Community Roundtable: The Joys of Planning
The Community Roundtable is back with the sixth installment in the series, and this time we’re focusing on our partners. We've asked three of our partners to share what their favorite part of planning is and what about it gets them excited to go to work every day. Ready for some serious job envy? Keep reading to find out what motivates these connected planners!
"Using a data-driven planning approach, where all the relevant numbers are at your fingertips, helps fight that anecdotal, 'I remember when' behavior."
"If there’s any one thing I’ve learned over my career working with supply chain planners, it’s that each part has a history uniquely its own. A close second is that the typical planner has the memory of an elephant. They remember every little thing that has ever gone wrong in planning a part. In other words, every part has a story, and a planner can tell them all!
Unfortunately, some of those stories deserve to be forgotten. I remember one planner I worked with who always put his thumb on the scale for a little extra buffer stock for one item in particular.
'Why?' I asked.
'Oh, you know, that supplier’s always late. They shut down our line just a few months ago!'
Using a data-driven planning approach where all the relevant numbers are at your fingertips helps fight that anecdotal, 'I remember when' behavior. In this case, we pulled up the delivery performance history for the supplier. In fact, they hadn’t been late by more than a day in ages, we hadn’t stocked out in over two years, and we were now swimming in inventory! Seeing the numbers helped the planner to let go of the past and adapt his behavior to the supplier’s (not so) new normal." Tom Davis, Principal, End-to-End Analytics
"I love seeing what I accomplished at the end of the workday."
"A plan is just the stepping tool to see where else you can go. It gives you the ability to clear your mind of distractions and work towards a goal. The best plans end up with a goal that you never expected. I love seeing what I accomplished at the end of the workday. The plans I create at the end of the day, unlike most that I do at the beginning, give me something to look forward to. Instead of trying to check off boxes throughout the day, it gives me time to imagine what I can accomplish the next day. It keeps me going throughout the day and gives me the insight of what to do tomorrow. That is where I have seen planning really impact my daily work life. " Kedar Patil, Client Partner and Alliance Manager, Teklink
"It is rewarding to shift the paradigm so that technology is doing the messy work of consolidating, calculating, and standardizing data, and the majority of human capital is spent on value-added activities."
"Benjamin Franklin once said, 'If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.' These words are truer today than ever before. We are living in an era where technology is rapidly disrupting our lives and businesses. There is more data available than ever before that can be analyzed to extract impactful insights. An exciting part of my job is creating and executing plans that make companies aware of the power of Connected Planning and Data Analytics.
A highly fulfilling aspect of my job is to enable planners and decision-makers within the organizations to leverage technology like Anaplan to truly do their job. There has never been a job description that said you will spend 80% of your time reconciling data spread across hundreds of spreadsheets and only 20 percent making sense out of it.
It is rewarding to shift the paradigm so that technology is doing the messy work of consolidating, calculating, and standardizing data, and the majority of human capital is spent on value-added activities. When Accelytics’ team empowers large complex organizations with Anaplan implementations, I know it bolsters the morale of their employees, makes them proactive with decision making, invigorates intellectual stimulation, and ultimately improves their work/personal lives. Making a positive difference in the lives of our customers is a key motivator that fuels me every day!" Ash Jain, President & CEO Accelytics
A big thank you to the Anaplan partners involved in this post. Do you have something to add to the conversation? Join the discussion in the comments below and share what you love about working in planning!
Are you interested in being featured in the next Community roundtable post? Drop us a line at community@anaplan.com, and let us know what’s on your mind.