Blog

Anaplan Live!: Upcoming Events and New On-Demand Videos
Packed with valuable insights from top Anaplan experts and thought leaders, Anaplan Live! is a free, virtual event series designed with model builders, end-users, and learners in mind. The reoccurring event lets attendees interact in real-time with presenters and fellow Anaplanners, getting all the benefits of an in-person…
Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly: A Supply Chain Optimization Journey
During the past months, the supply chain world has experienced several major disruptions (COVID-19, the Suez Canal blockage, etc.). Agile supply chain planning and fast decision-making have become more important than ever. On the other hand, due to the increasing complexity of value chains, decision-making is becoming more…
Optimizing Your Budget for Success in Challenging Times
In these challenging times, corporate balance sheets have been stressed, the way people work has been turned upside-down and the future for many businesses has never been more uncertain. This has created greater urgency for companies to look at how they spend their money and find new and better ways to plan for the future.…
5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Anaplan Groups
Anaplan Groups exist to help you go further in your Anaplan journey by sharing and collaborating with like-minded peers. In essence, Groups are micro-communities within the larger Anaplan Community, each built around a specific region, topic, or another unifying theme that brings people together. Groups provide places to…
Thank You, Anaplan Community
During the last year—amid some very different and challenging times—we’ve seen the importance and impact of community. Whether it’s the physical community we live in or the community we choose to be part of, having a group of people to lean on helps us meet challenges through a shared purpose and journey. Our Anaplan…
Capture the Value of Rebates Through Connected Planning
Large organizations receive a variety of discounts in the form of rebates. And while these rebates present a great opportunity, it’s far too easy for the company to lose track of the many offerings, receipts, invoices, and payments that come with them. This problem results in a decentralization of data—with information…
Planning From the Ridge
In February of this year, I was in the middle of the third grueling 2,000-foot ascent up a mountain on the second day of a three-night backcountry yurt trip when I conceptualized the power of Anaplan’s Connected Planning solution. “Strategize and collaborate with agility amid constant change"—the words on Anaplan’s…
Scenario Planning in Anaplan, Part II: From Insight to Action
In my recent blog post titled Scenario Planning in Anaplan, Part I: The Power of 'What If', I introduced the key steps needed for effective scenario planning in Anaplan and focused on the mechanisms to develop a forecast ('what') and evaluate the impact of forecast events ('so what'). In this second part, we look to move…
The 3 Pillars of Connected Planning: Part 4—Connecting the Pillars
In the first part of “The 3 Pillars of Connected Planning” series, the Community team spoke with Chief Planning Officer Simon Tucker ( @simon_tucker) about the importance of the 'people' pillar of Connected Planning and the need for a cultural shift within an organization. In part two, we took a look at the 'data' pillar…
The Key to Aligning Missions at Academic Medical Centers
Disjointed manual spreadsheets are common pain points expressed by our higher ed clients. You may be able to consolidate all academic departments using the same templates on separate tabs, but what if you have a completely separate operating unit with an entirely different model? Or perhaps you have a legacy system in…
#ChooseToChallenge on International Women's Day
Today we celebrate International Women's Day. On March 8 every year, we celebrate the social, political, and economic achievements of women. Beyond celebrating achievements, the day helps raise awareness about women's equality, lobby to accelerate gender parity, and fundraise for women-focused charities. This year's…
Anaplan's Victor Barnes on Diversity in Tech
As Black History Month comes to a close, we turn to Anaplan’s newly appointed Senior Vice President of Connected Planning Victor Barnes for insight on diversity in the tech industry. Before coming to Anaplan, Victor spent 26 years at The Coca-Cola Company. During that time, he traveled extensively and worked…
A New Way to Give Your Feedback to Anaplan
At the core of Anaplan is our ‘customer first’ principle, as we have recently highlighted in our Anaplan Listens program. It revolves around creating products and features that improve the Anaplan experience for our customers. Through research, such as speaking to you about your day-to-day processes and asking you to test…
Higher Ed: Planning for the Future in a Time of Constant Change
It has now been more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic began wreaking havoc on all segments of U.S. business and society. Some sectors and organizations have learned how to adapt to the vast changes in how we do business and go about our daily lives while we all await a return to some semblance of normalcy.…
Planning for a Company’s Most Valuable Asset—its People
The long-range sales forecast is set, and targets are being communicated throughout the organization. Next on the agenda are costs, margin, and expenses leading to the bottom line. Operating and planning a business is like solving a complex puzzle: an organization can have all the correct pieces for its business but at the…
Scenario Planning in Anaplan, Part I: The Power of 'What If'
The term VUCA—an acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity—was first leveraged in the business environment in the late 1980s, but the impact of that term in our modern world has rarely met the tests that the year 2020 brought. Organizations around the world are united in finding ways to meet the…
Anaplan Extensions: Building Reports in PowerPoint to Present User Stories
Recently, I interviewed Jared Dolich, a Principal Consultant at Columbus Consulting, about his clever use of Anaplan Extensions as a consultant in an Anaplan implementation project. Q: Tell us about yourself and your Anaplan journey Well, first, Magali, thank you for your interest! It means a lot to me to have the…
Happy New Year From Our Family to Yours!
In 2021, we'll work to turn challenges into opportunities and drive transformative change! We'll fill the year with new ideas, bold plans, and big accomplishments. The new year is here, and we’re kicking it off by celebrating with you. From the Anaplan family to you, Happy New Year!…
Meet our 2021 Community Bosses!
As we kick off 2021, we couldn’t be more thrilled to announce this year's Community Bosses! The Community Boss program aims to recognize customers, partners, and employees who go out of their way to encourage, advise, and share knowledge with their fellow Anaplan Community members. This select group of Community…
Volunteer, Learn, and Grow on MLK Day
This Monday, January 18, we will celebrate the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, as well as his many contributions to the civil rights movement and society as a whole. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and equal rights activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement…
Demand Planning: A Cornerstone of Every Business Plan
Businesses and their environment are growing more complex by the minute. Despite the many approaches, stakeholders, and circumstances around it, there is one invariable truth: serving customer demand is the reason for the existence of any firm. In pursuit of better serving their customers, companies have adopted…
A Tipping Point for Finance
Profit& (and most of my career as an accountant) is about promoting more relevant and agile planning and forecasting. Decision-makers need our best view of the future, not confirmation of the past. I regularly try to persuade management information providers to focus on predicting the future rather than reporting the past.…
Accessibility and the Anaplan UX
Accessibility is something we in the Product Team are getting asked about more and more often—and not just from customers with a legal obligation to deliver accessible solutions to their users. Internal cultures have been changing, and organizations see inclusivity as a must when procuring solutions and building…
Headcount Alignment Executive Summary
Overview Anaplan has had challenges getting our finance, human resources, and sales team on the same page of what our headcount is and what our headcount is forecasted to be in order to hit our revenue targets. We struggled to understand where requisitions were in the cycle and how many were currently open. We built a…
The Age of Anaplan
You have probably heard this at least once recently from a co-worker, a friend, or maybe even a heartfelt marketing email from your favorite big-box retailer: “We are living in unprecedented times.” While that is definitely true, the reality is that our businesses often face unprecedented disruptions and changes. Now more…
The Anaplan Way—Supporting a Remote Working Environment
When working with a cloud-based platform like Anaplan, we are used to building models and collaborating remotely, but how easy is it to run an entire project without any real face-to-face contact? This year most employees have had little choice but to work from home. In my latest project for a large insurance company, we…
Anaplan Live! December: That's a Wrap
The Anaplan Live! December event was a huge hit with Anaplan model builders across the globe! With content tailored to support Anaplan model builder’s expertise at every level, there was a record turnout with nearly 1,500 people registered—representing 38 countries and 346 companies. After a lively kickoff—with a surprise…
The First Thing I Needed to Know About Becoming A Master Anaplanner
I don’t recall ever being ranked first at anything. By my senior year in high school, I managed to grow to an astounding and towering 4’11”, 98 pounds (1.5 m, 44 kg). I tried wrestling, cross-country, triathlons, trumpet, marching band, debate, public speaking, theater, and squash. I even had a little retail business…
The Master Anaplanners' UX Cookbook
Please note: the links in this article are out-of-date. We're working on new resources. Thank you! Brought to you by Certified Master Anaplanners. “Our business owner (Finance Manager, FP&A) was ecstatic that this page empowers his team to recognize trends and evaluate variances much quicker compared to with the classic UX…
How do I get a UX Research Superstar badge?
The Anaplan Community recently came out with many new badges to award and show appreciation to our members for their involvement. One of those badges—the UX Research Superstar badge—awards Community members for participating in research carried out by the User Experience (UX) team. At Anaplan, our UX team spends a lot of…