Results Show 76 Percent of PeopleSoft Customers Plan to Maintain or Upgrade PeopleSoft Environment, None Plan To Switch From PeopleSoft At This Time.

Nucleus Research, the leading provider of Return on Investment (ROI)-focused research and advisory services for the global IT industry, today announced the results of an independent study on PeopleSoft Enterprise business applications. The study, published today and titled, "The Real ROI from PeopleSoft Enterprise," concluded that 82 percent of PeopleSoft customers had achieved a positive ROI from their deployments, after an average payback period of 2.7 years. The report is available at NucleusResearch.com.

During the course of this research, Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, adding an unpredictable variable to the outcome of the study. As part of its investigation, Nucleus Research independently contacted PeopleSoft customers without the vendor’s input to evaluate the return on investment realized by its customers. Nucleus Research analysts, skilled in both finance and technology to perform a full ROI analysis of each participant’s deployment, independently analyzed a number of variables that included deployments, benefits, costs, impact upon administrative overhead and employee productivity and visibility into operations at PeopleSoft customer sites.

From this study, Nucleus Research found a number of key value drivers that customers recognized from this technology and anticipate additional benefits moving forward. As highlighted below, a large majority of customers are planning to maintain or upgrade their PeopleSoft solutions with Oracle.

Key findings from the survey include:

• Eighty-two percent of PeopleSoft customers achieved a positive ROI from their deployments with an average payback period of 32 months.
• Seventy-six percent of PeopleSoft customers planned to maintain or upgrade their PeopleSoft environment. None were planning to move from PeopleSoft at this time.
• Seventy-six percent of PeopleSoft deployments were completed on time, and 47 percent were completed on or under budget.
• In comparing these results to other ERP research – actual and projected spending on software, hardware, consulting, training and personnel – the 3-year cost per user of SAP to be more than six times higher than the 3-year cost per user of PeopleSoft.*
• The biggest deployment challenges faced were usually related to change management and not technical issues.

"There were a number of surprising findings from this research, particularly the customer response to the Oracle acquisition of PeopleSoft. Companies are holding Oracle to its commitments on PeopleSoft products, and it will be tough for other competitors to lure customers away unless Oracle really makes some major mistakes," said Rebecca Wettemann, VP of Research at Nucleus Research. "And a primary function of Nucleus is to empower purchasers and users of technology with the information that will enable them to maximize their technology investments. Seeing the high percentage of implementations were completed on time, and close to half were completed on or under budget displays the financial value that PeopleSoft Enterprise applications offer to end users."

Nucleus Research maintains rigid standards in order to ensure the validity of its research for its Real ROI series. ROI study results are based on user experiences and factual data – the only method which guarantees the validity of the results. Nucleus independently contacted customers to assess their experiences using PeopleSoft. In conducting its ROI reports, Nucleus reviewed the vendor’s Web site, online journals and print publications to identified companies using PeopleSoft Enterprise applications.

About Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research is the leading provider of Return on Investment (ROI)-focused research and advisory services for the global IT industry, providing real-world information to decision-makers as they seek to maximize business returns from their technology investments. The organization’s goal is to support business decision makers as they strategize and plan for growth using the best technology solutions available. Nucleus’ expert analysts focus on research issues across the entire enterprise software and hardware space to provide its clients with ongoing advice to help with both short-term technology decisions and long-term strategic plans. Blending financial analysis and case-based investigations with comprehensive technology expertise to deliver factual return-on-investment (ROI) data to organizations worldwide, Nucleus uses an uncompromising set of processes and tools to evaluate the financial return on IT assets and is the only firm to gain certification by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy. For more information, visit nucleusresearch.com.