META Group has announced the availability of its newest METAspectrum market evaluation, covering the project portfolio management (PPfM) tool market. This market includes products that coordinate, manage and enable prioritisation of project and program portfolios and related resources, linking them in a single repository with appropriate views to categorise, assess the value/risk, and score current and future projects in the context of business imperatives.
"We expect this emerging area to become more demanding as additional competitors enter and pressure vendors to hone capabilities," says Willie Appel, Vice-President International, Enterprise Planning and Architecture Strategies, with META Group. "Market maturation will result in consolidation of smaller players and better coordinated, more functional portfolio analysis suites."
The current market breadth benefits users short-term, by enabling choices across a range of capabilities (eg, strength in resource management vs stronger project management). Ultimately, suites will integrate five key functional areas (projects, programs, portfolio management, people/resources, and process) with asset views. We expect additional ERP entrants beyond PeopleSoft and Lawson (Oracle, SAP, et al) and smaller, niche players with demand management capabilities. The challenge for vendors in this space is to integrate deep portfolio analysis with other core functionality, making it intuitive enough to be adopted by executives and other users.
Key findings
The PPfM Tool METAspectrum evaluates 11 companies. Currently, there are no followers in this young market, because the range of product capabilities on both extremes remains limited. The analysis also found:
*.The ability to assess priorities and cull the project portfolio enables organisations to redirect funding appropriately.
*.Currently, market success depends more on performance than on presence, because numerous vendors are just shipping offerings.
*.The short-term vendor impact will result in a densely populated, highly competitive market.
*.Longer term, we expect ERP and EPM players to lead this market.
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