Anaplan vs. IBM Planning Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Anaplan
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Anaplan is a transformative way to see, plan, and run your business. Using its proprietary Hyperblock™ technology, Anaplan lets you contextualize real-time performance, and forecast future outcomes for faster, confident decisions. Anaplan enables connected strategy and planning across your enterprise to move your business forward. Based in San Francisco, Anaplan has over 200 partners and more than 2,000 customers worldwide.N/A
IBM Planning Analytics
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
IBM Planning Analytics, powered by IBM TM1®, is an integrated planning solution designed to promote collaboration across the organization and help keep pace with the speed of modern business. With its calculation engine, this enterprise performance management solution is designed to help users move beyond the limits of spreadsheets, automating the planning process to drive faster, more accurate results. Use it to unify data sources into one single repository, enabling users to build…
$825
per month 5 users
Pricing
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essentials
$825
per month 5 users
Standard
$1,650
per month 10 users
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Considered Both Products
Anaplan
Chose Anaplan
As a senior technical consultant implementing both IBM Planning Analytics (IBM PA) and Anaplan some years back, my preferred solution was Anaplan as IBM PA required a consultant's time for software upgrades, configuration and other software setup time which didn't add value to …
Chose Anaplan
DocuSign is one of the early Anaplan adopters, the tool was purchased way before I joined the company. So, I have little to say about the selection process. Based on my personal knowledge, Anaplan has:
- better performance on large data volumes without the need to write …
Chose Anaplan
Anaplan is much more user-friendly to architect than Hyperion or TM1/Planning Analytics. By outsourcing cloud storage to Anaplan, much of the headache of maintaining internal servers is removed. The calculation speed and traceability of Anaplan's calculation modules are also …
Chose Anaplan
I feel that Anaplan really has no competition when it comes to implementing connected planning. The biggest reason being that with other solutions, you need consultants to develop. If you know how to develop in Excel and understand the concept of dimensions, then you can …
Chose Anaplan
Anaplan modeling tool is more user-oriented. It is more likely users are able to understand the Anaplan formula which in turn increases ownership of the model built. Anaplan is a pure cloud-based platform that supports future scalability and allows users to focus on modeling …
IBM Planning Analytics
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics is by far a much better product than Anaplan. The user interface is much easier to use.
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
Anaplan license costs were higher than in IBM Planning Analytics.
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
We chose IBM PAW over Anaplan as well as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) because of the technical support that we got from IBM. They were extremely helpful and patient with us and helped us to realize better ROI from their platform. Apart from that, we were aware …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
Anaplan does not handle sparsity; this is very problematic for large volume data sets (many 0's). There also are limitations to the number of dimensions that can be used in a module. If more dimensions are required, then separate modules need to be built and intertwined. IBM PA …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
cost effective solution
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson will be up and running more quickly and be easier to maintain if modeling flexibility, scale, and the ability to plan at greater levels of detail are important requirements.
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM allows to build flexible models from the scratch. IBM Planning Analytics with Watson does not include non-planning features in one package, so you don't pay for something you may not need.
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
Other tools include Essbase, Outlooksoft, and BPC. When comparing the length of the implementation and the speed of the engine, IBM is the fastest on the market. I have not yet found a calculation or planning approach that cannot be done with IBM PA. In one situation, an …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson does quite well in comparison to industry giants although it does have room for improvement. Many of our clients are also well accustomed to Oracle for instance. So it's user-friendliness that helps some tools get ahead of others. The more you …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics has the scenario management and analysis feature, with broad parameters that increase the chances of business growth and constant prosperity. Also, IBM Planning Analytics includes the budgeting features in its development, and this makes us project the …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
The IBM Planning Analytics has great technical and business data features, full customer information, and sales Forecast for design best strategy. Analyzes, processes, and provides valuable information and charts about sales, profits, human resources, value growth, and …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
Better functionality in terms of performance, Excel integration, user volume handling, cloud, and on-premise deployments.
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics provides significant flexibility and a platform to build future needs on. It has many years of use and is a known quantity, as well as IBM backing for support. It continues to grow. It has Excel integration and Planning Analytics Workspace provides the …
Chose IBM Planning Analytics
While every product has its sweet spot; our clients prefer IBM Planning Analytics for:
  1. Scalability: not requiring multiple models to deliver a solution
  2. Nimbleness: fast calculations and added advantages like Sparsity
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.7
181 Ratings
5% below category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.9
82 Ratings
10% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.41 Ratings8.473 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.1181 Ratings9.382 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.977 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.1
2 Ratings
10% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.8
87 Ratings
6% above category average
Drill-down analysis9.12 Ratings9.485 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.12 Ratings9.386 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.12 Ratings9.083 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.566 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.8
188 Ratings
7% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.3
85 Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web9.11 Ratings7.880 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.8187 Ratings9.379 Ratings
Report Versioning9.1162 Ratings8.379 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.33 Ratings7.670 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.2
2 Ratings
7% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
7.9
85 Ratings
4% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.12 Ratings9.385 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.12 Ratings8.180 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.42 Ratings7.676 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.89 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.2
191 Ratings
5% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
9.1
88 Ratings
4% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.12 Ratings9.686 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.4191 Ratings9.687 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.12 Ratings9.688 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control9.444 Ratings8.713 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.12 Ratings8.282 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.9
181 Ratings
1% below category average
IBM Planning Analytics
7.4
78 Ratings
8% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.6172 Ratings7.577 Ratings
Mobile Application8.2161 Ratings6.941 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.2168 Ratings6.950 Ratings
Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting
Comparison of Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.1
293 Ratings
9% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
9.4
92 Ratings
12% above category average
Long-term financial planning9.4267 Ratings9.590 Ratings
Financial budgeting9.6272 Ratings9.592 Ratings
Forecasting9.2281 Ratings9.592 Ratings
Scenario modeling9.1283 Ratings9.591 Ratings
Management reporting8.3282 Ratings8.891 Ratings
Consolidation and Close
Comparison of Consolidation and Close features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.2
248 Ratings
11% below category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.5
86 Ratings
5% above category average
Financial data consolidation8.6228 Ratings9.382 Ratings
Journal entries and reports7.0186 Ratings8.377 Ratings
Multi-currency management6.211 Ratings8.876 Ratings
Intercompany Eliminations6.08 Ratings7.676 Ratings
Minority Ownership6.07 Ratings6.969 Ratings
Local and consolidated reporting8.5215 Ratings9.579 Ratings
Detailed Audit Trails8.1228 Ratings9.381 Ratings
Financial Reporting and Compliance
Comparison of Financial Reporting and Compliance features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.6
265 Ratings
4% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.7
87 Ratings
5% above category average
Financial Statement Reporting8.7244 Ratings9.583 Ratings
Management Reporting8.4256 Ratings8.984 Ratings
Excel-based Reporting8.1235 Ratings9.586 Ratings
Automated board and financial reporting9.013 Ratings8.976 Ratings
XBRL support for regulatory filing00 Ratings6.955 Ratings
Analytics and Reporting
Comparison of Analytics and Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.0
284 Ratings
11% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
9.1
88 Ratings
12% above category average
Personalized dashboards8.6279 Ratings9.487 Ratings
Color-coded scorecards8.7263 Ratings9.383 Ratings
KPIs9.119 Ratings9.486 Ratings
Cost and profitability analysis9.2241 Ratings9.486 Ratings
Key Performance Indicator setting9.4252 Ratings9.485 Ratings
Benchmarking with external data9.113 Ratings7.958 Ratings
Integration
Comparison of Integration features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.8
290 Ratings
6% above category average
IBM Planning Analytics
8.9
88 Ratings
7% above category average
Flat file integration9.4280 Ratings8.985 Ratings
Excel data integration8.4262 Ratings9.586 Ratings
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources8.6241 Ratings8.178 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Small Businesses
IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics
Score 8.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Centage
Centage
Score 9.6 out of 10
Centage
Centage
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(302 ratings)
9.5
(98 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(25 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(16 ratings)
8.2
(63 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(18 ratings)
9.3
(88 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.3
(6 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
4.8
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AnaplanIBM Planning Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Anaplan
Anaplan revolutionizes the planning process by standardizing it, creating transparency in data, particularly in showcasing results to the management team. By replacing Excel-centric planning methods, Anaplan not only opens the door to handling larger datasets but also enables a more intricate level of data granularity at an accelerated pace. What sets it apart is its capacity to facilitate a seamless collaboration within a cross-functional model, accommodating diverse departments and business functions in a dynamic, real-time environment.
Read full review
IBM
I would be likely to recommend IBM Planning Analytics, particularly in scenarios where comprehensive financial and operational planning is essential. For instance, in our construction company, it is awesome for optimizing resource allocation across multiple projects, creating detailed project budgets, and conducting risk analysis to mitigate project uncertainties.
Read full review
Pros
Anaplan
  • Forcing structure and auditability to processes that used to exist in spreadsheets
  • Strong calculation engine that can account for many dimensions
  • Formula Syntax that is not overly complicated and can be learned by the business in order to have ownership of their models internally
Read full review
IBM
  • Forecasting after taking into account seasonal trends and exceptional transactions
  • Unlike spreadsheets, there is no fear of an user making changes to the mastercopy accidentally. Each user gets his or her own workspace to analyze.
  • For entities operating in multiple countries, connects seamlessly with IBM Cognos Controller for taking into account variation in currencies
Read full review
Cons
Anaplan
  • The "new" UX front-end offers a lot of modern and intuitive features, but it lacks the ability to view multiple "tabs" of dashboards and reports. The "classic" dashboard had this feature but now with the UX, you need to be really smart about how to design a single page where the users won't get "lost".
  • Lacks the ability to "wrap text" (similar to excel) and auto-size grid rows
Read full review
IBM
  • IBM Planning Analytics was an upgrade from an older version of TM1 that is experiencing some growing pains, some functionality is harder to reach than it has been in the past
  • It is easy to learn as a surface user with created reports, but it does require some technical skills to make advanced calculations and reports if there is no reliable consultant available, much like Excel
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Anaplan
In any line of work, a tool that is flexible and would allow different departments of your company to easily interact and exchange valuable insights, is highly anticipated and needed. For me, what Anaplan provides to a business, be it a smaller one or an enterprise customer, is an easily scaling, agile planning and modeling platform that can meet almost any need and give a high-end solution to the problems any company faces on a daily basis.
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IBM
Since IBM Cognos Express is suitable only for medium data warehouse environment, we are not sure if this tool solves the long term need as the business keeps growing rapidly. So its a 50/50 ratio to renew Express license. But having said that, the components of IBM Cognos Express are also available in other Cognos BI suites like Cognos 10.x version. So we will probably upgrade our environment to IBM Cognos 10.x which comes with more new features.
Read full review
Usability
Anaplan
There is a dependency in this rating - in that I find Anaplan extremely easy to use, but I've spent the necessary time developing a strong understanding of the platform. Once you understand how to use it, the platform is flexible, easy to use, and fun to use.
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IBM
For developers, admins and end users looking for flexibility, IBM Planning Analytics would rate very highly on usability. For example, a developer has access to a highly performant built-in ETL (Extract Translate Load) tool and scripting language called Turbo Integrator that can (among other things) bring in data via flat file or direct connection from many data sources, move data around Planning Analytics, perform batch calculations, export to files or other data stores. In the rare situation where limitations are encountered there is a well documented REST API. Admins and end users benefit from the intuitive PAW (Workspace) interface as well as the rich Excel integration through Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE). Since flexibility inherently comes with a little more complexity, so an organization with simple and "cookie-cutter" requirements may rate Planning Analytics a little lower.
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Reliability and Availability
Anaplan
There are very few outages. Maintenance is scheduled on two or three Saturdays per month, so as not to affect businesses. When there is an outage, users are kept informed of progress to restore the platform and typically this takes no more than an hour. Anaplan customer support is very responsive if we ever have questions about platform issues
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Performance
Anaplan
Everything is calculated in memory in the cloud. It's nearly instantaneous updates when you make changes. The only time things get a little slow is when you have a massive model with very intricate calculations...but "slow" for Anaplan is not what I would call "slow" for something like Hyperion. We used to have Hyperion calcs that ran for 60 mins before you could use data. The equivalent would be 60 seconds in Anaplan.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Anaplan
1. Anaplan has separate 24/7 customer support channel to help with queries, 2. Customer Partner from Anaplan to support vendor with their queries like license purchase, use case implementation support, customer advocacy 3. Anaplan Learning Platform to help learning new product features free of cost and Yearly Anaplan connect across globe to share success stories of various companies.
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IBM
Although I find the IBM Planning analytics documentation quite time consuming, their support with email and call is something i can term as very considerate and patient, I have had few calls about the features and how i would want to implement them within my projects, and the teams have been super helpful to resolve my issues
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In-Person Training
Anaplan
The in-person training is simply not worth the cost. After a few weeks of playing in Anaplan, I went to the basic training and knew more than the person teaching it. a year down the road, I was the first person to complete the advance training, and again could have been teaching the class better than the person running the session. Spend some time on your own trying out different things and you will get all the understanding you need to be successful.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Anaplan
Anaplan training materials are clear, simple, easy to understand and to follow. Visuals are excellent. The vendor is good at updating training materials in a timely manner and encouraging users and administrators to keep coming back to Academy site for refresher courses or new feature courses. I really like their interactive diagrams
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Anaplan
Agile methodology and breaking the work down into sprints was very helpful. Implementation required a deeper dive into our data than expected for the consultants to be able to construct the data model. But once it was in place, the focus on knowledge transfer enabled us to be able to use the product effectively after the team rolled off.
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Anaplan
Anaplan is what I would consider a modeling platform. It excels at taking a forecasting or planning process and systematizing it - and allowing for whatever nuances and granularity you need to perform that modeling. It is not positioned as "data collection" platform - which are typically designed to take data uploads from Excel to calculate basic opex and revenue models. It's much more customizable and flexible.
Read full review
IBM
Anaplan does not handle sparsity; this is very problematic for large volume data sets (many 0's). There also are limitations to the number of dimensions that can be used in a module. If more dimensions are required, then separate modules need to be built and intertwined. IBM PA does not have these limitations.
Read full review
Scalability
Anaplan
We have managed to leverage Anaplan for financial planning and forecasting across the business. It is now used by almost every department, with more than 50 users (but I know of companies that have hundreds of users) and still the platform is quick and reliable. It is easy to make changes to divisions and departments or add users and apply different user settings - the core part of the model is not affected and end users can continue their work without any disruption
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Anaplan
  • Speeding up the process of closing and updating the current month forecast
  • Reduced work on the preparation of reports and presentations. We used different Anaplan approaches with varying success, but the overall result was there.
  • It's hard to gauge, but the overall increase in process and algorithm transparency, along with data protection, has given an excellent platform for scaling up the company's processes.
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IBM
  • One of the advantage is on its ability to ease budget and planning
  • Secondly,the fact that it allows for forecasting means based on such insights means that organisations are able to prepare for future eventualities
  • Thirdly, since it can accommodate data from multiple sources means that one is able to carry out best business practices like planning.
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ScreenShots

Anaplan Screenshots

Screenshot of Platform: The Anaplan platform is a unified cloud-based solution that connects people, data and plans to enable complex scenario modeling and drive growthScreenshot of OpEx Planning: Review revenue-target-setting goals by brand, season, and capacity all on one, unified, highly-visual dashboardScreenshot of Supply Planning: Break down costs across assembly production to project profitability and align your supply chain to market opportunitiesScreenshot of Territory and Quota Planning: Keep track of sales goals and quotas across territories and industries to optimize sales performanceScreenshot of Headcount Planning: Easily align workforce plans with your strategic plans and quickly see where the best qualified talent resides to fit your organization’s staffing needsScreenshot of Marketing: Eliminate spreadsheets to drive efficiency across planning and manage budget against planned activity

IBM Planning Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of Workflow managementScreenshot of Income statementScreenshot of Margin analysisScreenshot of Metrics managementScreenshot of Income statementScreenshot of Expense analysis