The Research

Our collection of independent and objective technology research is designed to help you make smarter, data-driven decisions.

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ROI Case Studies

An ROI case study is a thorough examination of the actual benefits a customer achieved from a technology deployment.

Value Matrix

The Nucleus Research Technology Value Matrix is concise assessment of the operational value a solution delivers.

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  • ROI Case Studies S189

    Datawatch ROI case study: Pentagon Federal Credit Union

    Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed) deployed the Datawatch Monarch platform to modernize its data management and analysis capabilities. The company realized dramatic time savings with…

  • Research S171

    Guidebook: Increasing student engagement with Salesforce.org Education Cloud

    Higher education institutions are increasingly challenged to meet the changing needs and expectations of students while nurturing alumni and donor relationships. In an era of…

  • Research S188

    Deltek reinforces focus at Insight 2018

    At its recent user conference, Deltek Insight 2018, Deltek previewed some enhancements that it is bringing to its project-centric enterprise resource planning applications.  In addition…

  • Research S187

    Host Analytics drives greater usability

    Host Analytics’ Fall18 product update brings new functionalities to its Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software which improve data integration and empower financial workers to do…

  • Research S186

    Guidebook: Zenefits

    The expense and complexity of HR remain a problem for small and medium size businesses (SMBs), who often view an HR subscription as a necessary…

  • ROI Case Studies S172

    Host Analytics ROI case study: ACI Brands

    ACI Brands deployed Host Analytics to modernize its financial reporting and budgeting processes.  In addition to improving the productivity of the finance department personnel, the…

  • Research, Value Matrix S183

    Talent Management Technology Value Matrix 2018

    In the competition for talent, companies are increasingly finding that their technology can be a competitive advantage when recruiting and retaining employees. The challenge is…

  • Research S184

    Salesforce High Velocity Sales

    The latest updates to Salesforce Sales Cloud include a component called High Velocity Sales, designed to help managers build customized activity workflows for inside sales…

  • Research S157

    Dreamforce Highlights

    This year’s Dreamforce focused on the themes of trust, innovation and artificial intelligence (AI), equality and climate, personal empowerment, and inclusive capitalism. Key announcements included…

  • ROI Case Studies S179

    QAD ROI case study: Imperial Tobacco

    Imperial Tobacco shifted its existing QAD production environment to the cloud rather than upgrading and refreshing its on-premises infrastructure, reducing its project costs by over…

  • Research S180

    Guidebook: Tensorflow on AWS

    Deep learning (DL) may be one of the most common buzzwords in artificial intelligence (AI) today, but until recently it has been mostly conceptual and…

  • Research S177

    Democratizing deep learning in the cloud

    With the cloud enabling improvements to efficiency, collaboration, and access to data, businesses can employ deep learning at scale in a way that was not…

  • Research, Value Matrix S178

    Control Tower Technology Value Matrix 2018

    In 2018, control tower vendors continued to push the boundaries of what customers are ready to adopt, with tools and automation that only the most…

  • Research S176

    Yellowfin adds Signals and Stories

    Business intelligence (BI) software vendor Yellowfin announced two new augmented AI tools to simplify analytics and insights – Signals and Stories – to deliver early…

  • Research S175

    Assessing supply chain management maturity

    As organizations are looking to modernize their supply chain management technology, it is useful to follow a maturity model that maps to what capabilities some…

  • Research S174

    Salesforce industry solutions

    Vertical customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities can help companies meet industry-specific business needs that are cumbersome or unsupported on traditional CRM solutions. With pre-built components…

  • ROI Case Studies S173

    SAP S/4HANA ROI case study: Apparel Company

    A large apparel company deployed SAP S/4HANA as part of an enterprise-wide technology transformation that allows the company to consolidate its infrastructure to a single…

  • Research, Value Matrix S169

    Analytics Technology Value Matrix 2018

    As analytics technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, companies are putting more and more trust in data to gain an edge over the competition. Vendors are responding…

  • Research S163

    Guidebook: Salesforce.org Philanthropy Cloud

    Organizations are increasingly challenged to show they are socially responsible – both to support their brand, sustain customer loyalty, and recruit and retain talent. In…

  • Research S166

    E2open expands downstream

    At its user conference, E2open Leaders Forum, E2open described how it is connecting planning and execution on its multi-enterprise network, supporting suppliers, manufacturers, logistics, and…

  • Research S161

    Nucleus Top Ten Predictions for 2019

    Nucleus’s top 10 predictions for 2019 look at rising and falling trends and revisits two topics we took on last year.  We look at high-flyer…

  • Research S167

    Oracle acquires DataFox

    On October 22, Oracle Corporation (Oracle) announced its acquisition of DataFox Intelligence, Inc. (DataFox) for an undisclosed sum. The product will be supported as-is for…

  • Research S158

    SugarCon update

    At SugarCRM’s user conference, the company announced plans for additional investments in innovation in marketing, sales, and service – as well as cloud infrastructure –…

  • Research S165

    SuccessFactors TM delivers value

    Nucleus engaged with SAP SuccessFactors Talent Management Suite customers to determine the benefits and value that can be derived from a talent management suite. Coming…

  • Research S145

    Alexa is open for business

    Alexa for Business is not the solution of six months ago (s71 – Alexa is not ready for business – April 2018). Alexa for Business…

  • Research S160

    Guidebook: Oracle NetSuite partner program

    The Oracle NetSuite partner program provides the incentives and returns on investment to partner organizations to justify scaling their NetSuite practice, thereby enabling them to…

  • Research S162

    Succession and pay lead at INSIGHTS 2018

    At Ceridian INSIGHTS 2018, Ceridian unveiled its new succession planning feature, as well as announced the 2019 release of on demand pay. Succession planning is…

  • ROI Case Studies S159

    Salesforce Lightning ROI case study: Insurance Company

    The company deployed Salesforce Lightning to upgrade the functionality of its existing Sales Cloud deployment. It used Lightning to enable faster data exploration and automated…

  • Research S156

    The benefits of SAP S/4HANA

    Nucleus engaged with SAP S/4HANA customers to determine the benefits and value they are deriving from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.  Despite having a…

  • Research S143

    Salesforce Quip

    Salesforce Quip provides cloud-based content sharing and collaboration, allowing users to share and annotate a variety of document types, and comment and vote on other’s…

  • Research S155

    Adobe acquires Marketo

    In September 2018, Adobe announced the acquisition of Marketo for $4.75 billion dollars. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2018. Adobe plans to…

  • Research S135

    Ultimate UltiPro enterprise customers

    Large organizations, as well as those organizations that are in growth mode, need a human capital management (HCM) solution that is scalable, can easily integrate…

  • Research, Value Matrix S154

    CRM Technology Value Matrix 2H2018

    Leading CRM providers are focused on breaking down barriers: those between siloed applications serving sales, service, and marketing, and those that limit user productivity. This…

  • Research S152

    Acumatica remains pragmatic with R2 Release

    At its recent release launch, Acumatica outlined the new functionality that it is bringing to its product.  With the focus squarely on continuing to improve…

  • ROI Case Studies S150

    SAP S/4HANA ROI case study: Centria

    Centria deployed SAP S/4HANA to unify its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution landscape as well as simplify business processes and implement mobile solutions.  By consolidating…

  • Research S153

    Hitachi solutions help monetize field service

    Hitachi Solutions’ Extended Field Service is an offering made up of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service with extensions for many field service-specific tasks. In…

  • Research S151

    Human potential leads at Inforum 2018

    The theme of Inforum 2018 was “human potential”. Going off this theme, human capital management (HCM) was at the center of everyone’s conversations. These conversations…

  • Research S149

    ProsperWorks rebrands as Copper

    ProsperWorks has rebranded itself as Copper in an effort to differentiate from other customer relationship management (CRM) vendors by adopting an increased focus on people…

  • Research S148

    Microsoft Dynamics 365 delivers $16.97 for every dollar spent

    In analyzing the results of Microsoft Dynamics 365 deployments, Nucleus found that for every dollar spent, companies realized an average of $16.97 in returns. This…

  • Research S146

    Infor buys into hospitality vertical

    Infor announced the acquisition of hospitality solutions vendor, Vivonet, Inc.  The move demonstrates how the verticalization of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market is not…

  • ROI Case Studies S137

    Salesforce ROI case study: Atlantic Energy

    Atlantic Energy, a non-traditional small-to-medium-sized energy supplier, deployed Salesforce Service Cloud and Field Service Lightning to facilitate growth, modernize the customer relationship management (CRM) infrastructure,…

  • Research S144

    Rapid7 unveils new automation features

    On September 20th, Rapid7 announced new security automation and orchestration (SAO) capabilities available through its Insight platform. This new functionality will be integrated into the…

  • Research, Value Matrix S141

    ERP Technology Value Matrix 2018

    In the last year, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software market began to deliver on its promise to bring intelligence to back-office processes.  Be it…

  • Research S139

    Guidebook: Salesforce Sales Cloud

    Salesforce Sales Cloud empowers sales teams to sell more intelligently and efficiently by centralizing customer information, delivering a singular 360-degree view of the customers across…

  • ROI Case Studies S138

    Salesforce ROI case study: BCBSM

    Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan deployed Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Community Cloud to streamline and automate its engagement with members. Nucleus found…

  • ROI Case Studies S134

    Salesforce ROI case study: Specialty Food Producer

    A specialty foods wholesaler deployed Demandware (since acquired by Salesforce and renamed Commerce Cloud) to enable future growth, leverage new technologies, and overhaul its e-commerce…

  • Research S136

    Preserving the value of Excel within CPM

    For organizations that have been performing their planning and budgeting with Excel or supplementing a legacy solution, moving to a new corporate performance management (CPM)…

  • Research S129

    The future of talent and succession management

    The human capital management (HCM) market has been busy with a spate of announcements on partnerships and integrations with collaboration applications and tools, but providing…

  • ROI Case Studies S125

    Micro Focus Vertica ROI case study: Wandera

    Wandera deployed the Vertica analytics database management platform to replace an AWS Redshift legacy system and to improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of its…

  • Research S132

    The cloud benefits companies of any size

    Traditionally, software vendors have positioned their products as solutions for small or large enterprises, largely because of complexity and resource constraints characteristic to large scale…