Why Anaplan and the benefits my organization gained by using it
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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
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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.
Most Important Features
- Cloud based platform
- Integrating multiple business processes within Anaplan
- Intelligent decision making using AI
- Customisable modeling and Scalability
- Integration to down systems
Return on Investment
- 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
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft Excel
Other Software Used
Informatica B2B Data Exchange (legacy), Microsoft Excel, Python IDLE
