Anaplan - an all-rounder planning tool to bring together siloed teams in a VUCA world
September 20, 2022

Anaplan - an all-rounder planning tool to bring together siloed teams in a VUCA world

Alejandro Gomez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review

Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan

Anaplan is used across different use cases, from financial statements planning and consolidation to down-to-the-SKU demand forecasting, supply planning, or workforce planning.

For instance, its powerful calculation engine can run statistical forecasting for all your SKUs and regions. Its dynamic and transparent way of allowing user collaboration in real-time helps to share information and reach consensus in a single platform. Its flexibility of modeling and version control allows you to run several scenarios, financialise the results and plug that forecasted demand as the top line revenue of your P&L.
  • Real time Scenario Modeling
  • Real time user collaboration
  • Auditing changes and data sources
  • Presenting data in a user-friendly way
  • Built-in data integration and automation
  • Front end customisation
  • A more robust model map for self-generated model schema
  • Workflow and user email notifications
  • Flexibility for modeling use cases. Anaplan adapts to my company and not the other way around.
  • Auditability and security. Control over what a user reads and writes down to the cell level.
  • Enablement and ease of use. Users do not depend on IT or third parties to use and configure Anaplan after some weeks of training and use.
  • Transparency. Easy to drill down to the calculations and data behind the reported figures, so everybody trusts the data presented in the tool.
  • ROI is always tricky to measure, but some clear benefits are less time spent reviewing excel files' formulas and data, clear version control, collaboration and communication, and faster reaction to market changes. It usually translates into better decision-making.
Anaplan combines the best of both worlds, the flexibility, ease of use, and freedom of modeling of a spreadsheet and the control, calculation power, and reliability of the best planning, budgeting, and consolidation software vendors.

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?

Yes

Would you buy Anaplan again?

Yes

Anaplan thrives on bringing together different verticals of the company (departments) that traditionally worked in silos and also bridging the gap between planning and execution (Anaplan allows faster and more detailed plans that can be kept close to the execution layer, so your plans are not out of date or disconnected from your business reality). Also, Anaplan returns the control of the plans to the business, so we do not depend on IT to gather data, run analyses, and make timely decisions.

Anaplan is a formidable planning tool with advanced data visualisation and reporting, but it is not a BI tool or a database. It is not the best tool for shiny, flashy reports nor for storing large volumes of historical data.

Anaplan Feature Ratings

Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
8
Scenario modeling
10
Management reporting
8
Financial data consolidation
8
Journal entries and reports
8
Local and consolidated reporting
10
Detailed Audit Trails
10
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
8
Personalized dashboards
9
Color-coded scorecards
8
Cost and profitability analysis
9
Key Performance Indicator setting
9
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
Not Rated
Customizable dashboards
8
Publish to PDF
7
Report Versioning
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Mobile Application
7
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
7