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Catalyst Reviews & Product Details

Unlock your data and unleash your performance. Catalyst is powerful, cloud-based business performance software that is designed to accelerate your profitability. Reporting, Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting have never been this simple. Catalyst allows you to easily slice, dice, drill down and pivot enormous amounts of granular data instantaneously to get a complete picture of your business, find anomalies, draw fully-baked insights and make fact-based decisions that positively impact your business. Analyze and create reporting for any data source, from your financials to big data. Don’t just find anomalies, understand them. Catalyst brings all of your data into one clear view: a simple, app-like interface that serves as a single source of truth and democratizes data for your organization. With Catalyst, you finally get a complete view of your business and clarity for the path forward.

Seller

EBM Software

Discussions

Catalyst Community

Overview by

Marcelo Camara

Value at a Glance

Averages based on real user reviews.

Time to Implement

4 months

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Verified User in Consumer Goods

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

12/19/2022

"Excellent Consolidation Tool for Single Source of Data"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Catalyst is simple and easy to use. It makes it possible for different functions in an organization to share data and have one source of truth instead of having multiple data sources in various spreadsheets. Since UI is in Excel for most business users (cubes), there is almost no learning curve for users already familiar with Excel pivot tables. Managing permissions is easy, and I love the functionality to impersonate different users. I also like that the system can be used right in the browser. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

I would love to get email notifications if and when a job failure happens. Also, when an update is made to the hierarchies, it sometimes takes longer than usual. However, EBM has made a lot of enhancements to the system recently, such as UI changes which will give users more information and control, and SQL Enterprise, which will reduce the cube processing time by 3X+. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Catalyst solving and how is that benefiting you?

Catalyst enables businesses to consolidate large amounts of data from multiple ERPs consistently. Profit Cube and Financial Cube are excellent tools to help us understand accurate and timely customer/item margins and create EBITDA bridges down to the customer/item level. The cubes also give visibility to the largest drivers of margins and costs through the integration of PowerBI (also available in Excel), enabling us to make faster and more accurate business decisions based on company data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vince J.

Sr. Director

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/26/2021

"I can get to answers quickly and create models for future projections"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Catalyst has been an easy system to quickly learn, implement, and put to use for various projects and functions across departments (finance, operations, marketing, and sales). It is an excellent system for processing large swaths of data quickly, and the system is much easier to customize and adapt to meet the needs of our business vs. an SAP, Oracle, etc. The support staff is friendly, professional, helpful, and available. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

If you have trouble using excel and pivot tables, then Catalyst might not be the system for you. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Catalyst solving and how is that benefiting you?

Catalyst has helped us measure the past and plan the future. Catalyst has been great for creating one version of the truth. Collecting all the data and getting it into a centralized database has increased the visibility and transparency of all our sales and finance numbers. No more spreadsheets from multiple sources with different/conflicting information. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kenneth W.

Chief Financial Officer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

10/27/2021

"Implementation of Catalyst for BI Purposes"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Ease of implementation and information literally at my fingertips in whatever point of view that I or my colleagues want. Easily customizable and eliminates which version of the truth discussions finance and other departments historically have engaged in. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

There is nothing that we dislike about Catalyst, it delivers to our needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kelly S.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

10/27/2021

"Quick...responsive...easy to access and understand the output"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Data as I want to see it, versus how retailers share it, aggregated as we need it Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

Not as intuitive as I would like, some of the logic and naming conventions in our world are not intuitive Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Steve H.

Vice President, FP&A

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

7/21/2021

"Catalyst is a Powerful Analytical and Mgmt Reporting Tool"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Catalyst allows me to consolidate data from multiple ERPs in a consistent account, item, and customer hierarchy. The tool works great with not only our internal data but also acquisition target data where I can view another business in the same structure along with our existing. Monthly reporting requires just a simple refresh, and PowerBI integration provides real-time dashboards for key stakeholders. If you're looking to improve your understanding of results, communicate influentially, and get better at predicting the future, Catalyst is a fantastic tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

When significant changes are made to the hierarchies, the next system refresh can take longer than usual. This wait time has come way down over the four years I've used Catalyst as EBM has made several enhancements and we've learned to be more efficient in how we use the tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Catalyst solving and how is that benefiting you?

Profitability Cube:

The biggest initial win was getting our profitability cube set up to provide accurate customer/item margins. The cube allowed us to embark on a large-scale SKU rationalization project that decreased our SKU count by 1/3, while increasing our margins by nearly 5% along with some other simplification initiatives. We used the same profitability cube to create EBITDA bridges down to the customer/item level, desegregating volume, mix, rate, and FX across all of our key customer and item-driven costs: sales, sales allowances, COGS, broker, and royalties. We've driven several points of mix favorability over the past three years by using this tool to understand the drivers of our profitability at a low level.

Volume:

To build out an S&OP process, we needed to start by getting our demand estimates out of Excel and into one consolidated tool. As Catalyst aligned our item and customer hierarchies across three ERPs, our sales organization could then plan case volume for the entire company in one location. This forecast practice not only helped us improve our accuracy but laid the groundwork for understanding our mid-to-long range capital/capacity needs.

Reporting:

By getting our GL accounts aligned in Catalyst, we could more easily consolidate financial reporting. Not only that, but the flexible structure of the tool allowed us to hone our reports over time. Now, monthly business reviews are nearly as simple as a right-click "refresh'. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Marla H.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/26/2021

"Catalyst - Ease of Monthly Reporting"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

The ease of reporting takes the pain out of monthly reporting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

There is nothing at this point that I do not like about the tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Food Production

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

11/9/2021

"Mid-sized CPG Food Experience"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

The simplicity, user experience, and administration flexibility are top-notch. User adoption and self-service reporting has enabled our organization to elevate its financial understanding of the business and allow for real-time reporting and sharing of data Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

Auto connection to the cube could be enhanced Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Consumer Goods

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/26/2021

"Great for various P&L scenarios"

4/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Love that we can easily upload and run different P&L scenarios. Easy to allocate costs and run analyses. The pivot options are great for looking at different product segments/SKUs. Training from Catalyst rep was very helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

Quicker refresh of cubes when uploading scenarios/allocating costs. Sometimes the lag messes up our allocation process and uploads incorrect amounts if my colluegues and I are both working in the software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Food & Beverages

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

10/28/2021

"FP&A Manager"

5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

Easy, user-friendly navigation and drilling down data to the lowest level if there are any discrepancies. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

I cannot delete users completely who are no longer with the organization Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Gregory G.

Senior Director of Finance & Administration

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/1/2021

"Harvesting Opportunity!"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Catalyst?

This tool allows us to make the most of the data that we already have. It allows us to create insights that would otherwise be lost in the shuffle. Further it makes it easy to find, filter, group and sort the data into digestible content. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Catalyst?

Setup is always tough - would perhaps have liked to have the option of parallel path for GL and Profit and Inventory cubes. In our case we chose to do these successively - makes the implementation process feel longer than it is. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.