PeopleSoft To Add Analytic Applications

Oct. 28, 1998

The vendor, along with rivals such as SAP, has already released business intelligence products and announced its intentions for the decision support market. But the new products, to be introduced at its 1998 user conference next week, represent PeopleSoft’s most comprehensive suite of analytic applications to date. The company says analytical applications will be a big business for them, growing at 45% per year, as companies attempt to analyze the data in their enterprise applications. “You’re utilizing that data you already store,” says Tom Patterson, PeopleSoft product manager.

The new analytical applications will target even users of other non-PeopleSoft enterprise applications. The applications will cover areas such as activity-based management, which lets companies report on activities by dimensions such as customer, product, and channels; total compensation management, which examines the effect of changes in benefits packages on employee satisfaction and retention; and a “balanced scorecard” application, which helps an organization understand what activities they should be focusing on. For the financial industry, PeopleSoft will offer packages to cover funds-transfer pricing, risk- weighted capital, and asset liability management. A tool called PeopleSoft Workbench will give users a graphical interface to view the various analytic applications.

The activities-based management, risk-weighted management, and funds transfer packages will be available in the first quarter of next year; the others will be available in the fourth quarter of next year. –Jeff Sweat