Why Anaplan and the benefits my organization gained by using it
Updated September 13, 2025
Why Anaplan and the benefits my organization gained by using it
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan
We've been using Anaplan for the past 10 years, and currently have over 30+ active business use case model in operation. Prior to Anaplan, our reporting process was heavily manual, requiring the consolidation of 100+ spreadsheet form asset managers across various locations to produce fund level and group level reports. This process was time consuming with significant effort spent on data collection, error, checking and reporting. With Anaplan, reporting has become fully automated and real time, elimination manual effort. it now serves as a centralised platform to manage over 100+ properties, streaming operations across multiple regions. We've been using Anaplan across wide range of use use cases, including Real Estate Cashflow modeling, Financial Planning and Forecasting, Expense management and Group Reporting's.
Pros
- Continuous product enhancements have greatly improved the overall modeling experience.
- Regular updates ranging from modeling capabilities, user interface improvements, user management, machine learning based forecasting, workflow automation features makes Anaplan an increasingly powerful and user friendly platform.
- As the world continues to evolve rapidly, Anaplan keeps pace by investing in AI driven innovation. The introduction of Anaplan intelligence brings advance capabilities in AI powered scenario planning, forecasting, enabling smarter, faster decision making.
- Anaplan is a cloud-based planning platform that offers users the flexibility to access and collaborate from anywhere in the world, enabling seamless, real-time planning across geographies
- .
Cons
- Some functionalises available in Excel are not yet supported in Anaplan, which occasionally requires workaround.
- While there's still rom for improvement in the user interface, the recent updates release has addressed many of the key gaps.
- Cloud based platform
- Integrating multiple business processes within Anaplan
- Intelligent decision making using AI
- Customisable modeling and Scalability
- Integration to down systems
- Planning time has significantly decreased. The ability to perform what-if scenario planning adds substantial value to the business, empowering planners to explore different outcomes and develop the most accurate and strategic forecasts.
- Data consolidation time has been reduced from a full week to virtually zero.
- Serves as a Single Source of Truth, one unified platform that supports all use cases and user groups
- Governance over user access and control is excellent
Previously, our planning processes relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets, which presented several challenges, including slow performance, complex data consolidation, multiple disconnected sheets, lack of real-time reporting, and limited access control. With Anaplan, we’ve transitioned to a cloud-based solution that enables teams across different locations to collaborate in real time, instantly view the impact of changes, and make faster, more informed decisions.
Do you think Anaplan delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Anaplan's feature set?
Yes
Did Anaplan live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Anaplan go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Anaplan again?
Yes
Anaplan Feature Ratings
Using Anaplan
900 - Various team uses within finance,
a. Revenue and Expense forecasting/Budgeting
b. Insurance Profit and Loss Statement
c. Real Estate cashflow modelling
d. Real Estate Profit and Loss Statement
e. Capacity Planning
a. Revenue and Expense forecasting/Budgeting
b. Insurance Profit and Loss Statement
c. Real Estate cashflow modelling
d. Real Estate Profit and Loss Statement
e. Capacity Planning
11 - We have our inhouse Anaplan team to implement new anaplan solution and manage existing models. I believe for successful Anaplan Implementation, certified master anaplanner or certified solution architect to lead the projects from designing solution to go live, and Anaplan L2 or L3 certified team is required to do the modelling exercise and support regular BAU activities.
- Expenses Forecasting & Budgeting
- Insurance P&L
- Real Estate Cashflow modelling
- Rea Estate P&L
- Capacity Planning
- Underwriting Properties to see the Return on Investment
- Driver Based Planning model for running various what if scenario's
- Connecting various finance team and bridging most of financial data into Anaplan as single source of truth
- We are exploring the use of Anaplan for our Call Centre workforce planning by using recent new feature- plan IQ based forecasting using Machine learning and Artificial intelligence.
Evaluating Anaplan and Competitors
- Cloud Solutions
- Scalability
- Integration with Other Systems
- Ease of Use
We were looking for one cloud based solution as finance strategic tool to implement across various business domain use cases, the solution has to be cloud based, ease of use, able to scale, less time to implement and secured solution. One solution for all the use cases, rather than having multiple standalone systems for every use case.
I think the selection process going to be the same, scoring the tools by the same metrics.
Anaplan Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Third-party professional services
We started with third part professional services company for our first anaplan implementation and later created our own Anaplan centre of Excellence team consisting of 16 members with various skill sets(master anaplanners, solution architects, L2&L3 certified, and Data Integration specialists) to implement solution inhouse and manage existing models.
Yes - We started with phase 1, implementing the cost management model for UK market, later expanded to 3 other countries(Ireland, Canada and AI). We did the same every time, approached business problem one at a time which helped us faster and better solution implementation.
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - We did not face much of issue with the change management, everytime change management happened, we had to take a step back and spend little more time to bring all into the same page.
- First and the last, business requirement changes
Anaplan Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
We did not buy premium support, because we usually get the response to our queries within 2-3 hours, every ticket have been tagged to customer support executive to resolve within agreed SLA.
Yes - Yes I reported a bug very long back and was acknowledged/resolved in next release within a week time.
we faced this problem giving Anaplan access to external users from other companies. Since we use single-sign-on to login into Anaplan, external users had to have our organisation email id and system to login, but we were able to find a way to avoid that by using B2B accessing method and Anaplan team was much helpful advocating the possibilities.
Using Anaplan
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Data Loading and Reporting
- User Access Control
- Drill Down to detail
- Management Reporting
- Producing Audit report
Yes - We have tested the mobile interface, however we don't use it largely,
Comments
Please log in to join the conversation