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Host Analytics Improves its SaaS-Based CPM Suite with More Than 30 New Features

By Anamika Singh
TMCnet Contributor

Host Analytics, a provider of SaaS-based corporate performance management (CPM) solutions, announced that it has upgraded its Host Analytics Corporate Performance Management Suite with more than 30 new features in Q1 2011.

CPM is a tool which drives fact-based decision making for finance executives. These upgrades, including more than 150 new features incorporated in 2010, are mostly based on the continuous feedback that it seeks from its hundreds of customers.

These additional features are designed to free-up users’ time from low-level data management, enabling them to focus on driving strategic business decisions. Due to multi-tenant SaaS Architecture employed by Host, these new enhancements are propagated across product lines seamlessly without impacting existing configurations and customizations.

Planar Systems (News - Alert), Inc. is a global player in specialty display technology which implemented Host Analytics CPM solution in mid 2010. Dave Wachsmuth, financial planning and analysis manager, stated, "Host Analytics gives us access to data and reports that we just didn't have with our previous manual financial process. This in turn allows us to make more informed decisions, such as using regional sales and expense trends to plan growth strategies. We're also taking advantage of newer features such as ERM and expect those to drive even more improvements in the business while also freeing up time to focus on analysis and insights."

The new features of Host’s CPM suite include Executive Report Manager variables that streamline executive, management and regulatory reporting. These variables, which act as mail-merge fields, allow for automatic updates whenever a report is run, thus saving time in creating or updating a report.

Through a new master-dependent feature, users now can define and push information relevant to other applications and to keep them in sync, which is useful in driving a consistent budgeting method across a company and its subsidiaries or franchises.

The feature allows offline planning by enabling users to download a portion of the Host Analytics CPM suite to work offline and move their information over to the main suite when they regain access at a later time. It also has simulation schedule capability, which allows customers to define when they want to initiate budget simulations for auto run instead of a traditional one-by-one manual simulations.

"As a veteran in the CPM space for 20 years, I can safely say that the speed of innovation and the frequency of new releases in the cloud computing model is just not possible in the old on-premise world. We release new features every month while on-premise vendors release every two to three years and sometimes longer. Customers of SaaS solutions, such as those from Host Analytics, Salesforce.com (News - Alert), and Netsuite gain a competitive edge because they can operate faster than their competitors who are stuck with on-premise vendors. The SaaS model has allowed us to listen to our customers to easily and quickly add and deliver extensive product features to address their growing needs," said Jon Kondo, CEO at Host Analytics.

In related news on TMCnet, Host Analytics had announced that Gartner (News - Alert) had recognized Host Analytics in its 2011 Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites.