I'm a consultant. I work for a consulting firm, and our job is to implement Anaplan for our clients. I'm a solution architect in Anaplan.

It's mainly for financial planning and analysis (FP&A), supply chain, and sales incentive use cases.

I’m a consultant for a consulting firm. I’m a certified Anaplan model builder with solution architect experience. I’ve implemented around eleven projects, most of which were related to financial and sales planning. 

I also have a fair understanding of supply chain, but I’ve only worked on one supply chain project. The primary use cases I’ve seen involve financial planning, supply chain planning, and sales planning, including territory and quota management.

One advantage is easy integration. While some IT support may be needed, Anaplan offers many connectors to automate data transfer from ERP systems, reducing manual data loading. This connectivity comes at a cost, but it's worthwhile. Anaplan can connect to various third-party resources, sometimes requiring IT assistance for configuration. You can create many scenarios and what-if analyses based on business drivers, adapting them as needed.

Anaplan is constantly evolving and introduces new features monthly. As a SaaS product, updates, patches, and new features are seamlessly integrated into the backend, eliminating disruptions for businesses. Also, Anaplan introduced new dashboards with IRR-type visualizations, which are useful and enhance the user experience.

Anaplan's real-time data updating feature impacts our customers' decision-making processes because they don't have to wait. With a well-built model incorporating best practices, data updates happen in real time. Any changes or dynamic elements are reflected immediately, thanks to the Designer Client product.

For example, if new items are added to a list, the data is automatically updated based on the model configuration. All data is real-time; simply refresh to see the latest information without waiting or making additional changes.

Anaplan has many great features. For example, the UX features and dashboards are intuitive and user-friendly. Anaplan's acquisition of Fluent will bring artificial intelligence capabilities to the platform, benefiting users with the latest AI technology. 

Anaplan's scalability stands out compared to other platforms, especially for scenario planning and what-if analysis. It's user-friendly and requires no coding, making it easy for end-users. This is why Anaplan is gaining recognition among clients.

Anaplan is planning to enhance AI capabilities, but right now, there's PlanIQ. With some statistical knowledge, we can use it, but it's a paid option, not free.

One key area of improvement is pricing. With many competitors entering the market, pricing is something they need to reconsider, which could help us. Also, while cPanel is slowly gaining traction, the biggest competitor remains Excel. Since most people use Excel, Anaplan should offer more free training to help users get familiar with its features. This would make the platform more popular compared to other competitors.

Anaplan has improved significantly over the years—five years ago, it didn’t have features like a good dashboard. Back then, everything was done on a classical dashboard, but now, it's all in the new UX. In terms of the product, there are still features that need to be added, but they are working on it. However, there are some smaller issues that also need attention.

I have been using it for almost seven years. 

I would rate the stability as nine out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability.

If a thousand customers use Anaplan at the same time, there won’t be any challenges. The product doesn’t go down or anything like that. It’s a very stable product, being cloud-based, and it has its own in-memory technology and patented system. I’ve seen tests where multiple users are logged in at the same time, and it performs without any issues.

I would rate the scalability as nine out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high scalability. Our customers are mainly mid-size to large-scale enterprises that use Anaplan. The product is most suitable for companies with large operations.

My customers come from various domains. We have clients in the consumer goods, pharma, consulting, and healthcare sectors. Right now, Anaplan covers most industries, including Fortune 500 companies and mid-sized enterprises. Since Anaplan is a US-based company, the majority of these companies are based in the US, but it also has a strong presence in Europe. They are expanding their focus on the Asia Pacific region as well. One of the challenges, however, is data center locations. 

Currently, the data centers are in the US and Europe. In countries like China, there are data restrictions, which can be a disadvantage. Anaplan is working on getting data centers in specific regions, such as Saudi Arabia, where data restrictions are stricter.

The response is very good. If you face any issues, you just need to log a ticket, and Anaplan team immediately acknowledges it. They assign someone to help you out, so the support is really good.

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. 

It’s not very difficult to set up. Anaplan uses something called an agile process during implementation. The first step is data discovery, where we understand the client's requirements and their entire process.

Anaplan is a platform, meaning it’s a blank canvas. Unlike SAP, which comes with default features, Anaplan is customized for each customer. So, depending on the specific business requirements, the model is built from scratch. For example, if I'm working for a pharma company, their business logic will be different from a manufacturing company or an IT company.

Anaplan customizes the model according to each business's requirements. The same model may not work even for two companies within the same industry, as every company has different needs. That’s where Anaplan stands out—it tailors the model based on the business. If the person implementing the solution has a good overview of the end-to-end business process, it makes the setup process much easier.

So, what happens is the client needs to purchase a workspace. Anaplan has three types of models. Based on the model licenses, the workspace is allocated accordingly. Most companies, when implementing Anaplan, start with a private project. For example, they might focus on one specific function like finance. They begin small to visualize the benefits and then slowly expand it to other departments, such as supply chain or sales planning. As a SaaS product, customers have to pay for both the workspace and the model licenses. There are three types of licenses, and the billing is based on that.

The deployment time depends on the business requirements. For example, a typical financial planning process varies depending on the industry, the client, and what exactly the client wants to achieve. There’s no fixed timeline, but generally, it takes at least three months. Anaplan follows the Agile process where we try to understand the scope of work, perform data discovery to grasp the entire end-to-end process, and then establish a timeline. The timeline also depends on what features the client wants, such as whether they want to automate processes right away or keep things manual for a while before integrating systems. There are many external factors that affect the duration.

It is good value for money. The reason is that it saves a lot of time. Planning is a very tedious job, and most of the people involved are highly talented team members. Before Anaplan, a lot of time was spent on preparing and cleansing data.

For example, I’ve seen situations where a consultation team required four members, but after implementing Anaplan, only one person was able to handle everything. That's the value Anaplan offers. However, it all depends on how it's implemented, who the partners are, and whether they have a long-term vision. The sustainability of the implementation is important. If Anaplan is implemented properly, it delivers excellent results.

I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive. The price is quite up there. 

This is a very good product, especially for planning solutions. It’s been in the market for over a decade, and it’s widely adopted by Fortune 500 companies. People are using it and benefiting from it. The key to maximizing its value is not using it in isolation. Instead, once customers understand its capabilities, they should leverage it across departments, starting with finance and then expanding into other areas.

It’s a good product, both in terms of stability and return on investment.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.