07/25/2006

SymphonyRPM, Inc., provider of the only integrated enterprise platform for forward-looking performance management and predictive business analytics solutions, announced that it has attained one of the highest rankings in Ventana Research’s 2006 Performance Management Vendor and Product Scorecard.

ebizQ received the following details:

The annual scorecard report involved more than 15 vendors, 337 questions and 46 functional capabilities. The new SymphonyRPM 4.7 platform received a total score of 94.07 percent resulting in SymphonyRPM earning a strong leadership position in the overall Performance Management rankings. Fueling that outcome was SymphonyRPM 4.7 receiving the top scores in the “Understand” (96 percent) and “Optimize” (94 percent) categories.

“Growing interest in Performance Management solutions is attracting new vendors and products to the space, while driving established vendors to innovate more quickly to retain their leadership position. The 2006 Performance Management Vendor and Product Scorecard aims to provide the market with a clear understanding of how products live up to real user needs,” said Mark Smith, CEO and executive vice president of research, Ventana Research. “SymphonyRPM continues to build on its success in each published report, achieving a leadership position again this year, making that the third time in a row for the company. Its most recent product release demonstrates the company’s commitment to continuously improving the platform’s ability to deliver the forward-looking analysis and collaboration necessary for timely, effective decisions that drive improved business performance across the enterprise.”

The Ventana Research Scorecard is a tool that organizations can use to increase their understanding of how different software and solutions rank in meeting business and IT requirements for Performance Management. This research, which is completely unbiased and objective, is the first industry effort to assess software designed specifically for enabling Performance Management. As opposed to other analyst reports that use subjective influence to score vendors, the Ventana Research 2006 Performance Management Vendor and Product Scorecard is based exclusively on scoring vendors’ ability to provide specific capabilities in their software products and packages that meet business objectives for improving performance.

The report is broken out into three steps to achieve an overall score – Align, Optimize and Understand.

• Align: This step is focused on ensuring that the recommended actions and plans are in the direct path for reaching the goals, objectives and initiatives set out by executives and management.



• Optimize: This step is focused on planning for future actions and decisions to define the goals, objectives and initiatives as set out in the Align step. Understand: This step is focused on reviewing the historical performance of people and processes, enabling companies to understand how results impact the organization.

“Ventana Research is widely known for its focus on the Performance Management market and its thorough methodology for objectively analyzing vendors and products. We are proud of SymphonyRPM’s performance in this year’s scorecard,” said Bennett Indart, vice president of products, SymphonyRPM. “Enhancements we’ve made to SymphonyRPM 4.7 have strengthened our leadership position, further validating the company’s integrated enterprise platform for performance management as one of the best solutions of its kind.”