Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

I am happy to share some insights on Reflexis drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Reflexis and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.

Reflexis placed 12th in the Value Index for Workforce Management. It earned its highest score in TCO/ROI due to the robust business case information it supplies related to the benefits of its approach in compliance, labor cost reduction and even time to complete store recalls.

Reflexis’ strength is in its ability to provide a real-time store operations management capability to complement core WFM process support areas, something few other vendors offer. Forecasting is retail-centric, with mathematics developed in partnership with MIT Labs. The product is also unique in that it incorporates into the scheduling process factors such as inflation or "revenue events" — the dates of disbursement of Social Security or military paychecks — to account for expected demand increases. Reflexis supports both top-down and bottom-up forecasting and uses sophisticated algorithms co-developed with leading universities that take into account real-time data such as customer traffic from sales systems and adjust schedules accordingly. The products support many languages.

Reflexis earned its lowest rating in Validation, Manageability and Adaptability due to minimal depth and examples. More depth on its references, product roadmap, services and partners would have helped its rating in Validation. Its depth in integration across process, application and data areas should be improved upon. It should address its next-generation analytics and time clock support along with needed collaboration among roles.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of workforce management software in the industry. You can learn more about our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool here. Participating vendors can learn more about how to use the Value Index here.