EPMGURU's PPM Tool Review Series: PowerSteering
-By: Ajit Mishra

In our attempt to review all the PPM tools available in market, we covered WorkLenz in the last post. Today, we will focus on PowerSteering, another leading PPM tool that has created a niche for itself in EPM/PPM as a SaaS.

PowerSteering, is an On-Demand Enterprise PPM software used to manage IT, Six Sigma, Merger Integration, PMOs and other strategic initiatives has already secured its placement in the visionaries quadrant in the 2008 Gartner IT Project and Portfolio Management Magic Quadrant report.

PowerSteering is an alternative to traditional installed software options that require lengthy implementations and costly customization. By integrating enterprise software capabilities in a more affordable, accessible and scalable on-demand delivery platform, PowerSteering is used across the company by all kind of users to manage the entire portfolio of work including projects, assets and applications.

As per PowerSteering's official press release The Magic Quadrant report acknowledged that “PPM prospects small and large increasingly are considering SaaS/on demand as an alternative option for deploying PPM technologies, which will lead to more market consolidation and more-competitive pricing.”“Recognizing that the benefits of PPM have expanded beyond IT into other project-intensive business areas and functions, PowerSteering’s ‘Just Right’ approach lets organizations manage their entire portfolio of initiatives in one system. We’re delighted that Gartner has positioned PowerSteering in the visionaries quadrant for project and portfolio management,” commented Stephen Sharp, PowerSteering's Chief Executive Officer.

Strengths:

• PowerSteering Software is the first of its kind PPM tool which helps you apply the proven discipline of project and portfolio management in IT, Lean Six Sigma, your Project Management Office or any other project-intensive area of your company.
• By bringing Lean Six Sigma concept in PPM, the integrate platform of PowerSteering improves strategy alignment, executive visibility, team productivity and increase the value of any project portfolio.
• So far, PowerSteering is the only Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to offer a true enterprise project and portfolio management (PPM) solution. PowerSteering often uses a tag line "goes anywhere and is used everywhere."
• Many SaaS offerings provide only project management to a handful of users or a division, PowerSteering scales across the entire enterprise and supports thousands of users in IT, Lean Six Sigma, M&A Management, NPD & PMO services.
• PowerSteering comes with a price tag that is competitive as compared to other leading PPM vendors.
• It has a powerful scheduling engine which is web based and allows enterprise resources to effectively collaborate across the departments & regions.
• Issues & Risks Management sections are competitive and covers mitigation strategies, assignment and escalation.
• Most powerful function of PowerSteering is its Accounting & Financial Metrics which has a leading edge over other tools.
• Time Management & tracking part is also web-based and user friendly.
• Common features like Knowledge Management, Document Management, Integration with MS Office suite are available within and makes PowerSteering quite effective.
• Some PPM software's today are designed & built with one type of user or function in mind, PowerSteering supports the needs of a wide range of business users, including project managers, resource managers, financial analysts, portfolio managers and executives. So it's as suitable for a CIO as it is for a Lean Six Sigma deployment champion.
• Upon various user surveys conducted by Epmguru.com, we found, PwerSteering is quite capable to Manage IT demand, rationalize the portfolio of work and increase the strategic value of IT. Also, Pwersteering's accelerated deployment results by "applying Six Sigma to Six Sigma, speeds up M&A shareholder value.
• One of the other strengths of PowerSteering is its ability to leverage New Product Development (NPD) that taps into sources of innovation more effectively and bring new products to market faster.

Overall, recent version 7 of PowerSteering looks to be more handsome than earlier versions. The Parent Company's sole focus on single product PowerSteering also helps to mobilize their efforts to conquer the vast PPM market. What's more, PowerSteering's ability to integrate EPM/PPM with Lean Six Sigma has created a strong value proposition for potential customers. Adding creme to the cake, PowerSteering's efforts to sell itself for SaaS is surely eye catching.

Whats unclear to us at the moment is PowerSteering's capability for Application Portfolio Management. Features like workflow building & portfolio optimization are yet to be explored and unknown to us. Response time to Online Demo version is something they have to reduce in no time. Last but not least, Epmguru Survey results show, around 60% EPM/PPM/PMO users worldwide either haven't heard of this tool or ignorant. This indicates & persuades PowerSteering to adopt an aggressive marketing strategy for widespread training & awareness.

Weakness & Epmguru Verdict:

This section is available on request and we are not publishing keeping the product vendor's interest. However, independent reviews, price comparisons & potential buying/implementation risks can be availed upon a request to epmguru@epmguru.com .

Disclaimer:The above review is prepared based on independent user reviews, surveys, user experiences & various press releases. We have referenced PwerSteering's website to gather some of the press reports & images.