804 planning software users. 20 products. 26 criteria. Here's how IBM Planning Analytics performed in BARC's The Planning Survey 26, and what it means for finance teams in South Africa.

BARC's The Planning Survey 26 is one of the largest independent studies of planning software users. This year it gathered feedback from 804 users and compared 20 products across 26 criteria, from business benefits and project success to performance.

Four top ranks for IBM Planning Analytics

• Simulation, among products that combine planning with BI and analytics (7.4 against a peer average of 6.9)
• Performance satisfaction, in the same peer group
• Performance satisfaction, in large and enterprise-wide implementations (8.5 against 8.1)
• Performance satisfaction, in worldwide implementations

It was also named a Leader for Business Benefits and Business Value.

What users told BARC

"It's still the best FP&A tool on the market."Survey respondent, services company with more than 2,500 employees

Still planning in Excel?

BARC also compared IBM Planning Analytics with Excel, which is still the most common planning tool. The difference is clear:

For many South African finance teams, the budget still lives in a web of linked spreadsheets. Version control is hard, consolidation takes days and nobody fully trusts the numbers. IBM Planning Analytics replaces that with one governed model, while Planning Analytics for Excel lets your team keep working in the interface they already know.

Venn Cubed has been implementing IBM Planning Analytics in South Africa for more than 20 years, for organisations ranging from fast-growing mid-sized businesses to some of the country's largest corporates.

Source: BARC, The Planning Survey 26. Results as published by IBM, October 2026. Learn more about the survey.