Executive Summary
- This article is part of our honest vendor series, which is one of the only ratings of vendors rather than applications.
- The vendor quality is critical to the decision making process as software purchases have a high long term involvement by the software vendor.
Introduction
ToolsGroup is based in Amsterdam and is one of the most international companies we have ever seen for a company of its size. ToolsGroup gets more of its revenues from Europe than the US.
Quality of Information Provided
ToolsGroup provides a generally good level of information to its customers. Recently ToolsGroup has been promoting demand sensing, which we completely disagree with being a valid way to improve forecast accuracy. However, this seems to be more of an aberration. When it comes to their core information around inventory optimization and demand planning the information provided is quite good.
Consulting and Support
ToolsGroup’s S099 application, along with its highly skilled and educated workforce make ToolsGroup a good selection for supply chain planning connoisseurs. If a company is instead not interested in getting into the nuances of supply chain planning, then ToolsGroup would not be a good selection. ToolsGroup, along with SAS, are our top-rated vendors in terms of supply and demand planning consulting knowledge, as they have a great deal of experience in their consulting operations and are very serious about the topics.
Internal Efficiency
ToolsGroup is on the smaller side and is quite internally efficient and productive.
Innovation
ToolsGroup has a high Current Innovation Level.
Vendor Scores
Honest Vendor Ratings
- VC = Vendor Consulting
- VS = Vendor Support
- QIP = Quality of Information Provided
- IE = Internal Efficiency
- I = Innovation
- C = Category
- ACS = Average Category Score
| Vendor | VC | VS | QIP | IE | I | C | ACG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Score for the BI Heavy Software Category | 6.4 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 4.5 | 4.4 | BI Heavy | Category Average |
| Average Score for the BI Light Software Category | 7.7 | 6.7 | 5 | 6.3 | 6.8 | BI Light | Category Average |
| Average Score for the CRM Software Category | 5.2 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.4 | 3.4 | CRM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the PLM Software Category | 7.3 | 7.5 | 6.3 | 6.2 | 6.3 | PLM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Production Planning Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6 | 5.2 | 5.7 | Production Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Small and Medium ERP Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6.3 | 6.7 | 5.9 | Small and Medium ERP | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Supply Planning Software Category | 7.5 | 6.7 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 5.6 | Supply Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score Score for the Demand Planning Software Category | 7.7 | 6.9 | 6.6 | 6.1 | 6.1 | Demand Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Big ERP Software Category | 4.7 | 3.8 | 2.7 | 2.2 | 2.6 | Big ERP | Category Average |
| Actuate | 7 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Arena Solutions | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 10 | PLM | Application Specific |
| AspenTech | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Base CRM | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 7 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Birst | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Business Forecast Systems | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 8 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Delfoi | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 4 | 8 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Demand Works | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| ERPNext | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| FinancialForce | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Hamilton Grant | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | PLM | Application Specific |
| Intacct | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Intuit | 8 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 6.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| JDA | 3.5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Microsoft | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| MicroStrategy | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| NetSuite | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | CRM | Application Specific |
| OpenERP | 7 | 8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| Oracle | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
| PlanetTogether | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| Preactor | 7 | 8 | 7.5 | 3 | 3 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| ProcessPro | 10 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| QlikTech | 8 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 9.5 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Salesforce | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 6 | CRM | Application Specific |
| SAS | 9 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 7 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SugarCRM | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Tableau | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | BI Light | Application Specific |
| Teradata | 9 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 6 | 8 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| ToolsGroup | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SAP | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
Part of the Following Software Categories
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Software Selection Package for Demand Planning
Software Selection Package for Supply Planning
Part of the Following Software Categories
Select the following link(s) if you have subscribed to the following analytical product(s).