München, January 27, 2022: The digital solutions, consulting, and software company valantic (www.valantic.com) will work with Hamburg-based Virtivity GmbH (www.virtivity.de) to further expand its consulting and solution expertise in the field of integrated corporate management. Both companies have more than 15 years’ experience with IBM Planning Analytics with Watson and regard the new strategic partnership as a mutual enrichment that will provide added value for their B2B customers. IBM Planning Analytics with Watson’s intelligence is a leader in planning, forecasting, simulation, and analysis processes, and one of the most important foundations of valantic Business Analytics’ portfolio.
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is recognized as one of the best technologies for financial, sales, and operations planning (S&OP) worldwide, as confirmed by market research institutes such as Gartner and BARC. AI-based planning software is characterized by an unmatched level of flexibility and performance.
Virtivity GmbH, based in Hamburg, relies on IBM Planning Analytics with Watson for its APOLLO platform, which consists of pre-configured solution modules. These solution modules are scalable and cover all standard functions for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and many other lines of business (LOBs).
APOLLO is a unique selling point for Virtivity. The platform bundles 20 years of financial consulting experience and makes this experience installable for customers. The modules included in the software provide CFOs with added value and a number of add-ons, such as an SAP connection, using pre-built solutions and best practices with IBM Planning Analytics with Watson.
Robert Hartl, CEO and one of the founders of Virtivity, describes his company as a young but very experienced start-up with great flexibility and agility. On the one hand, as an “oiled machine,” valantic brings with it functioning organizational structures and a large and varied customer base; on the other hand, Virtivity adds the experience of many years of successful CFO consulting bundled in the APOLLO modules.
Virtivity and APOLLO thus ensure significantly shorter project and implementation times than with IBM Planning Analytics “from scratch.” This has also won over valantic or, more precisely, the valantic Business Analytics GmbH business unit, according to valantic Senior Sales Manager Martin Vierrath.
“Our customers benefit from using APOLLO thanks to the market-leading technology of IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, and they also gain practical experience from many successful planning projects that have been incorporated into the development of APOLLO,” says Vierrath.
Another advantage of APOLLO as an integrated solution for planning, simulation, and analysis for senior sales managers is that it is of great value not only for new customers but also for existing customers. This added value translates into shorter project lead times, faster go-live, lower implementation risk, and significantly lower costs for customers.
Vierrath and his colleagues at valantic were also drawn by the user-friendliness of the integrated solution, which was designed according to the plug&play principle, and how much project experience and expertise are already incorporated into the many modular extensions. As he says, the various modules are already tailored to about 80% of all customer needs in the S&OP sector.
The benefit for valantic, as Hartl and Vierrath see it, is the reduced implementation effort, which allows valantic to take on more projects in less time with fewer consultants. The rapid introduction and implementation of APOLLO as a highly scalable and customizable add-on in the front-end of IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is also a major benefit for valantic and Virtivity customers.
As Vierrath says, there are many comparable solutions from different vendors for standard planning requirements, such as bottom-up and top-down planning of quantities and sales revenue. However, when it comes to specialization or sub-disciplines of planning, many of these software solutions quickly reach their limits, unlike Virtivity with APOLLO. APOLLO is not a bundle of add-ons, but a comprehensive platform with integration of specialized and technical solutions that provides a holistic view of the company.
The valantic Senior Sales Manager mentions in particular the automated mapping of the entire cash flow. After all, this has suddenly become an extremely vital issue for many companies during the Corona crisis. A reliable cash flow or cash forecast is an essential question for a company’s resilience, says Vierrath. “This is a specialization that we had before; but now together with Virtivity, we can do even better,” he adds.
In addition to the standard modules and functions for the CFO area, APOLLO also offers a number of solution modules for other business lines, for example for supply chain management (SCM), HR, and sales, and S&OP.
For example, APOLLO provides support for machine learning for predictive analytics and better forecasts for sales planning. Material & Merchandise, another APOLLO module, enables more in-depth needs analyses to be created based on the KPIs and limit planning. In addition, APOLLO can reconcile material requirements with sales planning requirements via structured parts lists. The B2B customer can thus also run in-depth technical and content simulations for integrated business planning, in order to quickly obtain a detailed picture of the effects that planned measures will have on further development.
Philipp Krauleidies, Head of Sales at Virtivity, expects significant synergy effects from the partnership with valantic. He already sees the first joint successes and praises the short paths that will allow coordination “in the blink of an eye.”
“We are pleased to have acquired another strategic partner in valantic. With our add-on modules and add-ons such as the SAP connector, new or existing valantic customers who already use IBM Planning Analytics can implement projects in a very short time and achieve higher productivity and efficiency in their corporate management,” explains Robert Hartl, CEO, and one of the founders of Virtivity GmbH in Hamburg.
“Virtivity enriches our service portfolio and is a valuable addition to our expertise in business analytics and corporate governance. APOLLO can be implemented and ready for use much faster than IBM Planning Analytics with Watson stand-alone. For customers, this means significantly shorter project times, lower project risk, and therefore lower costs. All this together translates into significant added value for our customers,” says Martin Vierrath, Senior Sales Manager at valantic Business Analytics, commenting on the new partnership with Virtivity.
