Anaplan

What do you like best?

Anaplan is very good at handling complex calculations and modeling logic applied to vast amounts of data. So Anaplan can solve problems that clients have where excel just cannot handle the levels of calculations required. I have modeled many things in Anaplan, from supply chains to call centres, to investment funds and also the obvious things like P&L's, Balance Sheet, and cashflow. You build everything from scratch so you can model pretty much anything

Another great use of Anaplan is where you want to guide the user to follow a process. You can add in whatever data validations/controls, process gates, signoff/approval stages you need. And provide the user with real-time analysis of how their inputs have impacted their plan and any KPI's connected to it

The best attribute that helps Anaplan's long term success with clients is how the models can be adapted to move with the business, so as the business and its environment changes, the model can adapt and stay relevent. Which stops users reverting back to Excel

What do you dislike?

The focus of new features over the past few years has been very much on making the end users experience better. So model builders have been left behind somewhat, mainly from the point of view of writing and interrogating formulas, so there is scope to make our lives easier and modelling even faster. However there is an update expected soon which is promised to make the modelers lives a lot easier, so watch this space

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Integrated P&L > Balance Sheet > Cashflow

This significantly sped up the quarterly forecasting process for my client, and I also built lots of checks for account mappings to identify any holes in the mappings which could cause a variance to the balance sheet or any of the inbuild balance checks. As the model was vast so the model admins had to really stay on top of new accounts or mappings coming in

IFRS Modelling Contract Revenue

Anaplan was able to perform the calcs at a much more detailed level than excel, which was already at its limits and provides lots of analysis for the business. Although the primary purpose was for statutory reporting on the clients' contracts over the contract life

Private Equity Fund modeling

Looking backward at investor level to calculate provisions, and looking forward for the rest of the fund's life at a deal level. To determine the expected returns on investment. The main benefit for the client is providing a solid platform to bring together their actuals plus the ability to overlay what-ifs for the outlook and compare multiple scenarios against each other. The inputs being at a level high enough for fund managers to relate to, but the underlying logic is very detailed to the extent of making decisions on when to call from or distribute to investors in a more life like way

Supply vs Demand modelling

In a range of industries, including energy, telecoms, and consumer goods. The principle is fairly similar for all of these industries, matching supply and demand, identifying variances. As with previous applictaions the main benefits were related to performing the calculations at a more detailed level than Excel can handle, and providing operations with multiple scenarios to try out mutiple ways to resolve supply or demand issues