Anaplan

What do you like best about the product?

Anaplan is easy to use. It can be customized to your business and manufacturing model. What I liked best was it's ability to scenario plan supply chain outcomes based on our requirements .

What do you dislike about the product?

I would like Anaplan to integrate high level analytics into the software so it can be used without having to use other tools.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Other legacy tools were complicated to integrate and use especially for a small and meduim scale industry. Anaplan worked perfectly for our business needs and was easy to use and maintain history.

What do you like best about the product?

With a solid foundation of data, integrations, financial models, the tool can be as flexible as the company needs. The code is easy to understand and easily built out with the proper talent (either in house or contracted). Users do not need extensive architecture knowledge to stand up models and then connect the pipes together. This allows teams to trial and error fairly quickly to build new use cases. The ability to manage a large portion of the infrastructure within the function and outside of IT is also very appealing. Typically, finance functions rely on IT to perform regular tasks and wait for results - with Anaplan, a lot of those activities can remain with the business. There are a variety of integration tools available as well as native tooling that can support an enterprise.

What do you dislike about the product?

Without major talent, the models can quickly go awry and be poorly designed. Though the functionality may work, it might be less performant or create complexities when trying to adjust existing logic. Talent is also a large factor when considering this tool as it requires either building a team in house or contracting out. With contractors, you run the risk of knowledge gaps & lack of documentation for proprietary processes. To facilitate the implementation phase, business owners need to actively participate and devote a large number of hours to support the build. This is expensive to manage with larger organizations and could be less likely with smaller organizations. On the support side, you may contract out activities but there is a ramp up time that companies need to factor in (though this is true with most tools). The pricing model is quickly evolving to a subscription based model (again not uncommon amongst most SaaS platforms these days). Customer support is fairly basic and can be escalated, but is cumbersome during critical periods.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

FP&A and close use cases at the moment, but are exploring additional use cases as we grow. As a global enterprise, we have performed several M&A activities that resulted in many planning processes & Excel-based packages. The tool consolidates all activity into 1 tool and eases corporate's requirement for consolidations. The tool also acts as the single source of truth for the forecast/budget and allows finance teams globally to perform their close reconciliations. There is a large automation piece factored in so users do not need to update Excel sheets manually every period or forecast cycle. This is a major time saver and resolves most user errors when managing manual calculations. The tool also consolidates master data so all teams operate on 1 standard and prevents the misstatement of KPIs based on segregated hierarchies. Overall, Anaplan is the starting point to create consistency and flexibility in how we manage our FP&A processes.

My client is using Anaplan  for budgeting and planning purposes. They execute their budgeting and planning processes by utilizing this tool.

Both Hyperion  and Anaplan  serve the same purpose for budgeting and planning, but Anaplan is cloud-based. Previously, my client was using Oracle Hyperion  Planning and Essbase , which was on-premises. Anaplan, being a cloud-based platform, allows customers to adapt easily. It is easier to enter data, load data, and develop reports compared to Hyperion.

In Anaplan, once you create a system, the end user can utilize the reports immediately. Users can create UX pages with boards and worksheets. The boards contain different cards such as bar cards, chart cards, map cards, KPI cards, and field cards. These cards are used for high-level reports and top-level management reporting. For plant-wise location, worksheets can be created for analysis purposes, analyzing data at the plant level, while reports are used for top-level purposes.

The board functionality works similarly to a dashboard, where users can add different cards. Users can drag data and add chart cards, field cards, map cards, and KPI cards to a single board.

Anaplan can handle large sets of data and models within its ecosystem. Data volume is not an issue for the platform.

The tool is very effective from a user perspective, providing good analysis and reporting capabilities. It is an excellent tool for financial planning, supply chain planning, and territory and quota planning.

I have a total of 3.5 years of experience in Anaplan.

I provide technical support for clients but have not had experience contacting Anaplan's technical support directly.

Positive

The setup of Anaplan is very straightforward.

Currently, Anaplan is more expensive compared to other tools. This pricing is based on the tool's demands. However, I believe the price might decrease after some time.

I previously worked with Hyperion Essbase  and Hyperion Planning from Oracle, and now I work with Anaplan technology.

I provide technical support to users for security-related issues, creating new administration roles, and workflow management. We assist with security provisioning, user creation, workflow issues, and technical business logic modifications. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Anaplan a 9.

Amazon Web Services  (AWS )

What do you like best about the product?

I like Anaplan’s flexibility and real-time calculation engine the most. It enables fast, collaborative planning across different teams without needing complex coding.

What do you dislike about the product?

Some improvements are needed in reporting, workflow automation (automated email trigger), and the mobile app experience.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Anaplan addresses the complexities of budgeting, forecasting, and FP&A by providing a unified platform that connects finance with other business functions like sales and operations. This eliminates data silos and manual consolidation, enabling real-time updates and scenario analysis. As a result, we get faster, more accurate forecasts and can respond quickly to changing business conditions. It greatly improves collaboration between finance and stakeholders, leading to more informed and confident decision-making.

What do you like best about the product?

it's developed for business users who prefer excel-style planning by sheets
powerful and plain development tools oriented toward financial users - no tech background required for building models
process-enhanced excel with advanced reporting and analytics functionality

What do you dislike about the product?

their marketing and sales approach.
evangelistic marketing - sometimes it feels like new iPhone presentation or weight loss drug fair.
core platform worth its money, all non-core products ridiculously overpriced

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

full-scale financial planning, budgeting and reporting
workforce performance analytics, up to daily granularity