Comshare to Launch Powerful, Flexible and Very Affordable Solution for Planning and Departmental Budgeting
ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 30, 1999--
Comshare Poised to Seize the Leadership Position in the Growing
Planning and Departmental Budgeting Application Market with
Comshare Planning(TM)
Comshare(R) Inc. (Nasdaq:CSRE) announced today the planned commercial availability of Comshare Planning(TM) by December 31, 1999 at a special introductory price. Comshare Planning provides multidimensional planning and departmental budgeting to help organizations analyze resource investments across business units, divisions, departments, time and other business perspectives. Comshare Planning adds a departmental solution to Comshare's line of applications for management planning and control (MPC).
In addition to its robust planning and budgeting functionality, Comshare Planning offers powerful and flexible analysis that eliminates the difficulties commonly found in inflexible spreadsheets. With Comshare Planning, users will have more time to analyze data rather than crunching numbers or paging through reports. Highlights of Comshare Planning are: -- Support for Microsoft Office 2000 so users can easily prepare
reports and graph data using Excel
-- Packaged applications for planning and budgeting
-- Multidimensional functionality for dynamic data entry and access, business modeling, simultaneous equations, forecasting, "what-if"
analyses, and goal seeking
-- 32-bit version for today's faster Windows operating systems
-- Easy installation and application maintenance
-- Special introductory pricing of $395 a user and available at
Comshare's Web site after the first of the new year
"We're launching Comshare Planning to meet a clear market demand for planning and departmental budgeting applications," said Dennis Ganster, president and CEO of Comshare. "We applied our proven expertise and market leadership to create Comshare Planning, and the result is a very affordable application that provides users with greater insight into investment decisions and improves decision-making."
Powerful Information at Your Fingertips
Comshare Planning overcomes the limitations of spreadsheets with its multidimensional modeling, reporting and analysis that result in effective planning and departmental budgeting. Comshare Planning is easy to learn and use and requires little if any IT support. Plans and budgets can be quickly prepared, often in only a matter of minutes. Comshare Planning is a very powerful application, with its 32-bit processing and exceptional functionality for:
-- Data Entry and Accessibility - interfaces to common data sources
are easy to develop and maintain
-- Complex Modeling - includes cross-dimensional calculations, conditional rules, Boolean operators, and opening and closing
balances
-- Simultaneous Equations - solves planning issues requiring
circular or simultaneous equations, like linking income
statement, balance sheet and cash flows, and determining bonuses
based on gross profit
-- Forecasting - uses actual financial data to forecast more
accurate budgeting and planning
-- "What-if" Analyses - tests and assess the financial implications
of business changes and alternate scenarios for top-down planning
and budgeting
-- Goal Seeking - works backwards from the numbers you want, based
on actual data, to obtain the numbers you need to make a goal
Comshare Planning users work with common data and rule definitions, ensuring that plans and budgets are easy to share and have a high degree of accuracy and integrity. Users can modify the rules to perform their specialized analyses -- or add new data dimensions or calculated values -- and then save their personal views, without affecting the core data. Users can also view and analyze data in ways that make sense to them and then create reports with Microsoft Excel.
Customers' Praises
Comshare Planning marks the next generation of its popular and acclaimed product, Comshare Prism, which enjoys enthusiastic support from more than 500 customers and 6,000-plus users the world over. Some of those customers are Alfa Laval Limited, BACS Limited, British Steel PLC, Brown-Forman, Cargill, Incorporated, Chantrey Vellacott DFK, Chelsea Building Society, Conoco (U.K.) Limited, Derbyshire Building Society, Eastman Kodak Company, Fisher Gauge Limited, Fleet Credit Card Service, Grundig AG, GS Industries Inc., Hapag-Lloyd Flug GmbH, ITC Ltd., Motorola, Park Food Group PLC, Philip Morris Latin America Inc., Putnam Investor Service Inc., Railways Pension Management Limited, and UtiliCorp United.
"Conoco has been using Comshare for its corporate financial reporting process for the last five years," said Simon Taylor, team leader, performance analysis and reporting, Conoco (U.K.) Limited. "Currently, we use Comshare for corporate tax calculations and month-end activities. We are looking forward to the increased functionality that the 32-bit planning application promises to provide."
At Eastman Kodak Company, Jill Compton, senior systems analyst, executive information systems, said, "We use Comshare to facilitate the collection and reporting of key financial data for the annual operating plan, monthly results, and revised estimates. Comshare allows us to rapidly implement financial reporting solutions with few IS resources. The software allows us to quickly develop and adapt models to changing business needs. We also can easily load data from multiple sources. Our end users appreciate having data all in one place as that allows them to quickly address questions raised by their managers. The consolidation features of the Comshare application allow users to slice through the data at various product and geographic levels, and the flexible reporting capabilities permit them to create views for management review meetings. Time and again our users remark that Comshare has contributed to the efficiency of their financial review processes and has allowed them to stay on top of their numbers. We have been using the Comshare application for three years and look forward to exploring the 32-bit version of Comshare Planning and its new capabilities."
Dan Miriello, manager, business planning and analysis, Fleet Credit Card Services, said, "I have been an enthusiastic user of Comshare products for many years. At Fleet Credit Card Services, we primarily use Comshare to consolidate operating expenses for our cost centers. Our cost center managers submit their expenses via Excel spreadsheets that are uploaded into our Comshare application where we create a consolidated forecasting package. From there, we develop variance analysis comparing actuals to plan and forecasts, on a monthly basis. I look forward to exploring the additional capabilities the new 32-bit Comshare Planning software has to offer."
"At UtiliCorp United, we use Comshare to handle a complex financing model that is used in annual planning," said Dave Janner, manager, corporate reporting, UtiliCorp United. "All business units use Comshare FDC(TM) for reporting and consolidation. Those consolidated numbers are fed into our Comshare model to handle a number of important tasks, including the calculation of the parent company's financials, based upon earnings, and other intercompany activities in each business unit's plans. Our Comshare application also interacts with another data source that contains detailed debt and equity information. Based on assumptions built into the Comshare model, we can calculate 'what-if' scenarios to help management with long-term financing decisions. In addition, our Comshare application data can be reloaded into Comshare FDC to compare against plan in yearly financials. We have been using Comshare applications for seven years and are excited to hear that Comshare Planning will now offer the same great flexibility on a 32-bit platform."
Very Affordable and Easy to Buy
Comshare Planning is simply very affordable for businesses that need a powerful and flexible planning and departmental budgeting solution. Comshare is offering a special introductory price of $395 per user. The regular price for Comshare Planning is $995 per user, with discounts available for multi-user purchases.
In January 2000, Comshare Planning can be ordered at Comshare's Web site, www.comshare.com. Comshare Planning could also be downloaded for a 30-day free trial and purchased at any time during that period. Comshare Planning can also be purchased from Comshare direct-sales staff as well as distributors and resellers around the world. |
