Anaplan Consolidation vs Fluence

mbal

Hello. I can't understand why Anaplan bought Fluence. Only due to those items? Is Anaplan selling and giving support for both consolidation tools (Anaplan and Fluence) or Fluence will remain and Anaplan Consolidation will be taken down? Thanks!

seb_mcmillan

Hi

I'm not sure what you mean by Anaplan consolidation. There are a number of Financial Consolidation customer models and an legacy partner built accelerator/app model that was created some time ago and is not maintained or developed by Anaplan directly.

While relatively simple Financial Consolidation processes can be built in Anaplan it was never a great fit and we did not compete with dedicated FC tools at the more complex end.

This meant that some customers had to use Anaplan for planning but other products for their FC increasing the complexity of the end to end solutions.

Fluence has provided us with market leading Financial Consolidation, Disclosure Management and Close capabilities which are more complete, fully featured and easier to implement than solutions based on the core Anaplan engine.

We are working on closely integrating Fluence in our wider ecosystem o including UX and ADO to provide a seamless experience for end users and solution builder.

mbal

Hello Seb,

Thank you very much for your answer. With " I'm not sure what you mean by Anaplan consolidation" I mean the solution that was offer by Anaplan before buying Fluence.

Here a Linkeding post related

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paula-bowie_anaplan-vs-fluence-for-consolidation-activity-7239308419147444224-FSRL?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Thank you very much,

Regards.

seb_mcmillan

Yes this is a model developed by a partner not by Anaplan, we have co-sold to customers but it was never an Anaplan product so never benefitting from support and development the Fluence now has within the Anaplan ecosystem.

mbal

Hello Seb,

Thank you for your answer. I think I'm starting to get it and to have the whole picture. Then, both tools are still offered by Anaplan, the original so developed by a partner tool, and Fluence? Do you know which are the differences between them (apart from support) from the point of view of the consolidation process? Can both of them do the same things and to the same extend? Thank you very much Seb.

seb_mcmillan

I'm not an expert on the consolidation model but it was only ever recommended for relatively simple cases. Financial consolidation can be a pretty technical process and the leading platforms tend to be structured to support that. EPM platforms are more generalised and struggle with some of the demands of complex FC calculations and the structures that support them, hence many vendors having both Planning and FC solutions.

While the Anaplan model can do the job, Fluence is a more rounded, capable and scalable solution