Plan Smarter. Deploy Faster. Deliver Value.
How ForQuest Solutions Is Changing the IBM Planning Analytics Consulting Model After 10 Years
Most IBM Planning Analytics projects take too long to deliver value.
After a decade of building TM1 solutions across Banking, Retail, Manufacturing, CPG, and Franchising, we’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself: organizations invest months of consulting time building planning models from scratch, only to end up with solutions that are difficult to maintain, slow to evolve, and dependent on the same consultants who built them.
The traditional consulting model isn’t broken — it’s just incomplete. And after 10 years of living inside Planning Analytics environments, we decided to build something better.
The Problem with Starting from Scratch
Every IBM Planning Analytics implementation shares common building blocks. Dimension structures for chart of accounts. Time-based hierarchies. Currency conversion logic. Allocation rules. TurboIntegrator processes for data loading. Planning Analytics Workspace dashboards for input and reporting.
Yet most consulting engagements treat every project as if these patterns don’t exist. The result? Teams spend 60-70% of their project timeline rebuilding what’s already been built hundreds of times before — burning budget on commodity work instead of investing in the business logic and workflows that actually differentiate their planning process.
That’s the gap we set out to close.
A Different Approach: Products + Expertise
At ForQuest Solutions, we combine deep IBM Planning Analytics consulting expertise with two proprietary products designed to accelerate time-to-value and reduce project risk.
ProfitCy® — Pre-Built Planning Models
ProfitCy is a suite of production-ready planning models built on IBM Planning Analytics for Financial Planning, Sales Planning, and Expense Planning.
These aren’t templates or starter kits. They’re complete model frameworks with cubes, rules, feeders, TurboIntegrator processes, and Planning Analytics Workspace dashboards — all designed by consultants who’ve built these solutions dozens of times across multiple industries.
ProfitCy comes with industry-specific configurations for:
- Banking & Financial Services — Branch-level planning, net interest margin forecasting, regulatory capital allocation
- Retail — Store-level planning, seasonal demand patterns, category management
- Manufacturing — Production planning, bill of materials integration, capacity-constrained forecasting
- CPG — Trade promotion planning, distributor-level forecasting, SKU rationalization
- Franchising — Multi-unit planning, franchise fee modeling, territory-based rollups
The result is faster deployment — weeks instead of months — with lower implementation risk and a planning system your team will actually use.
PAXcel™ — Web Excel Add-in for IBM Planning Analytics
Your planning team lives in Excel. Your data lives in TM1. The gap between them shouldn’t require a VPN and a legacy add-in that only works on Windows desktop.
PAXcel is a web-based Excel add-in that connects business users directly to IBM Planning Analytics data through modern REST APIs. It works in Excel for the web, desktop, and Mac — with enterprise security, per-user TM1 authentication, and zero local installation.
What PAXcel means for your team:
- Real-time TM1 data in Excel — read and write directly to Planning Analytics cubes
- No VPN required — cloud-hosted, accessible from anywhere
- Cross-platform — works on Windows, Mac, and Excel for the web
- Enterprise security — OAuth 2.0 authentication, full audit trail on every read and write
- Zero deployment overhead — no desktop installation, no thick client, no IT tickets
For distributed teams, remote workforces, and organizations moving to cloud-first architectures, PAXcel eliminates the last connectivity barrier between business users and their planning data.
Consulting Services — Full Planning Analytics Lifecycle
Our consulting practice covers everything organizations need to get the most from their IBM Planning Analytics investment:
- New implementations — from requirements through go-live
- Cloud migrations — on-premises TM1 to IBM Planning Analytics as a Service (PAaaS)
- Model optimization — rule tuning, feeder optimization, cube redesign for performance
- Performance tuning — identifying and resolving bottlenecks in calculation speed and data load times
- Ongoing support — maintenance, enhancements, and knowledge transfer
We work directly with end clients and as a trusted subcontractor alongside leading IBM partners.
Why It Matters Now
The planning landscape is shifting. FP&A teams are under pressure to deliver AI-powered, cross-functional planning — what the industry calls xP&A — connecting financial planning with supply chain, sales, workforce, and operational planning in a single environment.
IBM Planning Analytics is built for exactly this. But realizing that vision requires more than just buying the software. It requires implementation expertise, proven model frameworks, and modern connectivity tools that meet users where they work.
That’s what ForQuest Solutions delivers. After 10 years and hundreds of engagements, we’ve distilled our expertise into products and services that help organizations plan smarter, deploy faster, and deliver value sooner.
Ready to Talk?
Whether you’re evaluating IBM Planning Analytics for the first time, struggling with an underperforming TM1 environment, or looking for a better way to connect your team to planning data — we’d welcome the conversation.
Visit forquestsolutions.com to learn more, or reach out directly at [email protected].
ForQuest Solutions is a specialized IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) consulting firm based in Wake Forest, North Carolina. We deliver AI-powered FP&A and xP&A solutions across financial, supply chain, sales, and workforce planning for Banking & Financial Services, Retail, Manufacturing, CPG, and Franchising.
