Great product for integrating budgeting and forecasting processes
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
So far, we have used Anaplan for both our annual budgeting process, for monthly financial forecasting and for ongoing medium-to-long-term operational planning. The main business problems Anaplan addresses for us include: 1) excessive time spent by the team preparing budgeting and forecasting components via separate standalone spreadsheets, 2) substantial additional time spent turning around new versions based in revised assumptions 3) inconsistencies in assumptions across different sub-processes, 4) lack of transparency over calculations, input sources and changes to those over time.
Pros
- Anaplan removes the time consuming process of integrating the results of individual spreadsheets.
- Anaplan facilitates the standardization of assumptions across all sub-processes
- Anaplan provides full transparency of the calculations and source inputs
- Anaplan allows us to automate certain planning processes that would have been impossible when relying on the computational capabilities of an individual computer.
- Anaplan allows us to quickly change common assumptions centrally and see the impact across all models in the same day vs weeks previously
Cons
- Sometimes the front end UX options do not include the options you require but this is the flipside of the speed of development and new features are continuously being added.
- Anaplan is a no-code environment with model calculations developed using formulas with similarities to excel. However substantial training is required for staff who will be designing / building new models. While it is possible to start building quickly, extensive training is necessary to ensure models are developed in a robust way with fewer issues down the road.
Return on Investment
- Anaplan has reduced the distracting time associated with preparing the annual budget, freeing up staff to focus on more value-adding activities.
- Anaplan has greatly increased the transparency and traceability of our budgeting calculations and assumptions.
Usability
Other Software Used
Oracle PeopleSoft ERP, IBM Planning Analytics
