Best Of

Author: Mitch Max is a Certified Master Anaplanner with over 10 years’ experience in implementing Anaplan solutions, and 40 years' experience guiding and advising financial services organizations on best practices for Enterprise Performance Management. Currently, Mitch leads the EPM practice in North America for Lionpoint Group, an Anaplan partner.

In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations are constantly seeking ways to drive value and growth. As they navigate through various strategic initiatives such as growth strategies, customer acquisition, service and retention, product development, and operational effectiveness, it becomes crucial to identify where Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) can deliver value and align with these initiatives. Additionally, measuring the value created before and after implementation is essential for assessing the impact of EPM tools such as Anaplan.

EPM involves the use of integrated systems, processes, and methodologies to monitor, manage, and improve the performance of an organization. This includes strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting, financial consolidation, reporting, and analysis. EPM helps organizations align their goals using key performance indicators, track progress, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance and achieve their objectives.

After studying numerous use cases developed for EPM tools like Anaplan, four main perspectives for value from EPM have consistently emerged:

1. Efficiency
   
2. Effectiveness
   
3. Risk and compliance
   
4. Decision and action

These perspectives provide a practical framework for categorizing the value delivered by EPM and how it aligns with organizational initiatives.

Efficiency

Efficiency is often the first area where value becomes evident and describes value from more efficiently producing information.

• Anaplan is frequently leveraged as a tool to replace manual processes, including spreadsheets. Using Anaplan can help organizations automate, allowing analyst teams to shift their efforts from data compilation and transformation to creating analysis and insight.
• Plans and forecasts can be built collaboratively and efficiently, allowing for more frequent forecast update cycles.
• Creating a single source of truth embeds quality and transparency into data, bringing trust to support decisions.
• Doing this quickly, and more frequently, results in more timely information to support those decisions in the volatile environment we are operate within. For example, in an M&A activity, building a valuation quickly and accurately can enable a more robust acquisition (or divestment) process and allow deals to be reached more often.

Effectiveness

Effectiveness on the other hand, focuses on deriving value from the information itself. EPM analysis can be leveraged to:

• Identify opportunities to enhance revenue, and to focus resources on achieving revenue targets.
  
• Identify opportunities to improve productivity and resource capacity utilization, to lower operating unit cost and improve profitability.
  
• Measure processes and produce KPIs that focus the organization on achieving revenue, cost and profitability targets.
• Identify most/least profitable products, customers, and channels that enable effective resource and strategic decisions.

Risk and compliance

Risk and compliance is gaining stronger attention as markets are increasingly volatile and regulatory oversight continues to increase. The demands for more information, more frequently, from a wide variety of data sources, with integrity seemingly grow by the week. Needs in this category include:

• Reporting on risk scenarios, liquidity and resiliency testing and exposure reporting for a variety of stakeholder groups
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• Planning and managing the relationship between risk management and operations
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• Creating financial reporting for internal management, regulators, and investors
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• Managing stakeholders including investors and partners, including providing access to underlying information in a transparent manner.

Decision and action

Decision and action emphasizes that the value of information lies in its use to support business decisions. In this area, information is used to:

• Manage the financing structure of the organization: risk and capital, debt and equity, financial leverage, liquidity and cash flow.
• Predict future financial outcomes under multiple scenarios.
• Provide a platform to test alternate action strategies.
• Enable the organization to test and simulate outcomes under a variety of strategies, so as to select those which provide optimal expected results.

Value wheel framework

The range of use cases described here is visualized using this “Value Wheel” framework.

This framework, though generic, can be customized to specific industry verticals. For instance, Profitability Analytics in Asset Management differs significantly from that in Consumer Packaged Goods.

The challenge for EPM practitioners is now to begin to measure the value created by each of these various use cases, to support decisions on the initiation of these use cases. Understanding the tangible value achieved — for example, to lower the cost of funds by a few basis points through improved liquidity management — is more impactful and measurable than softer measures like "more reliable information.” These use cases can drive significant returns for organizations once basic efficiency gains are realized.

While a first step is to qualitatively enumerate the various types of value, analysts can use basic financial tools to quantify the gains. These can often be measured as incremental revenue or direct expense reduction (often related to levels of effort in FTEs); changes in financing costs due to risk-related activities which lower the cost of capital, changes in profitability from adjusting product or customer mix shifts, etc. Of course, identifying the opportunity to take action is different than the value that accrues when action truly occurs. Finally, periodic future value can be assessed using appropriately-discounted cash flow techniques to support business case investments.

The framework aims to facilitate categorization of use cases in specific industry verticals and capture EPM value metrics from organizations over time. By doing so, organizations can gain a clearer understanding of the value created by EPM initiatives and make informed decisions about their implementation.

When strategically aligned with organizational initiatives, EPM can deliver significant value across various perspectives. By leveraging a practical framework and measuring the value created, organizations can maximize the impact of their EPM initiatives and drive sustainable growth.

Author: Kyle Sakowski is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Director of Anaplan Center of Excellence at Everest.

In the realm of reinsurance and risk management, Everest Group LTD stands as a beacon of industry excellence. As the landscape evolves, Everest recognizes the imperative to not just adapt but actively seek new opportunities for optimization and growth. Enter Anaplan, a dynamic platform that offers Everest a versatile toolkit to identify and develop fresh use cases. In this blog post, we'll delve into Everest's strategies and best practices for uncovering novel use cases and maximizing Anaplan's capabilities.

Understanding the dynamics of new use cases at Everest

For Everest, new use cases are pivotal scenarios where Anaplan can bring unique value, addressing specific challenges or opportunities that might not have been immediately apparent. Whether streamlining complex risk assessment workflows, enhancing collaboration between underwriting and finance, or gaining deeper insights into emerging risk trends, new use cases are the key to unlocking Everest's full potential with Anaplan.

Strategies tailored for Everest

1. Engage with stakeholders in the reinsurance ecosystem.
   Foster open communication with key stakeholders across underwriting, finance, and risk management. Understanding their challenges and goals can unveil insights that translate into new use cases for Anaplan at Everest.
2. Regular training and updates for reinsurance teams.
   Keep teams at Everest informed about the latest features and functionalities of Anaplan. Regular training sessions can spark innovative thinking about how the platform can be applied to address specific challenges unique to the reinsurance industry.
3. Benchmark against industry peers in reinsurance.
   Explore how other reinsurance organizations are leveraging Anaplan. Benchmarking against industry best practices can inspire innovative applications tailored to Everest's specific business context.
4. Data-driven analysis for risk assessment.
   Leverage data analytics to identify areas of inefficiency or untapped potential in risk assessment. Anaplan's robust capabilities in data integration and analysis can help Everest pinpoint areas where improved planning and collaboration could yield significant benefits.
5. Cross-functional workshops for enhanced collaboration.
   Host workshops that bring together representatives from underwriting, finance, and risk management. Collaborative brainstorming sessions often lead to the identification of new use cases that span multiple functions at Everest.

Best practices for Everest’s use case development

1. Start small, scale gradually in reinsurance operations
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   Begin by piloting new use cases on a smaller scale within Everest. This allows for testing and refinement before full-scale implementation, minimizing potential risks associated with reinsurance operations.
2. Collaborative prototyping for underwriting and risk management.
   Engage underwriters and risk management professionals in the prototyping phase. Their insights are invaluable for refining the use case to better suit their needs and workflows at Everest.
3. Iterative approach to optimize processes.
   Embrace an iterative development process at Everest. Regularly gather feedback, make improvements, and iterate on the use case to ensure it remains aligned with evolving risk management requirements.
4. Training and change management tailored for reinsurance teams.
   Invest in comprehensive training programs and change management strategies. Smooth adoption of new use cases requires not just technological proficiency but also a cultural shift within the organization's reinsurance teams.
5. Measure and analyze performance metrics in risk assessment.
   Implement performance metrics specific to Everest’s risk assessment goals. Regularly analyze these metrics to ensure ongoing optimization and identify areas for further improvement in reinsurance operations.

Conclusion

As Everest Group LTD sets sail into new horizons, the company recognizes the power of Anaplan as a strategic partner. By identifying and developing new use cases tailored to the reinsurance industry, Everest is poised to unlock a world of possibilities for enhanced risk management, collaboration, and overall success. The journey towards innovation and efficiency begins with a curious mindset, industry expertise, and the right tools — and Everest, with Anaplan, is ready to navigate that journey with confidence and resilience in the ever-changing world of reinsurance.

A little bit late, but I will drop my 5 cents as well:

1.Workflows: This solution covers the most frequently asked for features that orbit around Approval flow, Comments, Feedback on the process and the Process flow itself
Really looking forward to introduce it to the users in the upcoming months.

2.Error checking on formula: Seems small but it saves so much time - especially in huge models where you can lock out other developers for longer periods of time.

3.Assets: Storing all your assets in one place which you can easily navigate? Sounds about right to me!