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Where Risk Studio fits differently.

We've used Safran, @RISK and Acumen for years. Here's an honest comparison, including where those tools are still the right call and where Risk Studio is the wrong one.

Safran is a serious piece of software with twenty years of pedigree. Risk Studio is younger, more opinionated, and built specifically for the QSRA workflow on UK strategic infrastructure. If you're running cost risk on a global oil‑and‑gas portfolio, Safran is still your tool. If you're running schedule risk on major UK road infrastructure — or anything that looks like it — and you want validation, Monte Carlo and reports in one place with an audit chain a regulator can spot‑check, Risk Studio is built for you.

Where each tool fits.

Safran Risk

The safe choice when you need twenty years of pedigree, regional support teams, and integrated cost‑and‑schedule modelling shipped today.

@RISK

The right tool when your team lives in Excel and needs cost risk with a deep distribution library backed by a long‑established user base.

Acumen Fuse

The framework‑approved schedule‑quality scorer with a tight Deltek integration and an established UK gov procurement footprint.

SOMA Risk Studio

Built specifically for UK QSRA cadence on strategic infrastructure — validator, Monte Carlo and reporting unified in one toolkit, with an audit chain a regulator can spot‑check.

01 · Versus Safran Risk

Risk Studio vs Safran Risk

The incumbent — broad, mature, global. We're narrower and faster on UK schedule risk, but Safran wins on track record, cost‑loaded modelling and vendor maturity.

Teal stripe = Risk Studio wins this rowAmber stripe = Safran wins this row

Dimension	Safran Risk	SOMA Risk Studio
Safran winsTrack record	20+ years in production on global infrastructure programmes — thousands of trained users, a deep bench of analysts to recruit from, and an established consultancy ecosystem around the tool.	Six‑month track record on a major UK infrastructure delivery programme. Production‑grade engineering, but young.
Safran winsCost‑loaded modelling today	Integrated cost‑loaded scheduling shipped — full QCRA + QSCRA in one tool, in production for years.	Schedule risk today, plus QCRA (cost) shipped at V1.5 — advisory pending formal validation. QSCRA (combined) is on the roadmap for V2.0+. If you need combined cost‑and‑schedule modelling now, this is honest grounds to stay on Safran.
Safran winsGlobal support footprint	Regional support teams across Europe, the Middle East, North America and APAC. Established training network with public courses and certified resellers.	Single‑team support — direct line to a SOMA risk lead, fast and personal, but no regional bench. Training delivered in‑house or via SOMA Academy.
Safran winsVendor maturity for global procurement	Established InfoSec posture that a Tier 1 global procurement team will tick off in an afternoon, backed by long‑held formal certifications.	Formal certifications are on our roadmap; current status is available on request. Honest answer: if you're a global contractor with a hard InfoSec gate today, we're not the easy procurement.
Risk Studio winsValidation	Manual — analyst applies the framework checks by hand or buys a third‑party scoring tool.	Four frameworks built in — SOMA QSRA Readiness V2.9, DCMA 14‑point, CIOB PP21, Acumen Fuse SQI. 75 checks across one schedule, every run.
Risk Studio winsWorkflow	Export the schedule, import to Safran, build inputs in Safran, run, export outputs. Round‑trips on every revision.	In‑house Monte Carlo — XER stays in‑app, register lives next to it. No round‑trips.
Risk Studio winsAudit trail	Safran's own log — captures what was run, when.	HMAC‑chained log with per‑run hash and byte‑identical replay. Regulator‑spot‑checkable.
Risk Studio winsSign‑off workflow	Manual outside the tool — typically a Word document and an email chain.	Per‑finding accept‑with‑reason built in, stamped to the audit log.
Risk Studio winsUK English deliverables	Mixed — Safran's own UI is US English; reports follow whatever the analyst writes.	UK English throughout — UI, validation messages, reports, briefings.
Risk Studio winsDeployment	Windows desktop application, vendor‑managed licensing.	Local install on Mac or Windows, or BYO‑Azure private cloud, or SOMA‑managed.
Risk Studio winsPricing model	Per‑seat licence. Ask Safran for current pricing.	Pilot, single‑scheme and portfolio engagement shapes, no per‑seat charges. Pricing on application — request a quote.

02 · Versus @RISK

Risk Studio vs @RISK

The Excel‑tied incumbent for cost risk. Our own cost module (QCRA) has shipped, but for teams who live in Excel, @RISK still has the home‑ground advantage.

Teal stripe = Risk Studio wins this rowAmber stripe = @RISK wins this row

Dimension	@RISK	SOMA Risk Studio
@RISK winsExcel integration	Native Excel add‑in — lives exactly where your QSRA team already works. Cells, formulas and references they already understand, with no second tool to learn.	Standalone web app. We treat Excel as an import and export format, not a runtime. If your team would rather not leave the workbook, that friction is real.
@RISK winsCost risk maturity	Cost‑risk register in production for decades — distribution library, sensitivity, correlation handling for cost are all well‑trodden.	QCRA (cost) has shipped at V1.5, advisory pending formal validation. For teams wanting decades of production track record on cost risk today, @RISK in Excel remains the more proven choice — we'll say so on the call.
@RISK winsEcosystem and training	Massive user base — public courses, textbooks, conference talks, a deep pool of trained analysts and decades of community examples to draw on.	SOMA Academy is emerging. Direct training from SOMA risk leads is excellent, but the wider ecosystem is years behind @RISK by definition.
Risk Studio winsAudit chain	Worksheet‑fragile — a cell formula change downstream can invalidate the chain without warning.	Cryptographic — HMAC chain over inputs, config, seed and outputs. Tamper anywhere and the chain breaks visibly.
Risk Studio winsCorrelation handling	Manual matrix repair — analyst notices the matrix isn't PSD and edits it by hand.	Higham PSD auto‑repair — the engine routes the matrix through Higham's nearest‑PSD algorithm and logs the distance.
Risk Studio winsReproducibility	Depends on Excel state — open the workbook six months later and the result depends on Excel version, add‑in version, recalculated cells.	Byte‑identical replay — re‑run a captured period and get the same bytes back.
Distribution support	AACE‑compliant — full library of named distribution families.	AACE‑compliant — Triangular, BetaPERT, Uniform, Discrete, LogNormal, Normal.

03 · Versus Acumen Fuse SQI

Risk Studio vs Acumen Fuse SQI

Acumen scores the schedule. Risk Studio scores it and models the risks against it — but Acumen still wins on Deltek depth, SQI lineage and existing framework approvals.

Teal stripe = Risk Studio wins this rowAmber stripe = Acumen wins this row

Dimension	Acumen Fuse SQI	SOMA Risk Studio
Acumen winsDeltek ecosystem integration	Tight Deltek stack integration — Open Plan, Cobra, Acumen Risk and the wider Deltek toolkit talk to one another natively. If you're already on Deltek end‑to‑end, Acumen is the path of least resistance.	Standalone. We read XER and MPP, write Safran flat‑files, and stay neutral on the planning tool. Powerful, but it's not a one‑click drop‑in to a Deltek environment.
Acumen winsSchedule quality scoring lineage	The Schedule Quality Index is Acumen's franchise — wide industry recognition, the metric the asset owner often asks for by name.	Our four‑framework approach (SOMA QSRA + DCMA + CIOB + Fuse) is newer. We run the Fuse metric set, but the SQI brand and the recognition that comes with it sit with Acumen.
Acumen winsEstablished procurement footprint	Framework‑approved on many UK gov contracts already — bidders can name it without an InfoSec or procurement detour.	Emerging. We're winning into UK infrastructure delivery today and growing from there, but if your contract conditions lock the bidder into a named existing tool, that's a real constraint we'll respect.
Risk Studio winsScope	Schedule quality scoring — Schedule Quality Index, metrics, ratings.	Scoring + risk modelling — the SQI‑equivalent score plus the Monte Carlo that turns it into a P50/P80 finish date.
Risk Studio winsFramework coverage	Fuse SQI metrics (10) — Acumen's own framework.	Fuse + DCMA + CIOB + SOMA QSRA — pick one, or run all four against the same schedule.
Risk Studio winsOutput	Score reports, metric breakdowns, schedule health views.	Score + S‑curves + tornados + briefings — four branded deliverables from one run.
Risk Studio winsWorkflow	Import schedule, run scoring, export report.	Import schedule, validate (Acumen included), model, report — one pass.
When Acumen is still right	When you need the Fuse SQI report specifically as a contractual deliverable — that's Acumen's franchise. Risk Studio's Acumen runner gives you the same metric set inside the QSRA workflow; for the formal Acumen‑branded report, use Acumen.

When NOT to use Risk Studio.

We're trying to win the right business, not all of it. Be honest with yourself on the brief before you ask us to scope an engagement.

Multi‑billion‑dollar global oil‑and‑gas portfolios with regional support requirements. If you need 24/7 follow‑the‑sun support across Aberdeen, Houston, Dubai and Perth, Safran's regional teams are doing something for you that a single‑team UK consultancy cannot replicate. Stay on Safran.
Integrated cost‑and‑schedule modelling in one pass, today. QCRA (cost) has shipped at V1.5, but QSCRA (the combined engine) is still on the roadmap for V2.0+. Until then, Safran's integrated cost‑loaded scheduling does more in a single tool than Risk Studio does today.
UK gov contracts with a named‑tool framework lock‑in. If the contract conditions require the bidder to deliver QSRA using a specific framework‑approved tool that isn't us yet, talk to us — but expect us to be honest that we may not be the right call for that particular procurement window.
Global resource‑loaded scheduling. If your QSRA hinges on multi‑continent resource pools, parallel critical paths constrained by labour, and resource‑driven duration uncertainty — Safran's full feature set is doing more for you than Risk Studio does today.
Non‑UK contract frameworks. Risk Studio leans into UK procurement norms — NEC and JCT idioms, UK‑style infrastructure deliverable shapes and vocabulary. On a North American CPM‑heavy contract with FIDIC overlay, the tooling fits less neatly. We can still help, but we'll ask hard scoping questions first.
Locked‑down environments with no install permission. Risk Studio runs as a local app or in your Azure tenancy. If neither is available — for example, a fully air‑gapped client site with no Mac/Windows install rights and no cloud — talk to us, but expect us to be honest that the deployment story doesn't fit.
Teams who would genuinely rather not leave Excel. If your analyst pool is wedded to Excel and a web app is going to cause real friction, @RISK in Excel is still the lower‑friction choice for them — even if our engine would give better answers.

Compare on your data

Run both engines on the same XER. You decide which one earned the next period.

Two hours. Your data. Same XER, same register, both engines side by side. P10/P50/P80 compared, tornado ordering compared, audit chain explained. No theatre, no scripted demo.

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