Minneapolis Internship Program—It’s a Wrap!
Intern graduation ceremony
The Minneapolis summer internship program was an astounding success. Thirty-three interns collaborated with a variety of departments to learn about the business and the product, resulting in 30 new Anaplan on Anaplan (AoA) models—all in just 11 short weeks.
Working side-by-side with technical experts and mentors—and supporting each other—this talented group of individuals produced top-notch new Anaplan models. Their work was inspiring and set the bar high with new use cases that clearly demonstrate the value of Connected Planning. With such impressive new talent expanding the Anaplan ecosystem, the office is already looking forward to next year’s intern program.
Wondering how this experience impacted the participants? Here’s just a sample of what the group had to say:
Federico Taboada: Johnson School of Management, Cornell University.What area of Anaplan did you focus on this summer?
My project consisted of developing a comprehensive leasing model for the accounting and finance departments. The main objectives were to consolidate the information of both the operating and financial leases that currently exist under the old and new U.S. tax code lease classifications, automate the calculation of important metrics, speed up the creation of information related to leases that need to be disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and give the end user the possibility of doing scenario analysis to see how the addition of a new lease would impact some of the metrics mentioned above.
How will you incorporate Anaplan in your near future?
This past week I learned that the interns will be able to access Anaplan during our second year to potentially use it for class projects and showcase its power. More into the future, I am expecting to continue using it directly or indirectly through implementation advisory.
Kay Kuang: Carlson School of Management, University of MinnesotaWhat area of Anaplan did you focus on this summer?
I worked with the human resources (HR) compensation team to develop a model which analyzes market data and generates salary range guidelines used by hiring managers. Working as a model builder in this project, the key learning for me was The Anaplan Way methodology. It was a very new and exciting experience for me to run the project in an agile way. It was a very efficient, fast-paced, and powerful process to get things done especially when working as a model builder who needed to frequently incorporate the user’s feedback into the model.
How will you incorporate Anaplan in your near future?
I am a member of a technology club at school, and Anaplan has the University Connect program. This will be a great connection for other MBAs at Carlson. I would love to share what I learned being a model builder during the summer when I go back to school.
Lance Laongkote: UCLA AndersonWhat area of Anaplan did you focus on this summer?
I worked on a model that will help the IT security and compliance team better assess risk and forecast financial impacts. This project helped me apply the Anaplan training concepts I’ve learned, as well as increase my appreciation for the awesomeness of the Anaplan software.
How will you incorporate Anaplan in your near future?
I want to work for an Anaplan partner and help implement Anaplan software with customers. I believe this will not only allow me to further develop my technical skills but also my soft skills when dealing with clients.
Sonika Vadhera: Carnegie Mellon UniversityWhat area of Anaplan did you focus on this summer?
I worked on the corporate planning model that aimed to create a single platform for the real-time planning and budgeting of employee compensation and benefits, thereby enhancing the collaboration process between the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and HR departments, showcasing Anaplan as a strong use case for Connected Planning. The model provided FP&A the ability to track expenses on a country, cost-center, and executive leadership level and has a potential for reconciling budget with actuals. It helped HR understand the available funding to propose new strategies and meet the competitive landscape. It also helped them study trends and record on-target earnings from an annual perspective.
How will you incorporate Anaplan in your near future?
I would totally love to be a part of the Anaplan ecosystem. I will talk about my summer experience with the current first-year students in my business school to make them aware of Anaplan and contribute to the next year’s summer internship program.
Anees Sayed: Carlson School of Management, University of MinnesotaWhat area of Anaplan did you focus on this summer?
My project involved bringing visibility on the software spend at Anaplan to allow better budgeting and planning of these expenses. As Anaplan is a growing firm, with a focus on revenue growth, it is crucial that operating expenses (such as software expenses) are better managed to ensure the bottom line is growing too. This model provided the metrics around software spend to facilitate cost visibility, cost governance, and cost accountability across Anaplan. Additionally, this information could be used by the procurement department to make sure Anaplan is getting the best deals on future software spend.
How will you incorporate Anaplan in your near future?
I want to continue learning about the features of Anaplan when I go back to the 2nd year of my MBA program. After that, I want to stay in the Anaplan ecosystem and work on identifying new use cases for the platform. I also want to get better at model building and work towards becoming a Master Anaplanner.
More Connected Planning Examples:
- Transforming IT Project Planning for CIOs
- Implementing Anaplan to Transform Commercial Planning
- Data-Driven Forecasting for the Holidays
Thanks for a great summer, and best of luck in your future Anaplan journey! Do you have any words of wisdom for the interns as they move forward? Share them below.
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Very nice!
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