Anaplan
Anaplan, IncExternal reviews
410 reviews
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Helps with forecasting
What do you like best about the product?
It updates in real time as I input or adjust my forecast
What do you dislike about the product?
It can be overwhelming if you have not used it before
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Trying to get accurate forecasting
Accessible, Cleaner, Quicker Planning Processes for the Entire Business
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan's real time updates and capabilities to show reporting quickly and easily at different levels across the business
Multiple people can make updates and leverage at the same time - no more version control risk
Multiple people can make updates and leverage at the same time - no more version control risk
What do you dislike about the product?
Consolidations capabilities could be improved
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
FP&A at the operating level, consolidating to the office of the CFO.
Treasury and tax planning.
Headcount planning.
Ability to do all of this in the same tool, driving answers quickly
Treasury and tax planning.
Headcount planning.
Ability to do all of this in the same tool, driving answers quickly
Anaplan picks up from where Excel gets stuck
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is very good at handling complex calculations and modeling logic applied to vast amounts of data. So Anaplan can solve problems that clients have where excel just cannot handle the levels of calculations required. I have modeled many things in Anaplan, from supply chains to call centres, to investment funds and also the obvious things like P&L's, Balance Sheet, and cashflow. You build everything from scratch so you can model pretty much anything
Another great use of Anaplan is where you want to guide the user to follow a process. You can add in whatever data validations/controls, process gates, signoff/approval stages you need. And provide the user with real-time analysis of how their inputs have impacted their plan and any KPI's connected to it
The best attribute that helps Anaplan's long term success with clients is how the models can be adapted to move with the business, so as the business and its environment changes, the model can adapt and stay relevent. Which stops users reverting back to Excel
Another great use of Anaplan is where you want to guide the user to follow a process. You can add in whatever data validations/controls, process gates, signoff/approval stages you need. And provide the user with real-time analysis of how their inputs have impacted their plan and any KPI's connected to it
The best attribute that helps Anaplan's long term success with clients is how the models can be adapted to move with the business, so as the business and its environment changes, the model can adapt and stay relevent. Which stops users reverting back to Excel
What do you dislike about the product?
The focus of new features over the past few years has been very much on making the end users experience better. So model builders have been left behind somewhat, mainly from the point of view of writing and interrogating formulas, so there is scope to make our lives easier and modelling even faster. However there is an update expected soon which is promised to make the modelers lives a lot easier, so watch this space
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Integrated P&L > Balance Sheet > Cashflow
This significantly sped up the quarterly forecasting process for my client, and I also built lots of checks for account mappings to identify any holes in the mappings which could cause a variance to the balance sheet or any of the inbuild balance checks. As the model was vast so the model admins had to really stay on top of new accounts or mappings coming in
IFRS Modelling Contract Revenue
Anaplan was able to perform the calcs at a much more detailed level than excel, which was already at its limits and provides lots of analysis for the business. Although the primary purpose was for statutory reporting on the clients' contracts over the contract life
Private Equity Fund modeling
Looking backward at investor level to calculate provisions, and looking forward for the rest of the fund's life at a deal level. To determine the expected returns on investment. The main benefit for the client is providing a solid platform to bring together their actuals plus the ability to overlay what-ifs for the outlook and compare multiple scenarios against each other. The inputs being at a level high enough for fund managers to relate to, but the underlying logic is very detailed to the extent of making decisions on when to call from or distribute to investors in a more life like way
Supply vs Demand modelling
In a range of industries, including energy, telecoms, and consumer goods. The principle is fairly similar for all of these industries, matching supply and demand, identifying variances. As with previous applictaions the main benefits were related to performing the calculations at a more detailed level than Excel can handle, and providing operations with multiple scenarios to try out mutiple ways to resolve supply or demand issues
This significantly sped up the quarterly forecasting process for my client, and I also built lots of checks for account mappings to identify any holes in the mappings which could cause a variance to the balance sheet or any of the inbuild balance checks. As the model was vast so the model admins had to really stay on top of new accounts or mappings coming in
IFRS Modelling Contract Revenue
Anaplan was able to perform the calcs at a much more detailed level than excel, which was already at its limits and provides lots of analysis for the business. Although the primary purpose was for statutory reporting on the clients' contracts over the contract life
Private Equity Fund modeling
Looking backward at investor level to calculate provisions, and looking forward for the rest of the fund's life at a deal level. To determine the expected returns on investment. The main benefit for the client is providing a solid platform to bring together their actuals plus the ability to overlay what-ifs for the outlook and compare multiple scenarios against each other. The inputs being at a level high enough for fund managers to relate to, but the underlying logic is very detailed to the extent of making decisions on when to call from or distribute to investors in a more life like way
Supply vs Demand modelling
In a range of industries, including energy, telecoms, and consumer goods. The principle is fairly similar for all of these industries, matching supply and demand, identifying variances. As with previous applictaions the main benefits were related to performing the calculations at a more detailed level than Excel can handle, and providing operations with multiple scenarios to try out mutiple ways to resolve supply or demand issues
Really strong planning platform that can model almost any business scenario
What do you like best about the product?
The underlying modeling platform is very powerful but also fairly easy for a new user to pick up. This means that it can be used for a wide variety of use cases across an organisation, in a joined up way. For example, a very operational planning model looking at supply chain planning can be built and integrated with a more financial plan.
What do you dislike about the product?
As with any SaaS tool, the challenge is in integrating with other source systems. That said Anaplan have just released CloudWorks to do just that. Whilst it's at an early stage, that really shows some promise.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We have a team that needs to respond 24/7 to incidents and we have a challenge ensuring that the rostering is done just right. We've used the Anaplan platform to implement a solution that uses statistical forecasting to look for trends and seasonality in our historical incident data and predict future demand. It then allows us to bring in rostering information and see where there will be a gap between demand and capacity. Finally, it allows us to model out changes to the roster so we can bridge that gap.
Anaplan Developer Experience
What do you like best about the product?
The platform provides the ability to control the development without having to depend on IT.
The hyper block engine calculates all the values in real-time is a significant advantage.
The hyper block engine calculates all the values in real-time is a significant advantage.
What do you dislike about the product?
Reporting is not the most vital area for Anaplan as there are other platforms, and users would like both planning and reporting to be within one tool.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Real-time Planning data consolidation across all geographies, which helps develop management reports by connecting all the functional areas.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
If you are beginning a new Anaplan implementation, do get an experienced Anapalan consultant, which will save you a lot of time.
I think it is a powerful software
What do you like best about the product?
I like the fact that it has the ability to connect different data source and see how everything affect each other. I can see how this will be useful for a company.
What do you dislike about the product?
I think some parts of the software can be clunky and not intuitive in design. The learning curve can be high until getting used to.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The benefit that I have realized is the ability to forecast and play with data.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Yes
One-stop for all your business plans
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is an amazing tool where your business can be planned on a single platform with a data hub-or with an option to pull in data from various other CRM platforms. What makes Anaplan a better option to plan business is the ability to bring in various domains together along with specific roles and access. Learning tools give an insightful view about this software that includes specific UX to build dashboards for the end-user. Anaplan follows Agile methodology and lets you prepare user stories on a pre-defined template to help with the sprints. The Anaplan community ensures that everyone using the tool are comfortable and frequently brings in new features as requested.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some features are absent on the tool making the model building consume a lot more space than required. Some of the details have to be repeatedly pulled into modules, increasing the space required thereby increasing cost of the tool.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan has solved many of the problems that users with traditional platforms like Excel have. The hassle of switching tabs is now replaced with a hierarchical structure with presentable dashboards flowing down to modules and then lists. Given the capability to integrate with a lot of CRM platforms, it is versatile and most businesses can make the switch instantly. The potential of executing high-level Machine Learning models with some integration makes Anaplan a much powerful tool and advances it's capabilities.
Scalable, customizable, and intelligent platform for all your business planning needs
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is not an out of the box solution that forces companies to fit their business process into a predefined mold, it allows businesses to build up models and planning processes that fit their needs and can continue to evolve as their business grows and changes. It is difficult to imagine a modeling scenario you can't build in Anaplan. The tool allows for a lot of flexibility in the type of planning a customer wants to do, and can truly be owned/managed by end users instead of by IT. This allows for much quicker turnaround on adjustments to a model.
What do you dislike about the product?
Since Anaplan is not a pre-built solution, it does require more up-front investment in time and resources to get set up. It requires participation from multiple groups across the organization to put together a well-thought out model and more importantly to maintain and update the model on a regular cadence to keep up with a growing company. This can allow for things that shouldn't exist in Anaplan to be put into Anaplan (such as data storage).
I also think ANaplan's front end and reporting capabilities could vastly improve the appeal of the platform, this could help reduce a customer's need for separate reporting/dashboarding in another tool like Tableau and further streamline processes by having robust reporting directly in Anaplan.
I also think ANaplan's front end and reporting capabilities could vastly improve the appeal of the platform, this could help reduce a customer's need for separate reporting/dashboarding in another tool like Tableau and further streamline processes by having robust reporting directly in Anaplan.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan very quickly solves a lot of issues around internal communication and transfer of information because it is cloud based. Instead of having multiple versions of documents, a "living" version of business plans sits in Anaplan where anyone from the organization can access to review and make changes. This in itself reduces a lot of the time spent on planning. Through implementing Anaplan solutions at multiple clients, across several industries and use cases, I have consistently found that having a dedicated model admin that knows how to build and adjust the model on the client side is most effective, it allows the client to view and approach using Anaplan as an App that requires regular updates and releases of updates to end users, rather than a one-time set up.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Have a clear plan for the future state process you would like to have in Anaplan before starting on building Anaplan; this will make the build easier, faster and ultimately result in a better model output. If you try to design a process during the build, it can quickly get messy as things are built/rebuilt or the direction is changed halfway through the build.
Anaplan review - powerful product with a great roadmap
What do you like best about the product?
Multi dimensionality, plenty of flexibility but without compromising on controls
What do you dislike about the product?
Not much to dislike once you've managed to get past the learning curve
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Increased controls, drilldown ability, removed significant pain points associated with Excel models. Able to reduce planning cycle significantly through real time calculations and automatically compare plans to prior years/submissions, all in the same place.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Get involved as much as possible in the scoping as well as building of your models. You'll love it once you get over the learning curve! Take your time with the first implementation, after that you can scale up your builds rapidly.
Get in touch with Anaplan about your use case, they will be more than happy to put you in touch with current clients who will be able to give you some really good objective insights.
Get in touch with Anaplan about your use case, they will be more than happy to put you in touch with current clients who will be able to give you some really good objective insights.
Take back control of your planning tools with Anaplan
What do you like best about the product?
The simplicity and speed of modeling to meet a wide variety of use cases. Users quickly become autonomous on the platform. New features are released every month. The community paltform can help you find answers when you are stuck on a design point. A learning center with a lot of e-learning courses to help you gain skills on the plateform easily. The user interface has been completely revised for a much better experience.
What do you dislike about the product?
Volumetric issues that may arise when you have to cross several dimensions with a lot fo items if you have a small workspace. Reporting features are still too limited even if you can use native connectors to plug into BI Solutions (Tableau, Power BI ...)
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Finance (FP&A, Cash flow, Capex/Opex planning, Payroll ...)
Sales (Quota, Incentives, Territory planning ...)
Supply Chain (S&OP, Demand Planning ...)
Sales (Quota, Incentives, Territory planning ...)
Supply Chain (S&OP, Demand Planning ...)
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