Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan
The corp FP&A team is using it for financial budgets. The revenue planning team is using it for revenue planning. One of our units is using it for demand planning. The customer service org is using it for returns modeling. It's primarily a finance footprint but that footprint is growing outside finance.
- Hyperbloc architecture -- the ability to see changes to models instantly cascade through all the models.
- Function agnostic platform - the ability to adapt the platform to many different use cases and integrate those use cases into a connected planning environment.
- Cloud architecture. Security and product enhancements come automatically.
- The actions could be improved - make it obvious what the sources and targets of the are so we don't have to guess or put them in the action names. Also get a native scheduler! That's so simple and it's very frustrating and expensive to have to build/buy our own.
- Reporting and UI still have a long way to go. Simple things like being able to alphabetize/order what you see on the screen, or add a rich color pallet to choose from.
- User access management could improve. We need to have model level admins that don't have access to everything in the workspace. Also the tenant admin space doesn't work effectively. I can't remove a user from all models simultaneously. I also can't see all models a user has access to from the tenant admin space.
Anaplan requires less IT support and its calculation engine is far more powerful. Anaplan is also less expensive when total cost of ownership is considered. We also liked that you're able to use Anaplan for a variety of business planning functions rather than having a bespoke tool for budgets or commissions or demand planning etc.