Item: Anaplan
Rating: 8
Author: Will Wood

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a consultant, I have seen Anaplan used in multiple ways, both at the department level as well as across the entire organization. Additionally, I have seen multiple use cases solved with Anaplan, everything from generic budgeting and financial planning to capital markets specific use cases such as portfolio financial metrics like IRR, MOIC, etc. to custom waterfall calculations.

Pros and Cons

Real time aggregation
Connected planning
Real time insights
Agility and resilience

Report writing
Formula improvements or using formulas in new ways
Accounting for sparsity

Most Important Features

Composite hierarchies & dimensions
Real time calculations
Ability to connect other systems
Modeling / building ease of use

Return on Investment

Modeling efficiency is a positive, experienced model builders can rapidly develop solutions
Organization is a positive, Anaplan forces organization during the implementation
Native reporting could be improved

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?

Yes

Did implementation of Anaplan go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Anaplan again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SQL Server, Avaya OneCloud CCaaS

Likelihood to Recommend

You can build anything in Anaplan, the key is using Anaplan for what it is good for and not trying to make it do everything. An example of where Anaplan excels is real time budgeting. As values are entered, totals change in real time so end users can make decisions with out the overhead of having to consolidate excel workbooks. Where Anaplan is less appropriate, data storage. Use a database for storage and give Anaplan the ability to use the stored data via an ETL layer.

Anaplan for Capital Markets

Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan