Data.
Not opinion.

Supply Chain Planning and Analysis 2025

Supply chain planning is the process of planning a product from raw material through distribution and sales, with the goal of balancing supply and demand. Supply chain analytics enables organizations to develop valuable insights associated with the procurement, processing, and distribution of goods.

The report, part of Dresner Advisory’s Wisdom of Crowds® annual series of thematic research, examines market requirements and priorities and provides an analysis of the current supply chain analytics usage and future intentions of end user organizations.

According to the study, more than one third of respondents say they are using supply chain planning and analysis today, an increase from 2024. A large contingent (30 percent) say they will adopt these capabilities in the next 12 months, again up from 2024.

2025-03-17

Data Engineering 2025

Data Engineering includes best practices and technology capabilities to develop engineered data workflows and pipelines to and between operational and analytic data management infrastructures.

The 2025 report explores market requirements and priorities for data orchestration, integration, and transformations including advanced analytics in the data engineering pipeline workflow.  According to the study, 81 percent of respondents indicate data engineering is critical or very important, up from 77 percent in the 2024 survey.

The top use case for data engineering products is for data integration, cleansing, and transformation workflows for a data warehouse supporting dashboards and reporting, followed supporting data flows between operational systems.

2025-03-03

Generative AI 2025

Generative artificial intelligence (also called generative AI) is artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, or other media, using generative models. Generative AI models learn the patterns and structure of their input training data and then generate new data that has similar characteristics.

The 176-page report provides an in-depth examination of user trends and perceptions, including innovations, adoption, budget, and priorities for Generative AI. It also uncovers use cases, concerns, applications, and the importance of training Generative AI models with proprietary data.

“Our second annual assessment of the market demonstrates Generative AI is of great interest to organization, with a perception of considerable relevance and importance,” said Howard Dresner, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory. “Organizations are paying close attention, tracking the news, innovation, and advances significantly more closely than they did a year ago.”

2025-02-26

There Is No Lock on EPM From the ERP Vendors

Most organizations have an enterprise resource planning (ERP) strategy. For some, it has become a guiding principle behind all software selections, such that they source all new business applications from within their ERP suite, if available. But this approach won’t provide optimal results if those software capabilities don’t meet business requirements.

This way of doing things risks impacting enterprise performance management (EPM). With EPM, data leaders must insert themselves into the software-selection process to ensure that organizational data needs are effectively addressed and balanced against the performance management needs of the finance and operational departments. Doing so requires working closely with application leaders.

2025-03-21

Hyper-Decisive® Is Not Necessarily Hyper-Speed: Align Data Recency With Business Needs for Optimal BI Tempo

The rapid and increasing pace of change in the business landscape has led many data leaders to assume they need to drive toward real-time data delivery in support of all business intelligence (BI) deployments. But not all business processes and decisions require real-time (or even daily) data, nor could they readily take advantage of it, if it was available. Instead, data leaders should consider applying the concept of operational tempo, which aims to manage the timing of processes and data flows so they properly and optimally support and enable business objectives.

Limitations or complexities in business processes, management approaches, and levels of data literacy are just some of the many factors that can limit the speed at which an organization can operate. Therefore, engineering all BI solutions for high-recency data does not represent a valid and cost-effective strategy.

2025-03-07

Invest in Data and Analytics to Mitigate Economic Uncertainty and the Rising Cost of Capital

Since 2022, Dresner Advisory Services has researched how significant external forces impact organizations (see the Research Insights “Data Leaders Need to Prepare for the Challenges That External Forces Will Pose” and “Mitigate Short-Term Negative Economic Impacts and Pivot for Growth by Investing in BI and Analytics”).

Our most-recent data from the second half of 2024 show (once again, and by a sizeable margin) that economic uncertainty most frequently hindered organizations (58 percent reporting significant or moderate negative impact—down 2 percentage points year over year). That high mark was followed (once again) by staffing and recruitment (46 percent indicating significant or moderate negative impact—down 7 percentage points year over year). Two new survey responses—cost of capital and security issues—were added in 2024. Organizations cited cost of capital next most often as an impediment (with 40 percent ascribing it significant or moderate negative impact).

2025-01-31

Vena vs. Workday EPM

This special report examines the offerings and positioning of two major players in the EPM market: Vena Solutions (Vena) and Workday Adaptive Planning (Workday) and compares them on key aspects such as usability, integration capabilities, performance, scalability, and support. The goal is to provide a clear understanding of how each platform meets the needs of modern enterprises and supports their overall performance management initiatives.

2024-10-31

Anaplan vs. Pigment EPM

This special report examines the offerings and positioning of two major players in the EPM market: Anaplan and Pigment and compares them on key aspects such as usability, integration capabilities, performance, scalability, and support. The goal is to provide a clear understanding of how each platform meets the needs of modern enterprises and supports their overall performance management initiatives.

2024-10-15