Anaplan
Anaplan LimitedExternal reviews
416 reviews
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Planning Platform that Keeps Evolving
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is a great planning platform which is easy to use and scalable.
Anaplan continues investing in its product roadmap. New products either organically developed like Anaplan Workflow and Data Orchestrator or externally acquired like Fluence provided Anaplan a range of capabilities required in the planning space.
Anaplan has excellent online learning centre. Courses for recently acquired products were developed using the same standard as the Anaplan core courses. This made learning experience easy.
Customer support is easily accessible with new Customer Care portal.
Anaplan continues investing in its product roadmap. New products either organically developed like Anaplan Workflow and Data Orchestrator or externally acquired like Fluence provided Anaplan a range of capabilities required in the planning space.
Anaplan has excellent online learning centre. Courses for recently acquired products were developed using the same standard as the Anaplan core courses. This made learning experience easy.
Customer support is easily accessible with new Customer Care portal.
What do you dislike about the product?
Anaplan may need to consider drill down functionality. While this can be achieved through different workarounds on UX pages, standard drill down that people are familiar with by expanding and collapsing parent item is good to have.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan is used to replace Excel-based model for real estate budgeting starting from the asset acquisition, development, and operation. Users can perform scenario analysis easily and hence are able to make informed decisions whether to hold or dispose an asset. Anaplan is able to handle multi-year budgeting easily.
A product that does many use cases well! Flexible modeling for endless Oppritunity
What do you like best about the product?
I like Anaplan is flexible in it's modeling and does not hold you to 1 use case.
This is very valuable to bring to a firm and have endless growth with the tool.
The tool is relatively easy to learn and can be picked up my anyone.
This is very valuable to bring to a firm and have endless growth with the tool.
The tool is relatively easy to learn and can be picked up my anyone.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some aspects of the developer experience could be improved. Knowing what line items are used for what actions could be improved. Also, cloudworks having a snowflake connection would help.
"Toastering" of the model when a bad formula is inputted is very aggravating for users.
"Toastering" of the model when a bad formula is inputted is very aggravating for users.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan real time design is very helpful for our business. They can input their assumptions and see in real time the impact of their plans. This makes it so the tool can always be used as a conversation piece.
Anaplan was able to help allocation use cases, where we didn't previously have a tool to help us with completing large allocations. Users can assign drivers and see the impact in real time, where user's can truly "integrate easily on creating their allocated financials.
Anaplan allows for data to be exported to Power BI, which is helpful for storing data and merging with other data sources in a data lake.
Anaplan was able to help allocation use cases, where we didn't previously have a tool to help us with completing large allocations. Users can assign drivers and see the impact in real time, where user's can truly "integrate easily on creating their allocated financials.
Anaplan allows for data to be exported to Power BI, which is helpful for storing data and merging with other data sources in a data lake.
Anaplan continues to improve for Sales Planning
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan's platform continues to evolve in an incredible way. Just in the last 18 months, the following has released: app native workflow, build in data management, AI, brand new tech that builds models for you ("T&Q app"). It's changing what you expect from an EPM tool
What do you dislike about the product?
Anaplan's pricing can be confusing and opaque. This is due to an evolving platform, technology, and GTM model. Customers from just 3 years ago may have completely different expectations on pricing and that can cause friction. However, the GTM model had to change - the platform, which did not drastically change from 2014-2022, has received an incredible overhaul in terms of technical functionality, and old pricing models did no capture that at all.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I will specifically answer this question regarding the territory and quota (T&Q) use case. T&Q represents a widespread, needed-everywhere planning problem but it doesn't have any of its own big software players. The reason is that Anaplan is so well-suited to the use case, that you'd waste your time trying to create a bespoke competitor. And Anaplan's offering is only strengthening.
T&Q has the hallmarks needs of planning: nuanced, many disparate data sets, very large data sets, operational and financial considerations, many distributed stakeholders, and consistent collaboration. Anaplan checks each of those boxes an we see it at our customers. Our customers tell us they love a prescriptive approach that they still can own (the new T&Q app comes out of the box), where they can merge what they love about their current process with the best-in-class they need. These streamlined T&Q apps help our customers create fairer territories with better account scoring, build better quotas to set the right incentives and reach the right attainment curve, and do it all significantly faster. Our happiest customer now deploys territories and quota before the yera begins when it previously took them until 6 weeks into Q1.
T&Q has the hallmarks needs of planning: nuanced, many disparate data sets, very large data sets, operational and financial considerations, many distributed stakeholders, and consistent collaboration. Anaplan checks each of those boxes an we see it at our customers. Our customers tell us they love a prescriptive approach that they still can own (the new T&Q app comes out of the box), where they can merge what they love about their current process with the best-in-class they need. These streamlined T&Q apps help our customers create fairer territories with better account scoring, build better quotas to set the right incentives and reach the right attainment curve, and do it all significantly faster. Our happiest customer now deploys territories and quota before the yera begins when it previously took them until 6 weeks into Q1.
Anaplan Enhancing S&OP Performance and Efficiency in Athletic Apparel Company
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan strong focus on customer success makes achieving project goals easier. With its high-quality training resources and supportive community, customers get to learn not just how to use it but also to maximize the product’s potential. Also, Anaplan continuously delivers new features and functionalities, ensuring the product remains relevant and effective in achieving the objectives.
What do you dislike about the product?
Unplanned system downtime significantly affects a use case that requires frequent daily updates.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As a retail company, Anaplan helps us plan the timing, location, duration, and pricing of a product to achieve target revenue.
Anaplan is a flexible tool that is advancing with new platform capabilities
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is a great tool for multiple types of use cases. I think ALM is a really great aspect of Anaplan. I found it was instrumental in a particularly complex use case. Fluence has also been a great addition to the platform and has a lot of potential to add value to clients.
What do you dislike about the product?
How the standard model deals with sparsity can be particularly difficult for performance in complex models.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's solving standardization within an organization. Its an easy tool for business users to use. And with a COE it enables an org to build so much more.
Versatility and ease of use is key
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan allows the "business" to own the toold rather than IT. This allows areas like finance and sales to make changes and updates to the logic without having to wait for IT to make the changes. Plus, the changes are easy becasue the "logic" is behaves in the same way as other programs used by the business. Anaplan also allows the business to design the tool to cater to the specific needs of the business such as terminoly and allowing for unique processes.
What do you dislike about the product?
There are quite a few ways to connect data to Anaplan, but not always a direct connection. However, Anaplan is constantly evolving as well.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan can be used as a tool to centralize many processes. Each department within a business can create a process in Anaplan that fits their specific needs while also being able to aggregate the results into a summary level (such as corporate planning) all within the same tool with real live connectivity.
Do it all planning platform
What do you like best about the product?
The modular structure - allowing for different dimensions to be used in different areas of the model which can enhance user experience.
What do you dislike about the product?
The modular structure significantly limits the reporting. Customers coming off of Hyperion with the smartview add-in struggle replicating the adhoc reporting capability ie using essbase datamodel and smartviews drag and drop pulls. There needs to be a option with fluence where customers can get a data model and not pay extra.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It has significantly helped customers modernize their planning process - move off of inefficient and complex excel models
Innovation is slowing, but users are still confident in the tool.
What do you like best about the product?
The user experience and confidence in the data management and planning capabilities of the tool highlight the most important features of Anaplan. Anaplan is a trusted tool in the EPM space.
What do you dislike about the product?
Anaplan's innovation has not kept up to pace with other tools in the market, and the drawbacks of the tool like sparsity and toaster for model builders are no longer acceptable.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan takes away the multiple spreadsheets and gets everyone in a tool to create a connected planning environment. Realistically, the tool functions to move everyone out of excel. On top of that, there are some quality user experience elements that enhance the planning process and make things like driver based planning more attainable for smaller FP&A functions.
A powerful platform with some minor gaps to Address
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is an excellent EPM tool for business process planning. Its computing power allows you to produce real-time simulations of several scenarios based on complex sets of hypotheses defined for and by the business.
Data processing is comprehensive, covering a wide range of business needs through a large number of native functions and formulas.
A large number of use cases can be modelled.
The user experience is simple to set up, pleasant to use and allows a large number of graphical displays.
Data processing is comprehensive, covering a wide range of business needs through a large number of native functions and formulas.
A large number of use cases can be modelled.
The user experience is simple to set up, pleasant to use and allows a large number of graphical displays.
What do you dislike about the product?
Despite its many strengths, Anaplan could benefit from better rendering tools for modelbuilders to manage complex models. The lack of a ‘saved views’ parameter-setting page, similar to the ‘lineItem’ page, can lead to a loss of time when analysing complex models.
There is also not easy to find indication of the publication of modules, and this information could be needed for a detailed analysis, particularly in the case of models with a very large number of pages in their app.
These few elements could improve the modelling experience.
There is also not easy to find indication of the publication of modules, and this information could be needed for a detailed analysis, particularly in the case of models with a very large number of pages in their app.
These few elements could improve the modelling experience.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Before using this EPM tool, the exchange file formats differed depending on who was involved. The business process was neither clear nor fluid.
Implementing a management system with Anaplan means more accurate decision-making, thanks to real-time scenario simulation, more reliable results, a single, well-defined process for everyone involved in the business, and a single, reliable data source.
Implementing a management system with Anaplan means more accurate decision-making, thanks to real-time scenario simulation, more reliable results, a single, well-defined process for everyone involved in the business, and a single, reliable data source.
Anaplan for Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is an easy-to-use SaaS platform with global coverage. Over the last 10 years, they have adopted the best-in-class funcitonalities on their platform to rival other big players in the EPM space such as Oracle, SAP and TM1. It is used for enterprise wide planning and improving collaboration among various teams within an organisation from finance to sales, HR, marketing, tax, operations and treasury to name a few. The platform uses simple drag and drop functionality along with excel-like scripting to build models and front-end pages, resulting in quicker adoption times for both end-users and new model builders and making implementation a breeze. The Anaplan REST API can be leveraged to connect the system to other existing ERPs and master data source system to ensure integrity of data across an enterprise.
What do you dislike about the product?
While Anaplan has recently produced some exceptional functionalities like geo-mapping and workflow, and has a strong roadmap with GenAI coming into the picture soon, a lot of these capabilities (such as Workflow, or the new Polaris engine) come at an additional cost to customers. A lot of times customers are discouraged from using these features due to the additional price tag. This prevents consultants and partners like us from leveraging the full power of Anaplan to implement for the customer. However, the minimum/basic features that come with an enterprise licence are sufficient for a great start to the Anaplan journey.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan solves a wide array of problems including but not limited to: better data integrity, improved collaboration, scenario planning, faster forecasting cycles. Even though we are a partner/consultant, we also use Anaplan internally for sales perfomance management, financial budgeting/forecasting and workforce planning. Adopting Anaplan has made the before-mentioned processes significantly faster and more reliable. I have also implemented supply-chain use cases for customers, which have resulted in better communication with their suppliers, reduced cost through optimised inventory and better collaboration across the enterprise.
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