Crystal Ball

What do you like best?

Hands down, the user friendliness of the software. In our MBA program, we are given 20 business cases to be solved and interpret with the help of Oracle Crystal Ball software. Unfortunate part was out instructor did not even give a hint on how to use this software. But after installing it, and using it for 2-3 days, it became very simple for us to use by our self! Within 1 week, we somewhat became expert in using the suite.

What do you dislike?

Throughout the usage, I have not realized any ground breaking issue with Crystal Ball. But however, occasional crashes in middle of simulation process, even though very rare, are very much disappointing. Another problem I faced was that the add-ins from the excel would sometime disappear even though I have customized settings to open Crystal Ball every time I open excel. I was particularly annoying when middle of the case presentation, we were suppose to run the simulation and interpret the data to the audiences. Costed the valuable time of the audiences in that process.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

The software is very user friendly. I think it is mandatory for Finance graduates to have a great deal of idea about simulation and scenario analysis and Crystal Ball can easily be used to perform those tasks. It helps in interpreting financial models in more confidence manner.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Mainly business cases. When building a financial model, so many assumptions are made. In real world, those assumptions do not match the expectations in precise manner. So, we have to have a range within which the value will fall based upon the volatility of our assumptions and thus, we can provide recommendations to approach the business problem. Crystal Ball helps in determining the range through simulating thousands of scenario simulations. As a result, we can easily interpret the result to the audiences. Another time I used crystal Ball 5 months ago in evaluating a start up model. The plan was to provide our confidence, and range within which the angel investors will get value investing in the start up. Crystal Ball proved to be very efficient in convincing them. People trust statements backed by numbers.