You don't need to wait until your data is clean to provide insights
December 12, 2023

You don't need to wait until your data is clean to provide insights

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan

My organization uses Anaplan to support various types and sizes of planning processes spanning Financial planning, Supply chain planning, IT investment planning, Cash flow forecasting, capital projects planning, and cost planning. This cuts across several different business types and regions with an overall population of around 1k users and about 20 use cases. While the problems are unique to the individual use cases, typically we see Anaplan used to streamline inefficient business processes that have disconnected and silo'd datasets, lack a clean source of truth, and are not responsive or agile.
  • Ingest and integrate disconnected datasets and sources that speak different "languages"
  • Flexible security and user-oriented customization of dashboards and datasets
  • Smart architecture allows creative license to connect planning processes that have different time horizons and granularities
  • Real-time ("live") collaboration is particularly useful for globally spread teams in different time-zones
  • The "new" UX front-end offers a lot of modern and intuitive features, but it lacks the ability to view multiple "tabs" of dashboards and reports. The "classic" dashboard had this feature but now with the UX, you need to be really smart about how to design a single page where the users won't get "lost".
  • Lacks the ability to "wrap text" (similar to excel) and auto-size grid rows
  • We've typically seen an average of 40% removal of time from processes using Anaplan an enabler
  • Though difficult to quantify, we consistently find our processes less error prone than in the past. Essentially, we've removed a previously "hidden cost" of risk due to poor data quality that was buried in our processes.
We selected Anaplan because of the breadth of their vision and their approach to tackle "planning" of all kinds and integrate planning processes into a true Connected Planning ecosystem. We found that their flexibility and ease of use ultimately provided a better avenue to tackle multi-year planning improvements by starting small and evolving. Whereas with some of the bigger competitors, they came across like a "big bang" and top-down approach was the only way to solve problems. Anaplan's sales team also brought in experts across industries to help us embed broader learnings and experiences vs only looking at our direct competitors.

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?

No

Did implementation of Anaplan go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Anaplan again?

Yes

Anaplan is well suited for cases where you're struggling with processes that involve multiple users and teams, but lack a trusted source system or where you experience major breaks in the process. Typically, in these instances, the source is either some form of excel files or other enterprise systems that don't fit the need that are then "band-aided" by excel files. You may also find that you don't have a trusted source for your planning data...particularly a source that is also part of a process that can quickly respond to changing requests or external demands and requires a refreshed planning view.

Anaplan is less appropriate for cases where you need a "standard" planning solution "out of the box" and are less focused on asset-level customizations or considerations. This doesn't mean that Anaplan can't be an enterprise planning solution, but it doesn't really function as an "off the shelf" planning solution where you may not want to customize it. Implementing a standard planning solution is always easier...even in Anaplan, but you'd still have to build it with Anaplan whereas some enterprise competitors may offer more of a standard offering without the need to do any customizations.

Anaplan Feature Ratings

Long-term financial planning
8
Financial budgeting
8
Forecasting
9
Scenario modeling
8
Management reporting
7
Financial data consolidation
Not Rated
Journal entries and reports
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
7
Detailed Audit Trails
7
Financial Statement Reporting
7
Management Reporting
7
Excel-based Reporting
Not Rated
Personalized dashboards
6
Color-coded scorecards
7
Cost and profitability analysis
7
Key Performance Indicator setting
7
Flat file integration
9
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
7
Customizable dashboards
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
8
Report Versioning
7
Role-Based Security Model
10
Report-Level Access Control
8
Responsive Design for Web Access
6
Mobile Application
6
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
6