survey 2009, more than half of respondents said that they have increased their focus on performance management investments, as John Colbert, VP of research and analysis with the firm, reported in the June issue of BPM Magazine.

In a business environment that's forcing many organizations to re-envision or even jettison their budgeting and planning processes, Paul Schuster, VP of corporate finance and treasurer with insurance giant Trustmark, is sticking with what he's got -- a planning process of extraordinary depth that, at first glance, might make the most dedicated planner blanch. In monthly business review meetings, Trustmark takes a detailed, driver-based look at each of its core business units as well as its three major support areas: the claim payments operation, IT, and managed care.

"We have drivers and subdrivers and sub-subdrivers," Schuster says. "For example, just looking at the sales calculations in one of our business units reveals that it has several pages of calculations of what's driving it. I'd say that collectively, for everything that we're doing, there are thousands of drivers. And we do them each month, for every month remaining in the current year and every month of the next year."

Trustmark has been doing this for the past 8 or 9 years. As befits a leader of a company with a 100-year-plus history, Schuster takes the long view: "Through all of the 1900s, we did reasonably OK, but since then we have been generating profits that have been two and three times higher than any generated prior. And this is because we're actually managing the business much more effectively."

Up until 2006, when Trustmark implemented a BPM system from Longview Solutions, company execs managed all of these calculations in spreadsheets, some of which were of "monstrous" proportions, says Schuster. An Excel workbook covering salary planning and forecasting for the company's 2,000-plus employees had grown to 55 megabytes and 225 linked worksheets, he recalls. Clearly, something had to give.

The Longview software radically simplified the workload for the monthly planning sessions. "It's a six-dimensional database; the difference between plans, forecasts, and actuals is just a change in the 'time' dimension," says Schuster. "The hierarchy of the reporting and the drivers and everything is the same, so it allows us at the push of a button to have all of the information, actuals and forecasts, for the year. Plan, current year plan, next year's plan -- all of this is available.

"The ledgers historically had that capability to do variance reporting and consolidations for the actuals, but to do the calculations to the level we do now with the ledger systems we had wasn't feasible," he adds.

For Trustmark, there's no going back to the ledger-plus-spreadsheet days. "Whenever we're getting into some pressure on the need to cut costs," says Schuster, "I threaten to pull the plug on this system -- and I just hear massive wails! This tells me that it's adding value."

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

A3 Solutions Inc.
A3 Modeling
www.a3solutions.com [1]
Acorn Systems
Enterprise Performance Suite
www.acornsys.com [2]
Active Strategy Inc.
Active Strategy Enterprise On-Demand
www.activestrategy.com [3]
Actuate Corp
Actuate Performancesoft Suite
www.actuate.com [4]
Adaptive Planning Inc.
Adaptive Planning
www.adaptiveplanning.com [5]
arcplan
arcplan Edge
www.arcplan.com [6]
BizNet Software Inc.
BizExcelerator
www.biznetsoftware.com [7]
BOARD International
BOARD toolkit
www.board.com [8]
Carpio Solutions
GesFin Planning Suite
www.carpio.com [9]
Centage Corp.
Budget Maestro
www.centage.com [10]
Clarity Systems Limited
Clarity
www.claritysystems.com [11]
ClearMomentum Inc.
ClearFinancials
www.clearmomentum.com [12]
CODA Ltd.
CODA 2know
http://www.coda.com/products-services/2know [13]
Corporater
Corporater EPM Suite
www.corporater.com [14]
Ferox Microsystems Inc.
WebFact
www.ferox.com [15]
Host Analytics
Performance Management Suite
www.hostanalytics.com [16]
IBM
IBM Cognos TM1
www.cognos.com [17]
Infor
Infor PM
www.infor.com [18]
Isis Solutions Inc.
ISIS Discovery & Predictive
Analytics
www.isis-solution.com [19]
KCI Computing Inc.
CONTROL
www.kcicorp.com [20]
Longview Solutions
Longview Performance Management Platform
www.longview.com [21]
Microsoft
Microsoft FRx
www.microsoft.com/frx [22]
myDIALS Inc.
myDIALS
www.mydials.com [23]
Oracle
Hyperion Financial Performance Management
www.hyperion.com [24]
Palladium Group
Executive Strategy Manager
www.executivestrategymanager.com [25]
PowerPlan Corp.
PowerPlan
www.powerplancorp.com [26]
PROPHIX Software Inc.
PROPHIX
www.prophix.com [27]
Quantrix
Quantrix Modeler
www.quantrix.com [28]
River Logic Inc.
Enterprise Optimizer
www.riverlogic.com [29]
Rocket Software
CorVu
www.corvu.com [30]
Salient Corp.
UXT
www.salient.com [31]
SAP
SAP BusinessObjects
www.businessobjects.com [32]
SAS Institute Inc.
SAS for Performance Management
www.sas.com [33]
Symphony Metreo
SymphonyRPM Performance Management Platform
www.symphony-metreo.com [34]
Tagetik
Tagetik
www.tagetik.com [35]
Teradata
Teradata Finance and Performance Management
www.teradata.com [36]
Visual Mining
NetCharts Performance Dashboards
www.visualmining.com [37]

Process Management on the Fly

A January report from Gartner EXP Worldwide identified business process improvement as the No. 1 business goal for CIOs in 2009, somewhat surprisingly relegating cost reduction to second place. CIOs and CFOs alike are being asked to contribute to efficiency efforts. While any business technology can be considered under its process improvement aspect, one burgeoning sector of the software market -- business process management -- addresses the task directly and, in principle, for any process in the organization.

David F. Giannetto, CEO of consulting firm The Telos Group and professor in Rutgers University's Executive MBA program, defines the discipline as "the use of technology to model business processes and therefore hopefully provide better information about their effectiveness and efficiency, with an eye toward improvements. In the larger picture, process management is the new focus of how you apply a very specific technology to do process improvement, which would be a manual procedure in the old days. This is true even for Six Sigma or Lean; these are much more manual. The heart of business process management is the use of technology."

The core capabilities of process management suites -- tools for modeling, automating, monitoring and optimizing processes -- are mature, but vendors continue to force the pace of innovation to differentiate themselves in a crowded field. "The interesting change that's coming right now for process management software is an understanding that there has to be much more front-end-user focus so that users can build processes on the fly without having to be a technology person to do it," notes Giannetto. "This makes it much easier to set up and much cheaper to maintain, so you have a real shot at the ROI." Other enterprise technologies, notably customer relationship management and business performance management, could benefit from the same kind of innovation, he adds.

BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Adobe Systems Inc.
Adobe LiveCycle ES
www.adobe.com/products/livecycle [38]
Appian Corp.
Appian Anywhere
www.appian.com [39]
Ascentn
AgilePoint
www.ascentn.eu [40]
AuraPortal
AuraPortal BPMS
www.auraportal.com [41]
CA
CA Aion Business Rules Expert
www.ca.com/us/products/product.aspx?id=250 [42]
Cordys
Cordys Business Operations Platform
www.cordys.com [43]
DST Systems Inc.
Automated Work Distributor
http://www.dstsystems.com/dstsol/awd/awd_home.html [44]
EMC
EMC Documentum Process Suite
http://www.emc.com/products/detail/software/process-suite.htm [45]
Global 360 Inc.
Process360
http://www.global360.com/products/bpm/ [46]
HandySoft
BizFlow
www.handysoft.com [47]
IDS Scheer
ARIS Platform
www.ids-scheer.com [48]
Intalio
Intalio BPMS
http://www.intalio.com/products/bpm/ [49]
K2
K2 blackpearl
www.k2.com [50]
Lawson Software
S3 Business Process Management
www.lawsonsoftware.com [51]
Lombardi Software Inc.
Teamworks
www.lombardisoftware.com [52]
Metastorm
Metastorm BPM
www.metastorm.com [53]
Open Text Corp.
Captaris Workflow
www.captaris.com/workflow [54]
Oracle
Oracle BPM Suite
www.oracle.com/technologies/bpm/bpm-suite.html [55]
Pegasystems Inc.
SmartBPM Suite
www.pegasystems.com [56]
Polymita Technologies
Polymita BPM
www.polymita.com [57]
Savvion Inc.
Savvion BusinessManager
www.savvion.com [58]
Singularity
Singularity BPM Suite
www.singularity.co.uk [59]
Software AG
webMethods
www.softwareag.com [60]
TIBCO Software Inc.
BPM+
www.tibco.com [61]
Ultimus
Ultimus Adaptive BPM Suite
www.ultimus.com [62]
 

Treasury Tech vs. the Credit Crunch

Work station vendors continue to dominate the treasury technology landscape, but niche providers offer products for just about every desk in treasury. Our list this year includes firms that provide tools for foreign exchange management (FIREapps), cash flow forecasting (Emagia), bank relationship management (The Weiland Financial Group), and bank fee analysis (Trintech).

The credit crisis has hugely raised the profile of cash-related processes and the tools that enable them. "I used to have a mission of earning a high rate of return (within certain risk tolerances, of course), but lately my mission is to lose no principal," says Douglas Bressette, director of treasury investments with biopharm multinational Celgene Corp. "Even at the expense of some income -- do not lose any principal!"

An investment management solution from Clearwater Analytics helps Bressette achieve this goal. Installed in 2007, it replaced a workbook supplemented with Bloomberg for one-off analytics and price checks. The two were "not tremendously integrated," Bressette says. Checking the calculations was not rocket science, "but definitely very tedious with a large book of assets."

The new system eliminated some time-consuming chores, but the bigger goal for Celgene was to ensure accuracy and consistency in reporting to various constituencies. "First, we can look at our investments, and because of the rule-based system in Clearwater, we can tell whether they meet all of the criteria of our approved investment policy. Of course, our auditors and board members are quite interested in this. Second, we make sure that we're managing the assets to meet our risk tolerance," says Bressette. All reports are assembled from a single table of data, eliminating the potential for discrepancies that might arise within a loosely integrated system.

Like many companies, Celgene is keeping its investment risk profile as low as it will go for the time being, while still seeking a reasonable rate of return on a group of assets that's among the largest on its balance sheet. The Clearwater tool is central to that strategy. "With a glance at a couple of sets of charts, I can see exactly where the cash is and what risks we're taking, whether from a counterparty credit-risk perspective or an interest-rate and risk duration perspective," he says.

TREASURY

Chesapeake System Solutions
SmartTreasury
www.chessys.com [63]
Clearwater Analytics
Operating Fund Analytics
www.clearwateranalytics.com [64]
Emagia Corp.
Emagia Cash Flow Performance Management Suite
www.emagia.com [65]
FiREapps
FiREapps TransactionFx
www.fireapps.com [66]
Fiserv
CheckFree i-Series
www.fiserv.com [67]
Fundtech Ltd.
Global CASHplus
www.fundtech.com [68]
Gateway Systems Inc.
GATEWAY Treasury Management System
www.gatewaysystems.com [69]
IT2 Treasury Solutions Ltd.
IT2 Treasury Management System
www.it2tms.com [70]
Kyriba Corp.
Kyriba
www.kyriba.com [71]
Reval
Reval
www.reval.com [72]
SunGard
SunGard AvantGard
www.sungard.com/avantgard [73]
The Weiland Financial Group Inc.
Bank Relationship Manager Edge
www.weiland-wfg.com [74]
Thomson Reuters
Treasura
www.thomsonreuters.com [75]
Trintech Group PLC
Bank Fee Analysis
www.trintech.com [76]
US Dataworks Inc.
Clearingworks
www.usdataworks.com [77]
Wall Street Systems
Wallstreet Treasury SaaS
www.wallstreetsystems.com [78]
 

A New Image for A/P and A/R

In both the receivables and the payables zones of the cash ecosystem, the challenge, still, is paper -- mounds and mounds of it. But companies are determined to put a dent in this; witness the continuing strength of the e-purchasing market. A recent report from Forrester predicts a 21 percent increase in revenue for e-purchasing vendors worldwide this year. The market for supplier networks experienced a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24 percent from 2004 to 2009, and for electronic invoice presentment and processing (EIPP), the CAGR was 29 percent.

Electronic transactions are still far from the norm, though, and a growing number of companies are turning to document imaging and data capture technologies to tackle A/R and A/P inefficiencies. Corporate applications of optical character recognition (OCR) have been around for more than 20 years, but today's imaging systems bear little resemblance to the hit-and-miss OCR products of the '80s. Invoice imaging systems, for example, can capture the semistructured information on these highly variable documents, validate it against user-defined business rules, and feed it into an ERP or accounting system.

For Scott Searls, senior vice president and chief supply executive with telecom colossus Alltel Wireless at the time of my interview, much of the impetus for automating A/P came from the company's decision to change its payment terms. "We thought, 'Well, why don't we push this on two sides? Why don't we take a prompt payment discount -- we'll tell suppliers that we'll pay them in 10 days and take a 2 percent discount from the invoice -- or we'll push the payment amount to 45 days."

Sounds straightforward enough, but the plan hit a snag. Alltel's systems were not capable of recognizing payments and getting them approved and processed within the 10 days. "So we could take the 2 percent discount, but we ended up paying the supplier 15 to 20 days later -- and this didn't go over very well, as you might expect," Searls recalls.

An invoice processing solution from Brainware bought Alltel more time at the front end. "By allowing the invoice to be optically scanned, you get an image that then has intelligence in it; the system reads the invoice, pulls out critical fields, pre-populates them for you, and ties this straight into the payables system, so that you eliminate a lot of the human interaction," Searls explains. Approvers get the invoice faster and move it on to payments sooner, giving Alltel a much better chance of taking that 2 percent discount -- not to mention a fast ROI on the new system.

"Literally the first day that it was installed, we pulled back more discounts than the cost of the software," says Searls. "The folks who were working on it came to me and said, 'You won't believe this!' And I was thinking that it must have blown up or something or that it didn't install correctly or that somebody had missed all the feeds, so now we would be way behind. And they said, 'This is how many dollars we saved today ...' -- and it was bigger than the cost of the implementation. We were laughing and crying at the same time."

RECEIVABLES AND COLLECTIONS

9ci Inc.
Dispute & Collection System
www.9ci.com [79]
Capgent
Capgent Order-to-Cash Suite
www.capgent.com [80]
C/LECT Consulting Inc.
Claim/Deduction Management System
www.clectconsulting.com [81]
Coface
@rating
www.coface.com [82]
Cortera Inc.
eCredit
www.cortera.com/products/ecredit-by-cortera [83]
CreditPoint Software
CreditPoint Software
www.creditpointsoftware.com [84]
Dun & Bradstreet Inc.
DNBi Risk Management
www.dnbisolutions.com/RiskManagement.aspx [85]
Equifax
Equifax Account Advantage
www.equifax.com [86]
Euler Hermes
EOLIS
www.eulerhermes.com [87]
Experian Information Solutions
Credit Migration Solutions
www.experian.com [88]
ezBackOffice Inc.
ezCash
www.ezbackoffice.com [89]
Fair Isaac Corp.
FICO Recovery Management System
www.fairisaac.com [90]
Metafile Information Systems Inc.
MetaViewer
www.metaviewer.com [91]
Online Resources Corp.
Virtual Collection Agent
www.orcc.com [92]
Sentinel Development Solutions
eCollections
www.ecollections.com [93]
Softrax Corp.
Softrax Revenue Manager
www.softrax.com [94]
SunGard
SunGard AvantGard
www.sungard.com/avantgard [95]
WorkflowAR
WorkflowAR
www.workflowar.com [96]
 

PAYABLES

170 Systems Inc.
170 MarkView for Accounts Payable
www.170systems.com [97]
Ariba Inc.
Ariba
www.ariba.com [98]
Basware
Basware Invoice Automation
www.basware.com [99]
Bottomline Technologies
Bottomline Business eXchange
www.bottomline.com [100]
Brainware
Brainware Distiller for Invoices
www.brainware.com [101]
Emptoris
Emptoris Supplier Performance Management
www.emptoris.com [102]
Hyland Software
OnBase for Accounts Payable
www.hylandsoftware.com [103]
I-many Inc.
ContractSphere
www.imany.com [104]
J.P. Morgan
DocManager Solutions
www.jpmorgan.com [105]
Ketera Technologies Inc.
Ketera Spend Analysis
www.ketera.com [106]
Nextance
Nextance Contract Management
www.nextance.com [107]
Nexus Systems
PayablesNexus
www.nexussystems.com [108]
Perfect Commerce
PerfectProcure
www.perfect.com [109]
TradeCard Inc.
TradeCard
www.tradecard.com [110]
U.S. Bank
PowerTrack Payables
www.usbank.com/powertrack [111]
Zycus Inc.
Zycus Spend Management Suite
www.zycus.com [112]
 

Attacking Tax

Spreadsheets still rule the world of corporate tax. In a Business Finance survey to be published later this year, 90 percent of respondents said that they use them in their tax work. Only 41 percent use tax compliance software, and 30 percent use tax provision software. Clearly, providers of corporate income tax applications have a wide-open market.

The same is true of vendors whose products can help companies to cope with ever-shifting indirect tax obligations. Steve Danielson, administrator of sales and use tax compliance with Walgreens, recalls the days when his work was spreadsheet-based. "It was a totally manual process of putting out thousands of sheets for one particular return and then having to do the same process again for the next. We spent hundreds of hours a month doing our returns."

Nowadays, more than 250 feeds from the company's various financial systems flow into Onesource Sales & Use Tax software, a solution from the tax and accounting business of Thomson Reuters. Onesource then "flows that data through the different returns and populates the various jurisdictions for how much sales we posted, say, for a particular city, and how much tax is owed," says Danielson. "It cross-references whether we have collected the right amount of tax, and it also has reporting functions to show how much we're paying a certain jurisdiction. It compares that to the prior reporting period and sets it up for electronic filing." Changes in the rules for any jurisdiction are immediately updated in the system, ready to be applied in the next reporting period.

Walgreens hasn't reduced its sales and use staff since implementing the tool in 2000, but it hasn't increased it either, even though the volume of returns has risen. "We were averaging 200 returns per person before we had the software; now we're averaging over 1,000," Danielson reports.

TAX

ADP
Taxware Enterprise
www.taxware.com [113]
Avalara Inc.
AvaTax OnDemand
www.avalara.com [114]
BNA Software
BNA Corporate Tax Analyzer
www.bnasoftware.com [115]
CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
CorpSystem
www.tax.cchgroup.com/CorpSystem [116]
CORPTAX Inc.
CORPTAX U.S. Compliance
www.corptax.com [117]
Pitney Bowes
GeoTAX Enterprise Tax Management
http://www.g1.com/Products/Business-Geographics/GeoTAX/ [118]
Sabrix Inc.
The Sabrix Application Suite
www.sabrix.com [119]
SCH Business Solutions LLC
DI Tax
www.di-tax.com [120]
TaxSation Inc.
CORPORATE Pro
www.taxsation.net [121]
the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters
ONESOURCE Sales & Use Tax
www.onesource.thomsonreuters.com/salesanduse [122]
Vertex Inc.
Vertex Provision Global Tax Office
www.vertexinc.com [123]

Expense Management: Dispatches from the Fraud Wars

This has been the Year of Questionable Expenses. In the United Kingdom, a whole cadre of politicians found themselves yearning for the old days of zero transparency after the Telegraph newspaper revealed a series of bizarre claims on the public purse. One Member of Parliament charged the taxpayer some $200 a year for the services of a mole catcher (that's "mole" as in furry burrowing mammal, not the security services infiltrator). Another thought it worthwhile to expense a box of matches.

In the U.S., corporations may be wishing their losses to fraudulent expenses were in that range. A new Web site (www.fraudies.com [124]) set up by Oversight Systems Inc., a firm that provides continuous auditing/monitoring software, lists some truly staggering scams. Employees in one company billed more than $100,000 in iTunes purchases to their corporate credit card. And how about the guy who expensed a $40,000 Mediterranean cruise?

You have to wonder about the ones that got away. As the editors of www.fraudies.com [125] point out, employee fraud is "a serious problem that costs companies millions and ultimately punishes the vast majority of employees who are honest and ethical."

Businesses are fighting back, according to a June report on T&E expense management from Aberdeen Group. Companies that the research firm regards as "best in class" have achieved a significant reduction in cases of fraud over the past 3 years. In Q1 of 2009, these organizations detected 1.5 cases of fraud per 1,000 expense reports, down from 2.3 cases per 1,000 reports in 2007.

Three-fourths of the companies in Aberdeen's sample report that their expense management processes are at least partially automated. Best-in-class organizations are more likely than their peers to use T&E technologies which, in addition to guarding against fraud, can help companies to improve compliance with T&E policies and reduce the cost of processing expense reports.

EXPENSE MANAGEMENT

Concur Technologies Inc.
Concur Travel & Expense
www.concur.com [126]
Cybershift
Cybershift Necho Expense
www.cybershift.com [127]
DATABASICS Inc.
ExpenSite
www.data-basics.com [128]
ExpensAble
ExpensAble Corporate
www.expensable.com [129]
ExpenseWatch Inc.
ExpenseWatch.com
www.expensewatch.com [130]
ExpenseWire LLC
ExpenseWire
www.expensewire.com [131]
Verian Technologies
Expense Manager
www.verian.com [132]
 

HR and Compensation

Economic squalls have dampened talk of talent shortages, but in all probability it's only a temporary respite. As we swing into the upturn, it may not be long until vendors of human resource technologies once again start peppering their marketing efforts with the rhetoric of the "war for talent."

From the CFO's point of view, though, the recruitment functions that are now staples of HR management systems may be less strategic than the performance and compensation modules these tools offer. Finance chiefs are under increasing pressure from boards, analysts, and investors to provide deeper insight into the financial governance and performance of human capital, an asset that's often a company's largest investment. HR systems can provide a platform for enhanced collaboration with HR leaders in pursuit of that goal, as well as a decisive step toward a pay-for-performance culture.

The human resources/human capital management software market as a whole (including offerings from ERP firms) will grow at a composite rate of 9 percent through 2011, hitting $8.3 billion that year, according to an October 2008 report from Forrester. Providers of software-as-a-service HR management systems will do even better, with a 14 percent growth rate.

HR & COMPENSATION

ADP
ADP Employease
www.employease.com [133]
Authoria Inc.
Authoria Talent Management
www.authoria.com [134]
Callidus Software Inc.
TrueComp
www.callidussoftware.com [135]
Cybershift
Workforce Management 3G
www.cybershift.com [136]
Genesys
PeopleComeFirst HRMS
www.genesys-soft.com [137]
High Line Corp.
High Line Human Resources
www.highlinecorp.com [138]
iEmployee
iEmployee Online Benefits
www.iemployee.com [139]
IEX Corp.
TotalView Workforce Management
www.iex.com [140]
IncentOne
Employee Power
www.incentone.com [141]
Infor
Infor Human Capital Management
www.infor.com/solutions/hcm [142]
Kronos Inc.
Workforce Central
www.kronos.com [143]
Makana Solutions Inc.
Makana Motivator Express
www.makanasolutions.com [144]
NuView Systems Inc.
NuViewHR
www.nuviewinc.com [145]
Paychex Inc.
Paychex HR Online
www.paychex.com [146]
PenSoft Payroll Solutions
Employee Tracker
www.pensoft.com [147]
Saba
Saba Talent Suite
www.saba.com [148]
Sage Software
Sage Abra
www.sageabra.com [149]
SAS Institute Inc.
SAS Human Capital Management
www.sas.com/solutions/hrmanagement [150]
SilkRoad Technology Inc.
OpenHire
www.silkroadtech.com [151]
Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corp.
iVantage
www.spectrumhr.com [152]
SuccessFactors Inc.
SuccessFactors
www.successfactors.com [153]
SumTotal Systems Inc.
SumTotal Talent Development Suite
www.sumtotalsystems.com [154]
Transcentive, a Computershare Company
Express Equity Suite
www.transcentive.com [155]
Ultimate Software
UltiPro
www.ultimatesoftware.com [156]
Varicent Software Inc.
Varicent Sales Performance Management
www.varicent.com [157]
Workday Inc.
Workday HCM
www.workday.com [158]
Workscape Inc.
Workscape Express
www.workscape.com [159]
Workstream Inc.
Workstream TalentCenter
www.workstreaminc.com [160]
Xactly Corp.
Xactly Incent
www.xactlycorp.com [161]
 

Fixed Assets

HR may be the biggest investment for many companies, but capital of the nonhuman kind weighs heavy on most corporate balance sheets, and it comes with distinct challenges around tracking assets, monitoring their performance, and calculating depreciation. Best-of-breed fixed asset management tools can help companies get control over their property, plant, and equipment; track down opportunities for tax savings; and meet regulatory compliance and reporting requirements, including those of Sarbanes Oxley.

FIXED ASSETS

Accruent
Accruent for Corporate
www.accruent.com [162]
BNA Software
BNA Fixed Assets
www.bnasoftware.com/Products/BNA_Fixed_Assets_Large_Corporations.asp [163]
Decision Support Technology
Bassets Fixed Asset System
www.bassets.net [164]
WorthIT Software, a Division of M.R.S. Co. Ltd.
WorthIT Fixed Assets
www.worthitsoftware.com [165]
 

Mapping the GRC Tech Universe

For anyone navigating the complexities of the governance, risk, and compliance software market, the work of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG) has been a beacon in recent years. In May, the group released its GRC-IT Blueprint, a must-read for execs with GRC responsibilities. It defines the various functionalities (OCEG calls them "modules") of the available technologies and sorts them into three "levels": business applications, core GRC applications, and infrastructure. It also categorizes the modules into nine general "arenas," such as assurance and audit management, enterprise risk management, and security management.

The goal is to help GRC technology users make better purchasing decisions, says Carole Switzer, OCEG's president. "We're not saying that every product that's in each technology arena must include every module, but this gives the user a way to have an initial checklist for discussion -- to say, 'Well, you say that you have a risk product ... does it cover all of these areas of functionality or only some of them? And if it only covers some of them, where in your product line do you cover the rest?'"

The names of some of OCEG's technology arenas (business process management, human resources management) echo those of the software sectors listed in this article, and indeed we often hear the claim that GRC touches every aspect of the organization. So should companies examine every piece of software that they buy with an eye to its GRC ramifications? They should indeed, says Switzer. "They should be looking at every piece of software that they acquire and determining whether it has functionality that would support GRC or whether it will end up containing and managing data that's critical to GRC. Not everything will -- but a lot will."

The market for dedicated GRC applications remains sprawling and fragmented. Thomson Reuters' acquisition of GRC heavyweight Paisley earlier this year failed to trigger the expected round of buyouts. Some 500 firms currently call themselves GRC providers, Switzer notes, and she expects this diversity to continue, although ultimately "you'll see a handful of vendors, maybe a dozen, that will be able to say, 'If you come to us, then either directly or through partnerships we can cover everything.' But I don't know that this exists yet."

GRC

Achiever, a Sword Group Company
Achiever Plus
www.achieverplus.com [166]
ACL Services Ltd.
ACL AuditExchange
www.acl.com [167]
Approva Corp.
BizRights Platform and Controls Intelligence Suite
www.approva.net [168]
Archer Technologies
Archer Compliance Management
www.archer.com [169]
Axentis
AXENTIS Enterprise
www.axentis.com [170]
AXS-One Inc.
AXS-One Compliance Platform
www.axsone.com [171]
BlackLine Systems
BlackLine Systems Financial Close Software Suite
www.blackline.com [172]
BWise
BWise GRC Platform
www.bwise.com [173]
Compliance 360
GRC Performance Center
www.compliance360.com [174]
Cura Software Solutions
Cura Enterprise
www.curasoftware.com [175]
Equity Methods
Option Navigator
www.equitymethods.com [176]
Finsbury Solutions
EUC Enterprise
www.finsburysolutions.com [177]
Infogix Inc.
Infogix Insight
www.infogix.com [178]
Mega
Mega GRC Risk
www.mega.com [179]
Methodware
Enterprise Risk Assessor
www.methodware.com [180]
MetricStream Inc.
MetricStream Compliance Management
www.metricstream.com [181]
Mitratech
TeamConnect GRC
www.mitratech.com [182]
Neohapsis
Certus GRC
www.neohapsis.com [183]
NEMEA Security Services LLC
NEMEA Compliance Center
www.nemea.us [184]
OpenPages Inc.
OpenPages Platform
www.openpages.com [185]
Oversight Systems Inc.
Oversight
www.oversightsystems.com [186]
Paisley, a Thomson Reuters Company
Paisley GRC on Demand
www.paisley.com [187]
Protiviti
Governance Portal
www.protiviti.com [188]
Qumas
QUMAS Compliance Solution
www.qumas.com [189]
Starpoint Software Inc.
Compliance Navigator
www.compliancenavigator.com [190]
Strategic Thought Group
Active Risk Manager
www.strategicthought.com [191]
Trintech Group PLC
Unity Compliance
www.trintech.com [192]
 

PPM Powers Up

The evolution of project and portfolio management software from IT resource management tools to enterprise investment management systems continues apace. Vendors are adding support for cross-departmental program management at the portfolio level to their offerings, notes Daniel B. Stang, principal research analyst with Gartner. Enterprise PPM "makes IT just one business unit among many, and then ultimately enables management of the cogs and wheels from an initiative and investment perspective. It's newer stuff -- I wouldn't call it a market per se; I'd say that it's more of a trend -- and I think that the economic situation is fueling it even more."

The value proposition in a down economy is simple enough: If you need to cut 10 percent from your project costs, you have to know where the spend is before you can make the cut. And the cuts have to make sense. But the prospect of the recovery makes the case for PPM even more compelling, Stang notes. "It's also about getting your house in order -- whether you're talking at the corporate level or the IT level -- so that when things do shift, you're not spending your time, people, and money on operational things just to keep up with business flow, but you're actually streamlined so that when the business opportunities arise, you can go after them.

For PPM vendors -- and businesses everywhere -- this shift can't come soon enough.

PROJECT AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Advanced Management Solutions
AMS REALTIME
www.amsrealtime.com [193]
Artemis International Solutions Corp.
Artemis Views
http://au.aisc.com/product/2 [194]
Atlantic Global
Atlantic Global OnDemand
www.atlantic-ec.com/solutions/project_management [195]
AtTask Inc.
@task
www.attask.com [196]
BMC Software Inc.
BMC IT Business Management Suite
www.bmc.com [197]
CA
CA Clarity PPM
www.ca.com/clarity [198]
Compuware Corp.
Changepoint
www.compuware.com [199]
Daptiv Inc
Daptiv PPM
www.daptiv.com [200]
Deltek Inc.
Cobra
www.deltek.com [201]
EPK Group LLC
EPK-Suite
www.epkgroup.com [202]
Innotas
Innotas On-Demand IT Governance
www.innotas.com [203]
Instantis Inc.
EnterpriseTrack
www.instantis.com [204]
Journyx Inc.
ProjectXecute
www.journyx.com/execute [205]
Marcil Technologies
Project Accounting
www.marciltechnologies.com [206]
onProject Inc.
myonProject
www.onproject.com [207]
OpenAir, A NetSuite Company
OpenAir Professional Services Automation
www.openair.com [208]
Planisware
Planisware
www.planisware.com [209]
Planview Inc.
Planview Enterprise
www.planview.com [210]
PowerSteering Software Inc.
PowerSteering
www.powersteeringsoftware.com [211]
Rational Concepts Inc.
Proj-Net
www.rationalconcepts.com [212]
Sciforma Corp.
PSNext
www.sciforma.com [213]
Serena Software Inc.
Mariner PPM
www.serena.com [214]
Tenrox
Tenrox
www.tenrox.com [215]