Item: Anaplan
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The main area is within the Budgeting and Forecasting space within the finance teams, however, there have been moves into a more operational forecasting role with the implementation of a Workforce Planning capability and PoC's in Sales.

The main problem is around the collation of data into a single model, with the calculation engine acting as a bonus as opposed to a game-changer. Much of the problems that are being solved with Anaplan stems from the use of multiple disparate excel spreadsheets instead of the inability to forecast at lower levels of granularity because of the calculation power of Excel.

Pros and Cons

Strong calculation engine
Time to value is extremely quick given it's drag and drop UI
Blank slate, so the world is your oyster in terms of what you want/can build

Reporting and Analysis capabilities within Anaplan are still quite weak and require secondary products to support it
To the above point, data extraction out of Anaplan is quite difficult to maintain from a technology perspective due to the ability to chop and change schemas on a whim
Model size still remains a top concern when building + inability to automate backups

Most Important Features

Flexibility to build
Speed to delivery
SAAS

Return on Investment

Positive - ability to forecast has increased dramatically due to the automatic collation of forecasts from different individuals
Negative - high cost means that ROI takes much longer to deliver

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Cloud EPM

Anaplan is much stronger across the UX front and [has the] ability to have as many cubes as you like means the method of calculation [is] extremely vast.

Oracle is a much more mature product, albeit really just a simple cube with calculations against it. The benefit of Oracle is in its overall suite of products that can also provide Financial Close, transactional data integration via the ERP, and also a Management Reporting suite as well.

Key Insights

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Anaplan go as expected?

Would you buy Anaplan again?

Yes

Other Software Used

AWS Batch, Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Power BI

Likelihood to Recommend

Suited to quick-changing models, where data collations and complexity to build are the top priorities. Although Anaplan has made a name for itself in the forecasting space, you can use it for almost anything with the caveat that you need to be comfortable with eventually deleting certain slices of data from your model over time. This isn't necessarily an issue if you have an appropriate solution to keep this type of data in external tooling (Data Lake/Warehouse) or otherwise, but it does mean additional investment to produce a truly robust system.

Situations, where it is less appropriate, are when you're not dealing with a combination of data collection and complexity issues in calculations (i.e. not enough horsepower in excel or changes need to happen quickly). Honestly, other EPM solutions are cheaper, albeit a bit older.

Amazing emerging tool that is leading into maturity, however still needs a strong reporting suite

Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan