Connected Planning Helps Prepare Organizations for Success

usa-in-globe-in-hands-elements-furnished-by-nasa-picture-id479711637.jpgAs the COVID-19 landscape continues to evolve, Anaplan leaders are here to support businesses through this new normal. Thoughtful planning and decision-making are even more critical for the long-term success of organizations everywhere. Today, we’re talking to more Anaplan leaders to share perspectives on navigating through today’s challenges for a more successful tomorrow.

Use Connected Planning to Prepare

Ana Pinczuk, our Chief Development Officer, says she cannot imagine trying to run a business right now without full visibility into data, plans, and people. Connected Planning allows organizations to do real-time decision making, showing the immediate impact of a decision made in one function or geography on everything else in the business. Recently, when a customer was suspending production at their facilities in Asia Pacific, they had to look at how it would affect resources, revenue, and their supply chain. They were then able to take the models and predictions of what happened in Asia and apply them to Europe.

“The customer was very excited to take the situation in one function and region of the world and, in real time, be able to gain insights that could apply to their European operations and across functions.  The individual was saying, if I didn’t have Anaplan, I wouldn’t have a global view because the way that we do planning has tended to be very localized, not connected,” Ana said.

Stay Focused on Your Objectives

YY Lee, our Chief Strategy Office, said Connected Planning is just part of the story. Anaplan can help our customers drive and orchestrate operational execution based on core financial priorities. We do this by giving them the opportunity to:

  • Create maps that tie business operations directly to company-level outcomes.
  • Update those maps continually as drivers and fundamentals change.
  • Allow experts and owners across the company define their own structures and relationships in order to give power to the right people for the right decisions.

“Anaplan allows organizations to systematically represent, analyze, and then orchestrate operational execution in a way that ensures everyone is aligned around target outcomes,” she said.

Put People First

Anaplan has always taken a people-first approach, and it extends to the way we treat our customers, striving to build genuine connections in everything we do.

Kevin Booth is our Vice President of Anaplan Accelerate and runs a global team. He said the guiding principle of his team has been to think about, “How does this impact our customers? At the end of the day, our customers are people first. They’re feeling the pain at home; what we need to do right now is reach out to them on a human level.” We’re all in this together. 

Take the Opportunity to Improve

Just as many of us are taking this forced time at home to organize closets long in need of attention or purge our wardrobes Marie Kondo-style, businesses can use the opportunity to figure out what will serve their employees and customers best moving forward.

Jason Ambrose, VP of Go-to-Market Strategy, says, “I think the biggest thing that we’ve started to hear from some customers is that if you accept that your business is going to be a bit slower, you have the opportunity to undertake some transformations that you never had the time to do before to prepare for when things pick back up. It’s a good time to use the analogy of, take the car into the pitstop and work on all the things that you needed to work on, so that when you come out of this, you’re in a better position. It’s a good chance to catch up on cleaning up things that are hard to do when you’re at full speed as a business.”

Goals could include becoming more agile in your business operations, looking for new ways to leverage your product and thinking through different business models. Now is a good time to be thoughtful about next steps.

Final Thoughts

We asked each of these executives one final question:

How do we help ease anxiety and come through this challenge stronger than ever?

Here is what they said:

Ana Pinczuk: “Over-communicate, plan, be willing to change your plans, and to recognize that this is not a short-term thing.”

YY Lee: “We have a strong role to play in terms of making sure that groups of people work effectively through this period, while we are helping many organizations and businesses to reduce risk and prepare themselves for opportunity.”

Kevin Booth: “By putting people first, we’re going to have more trusting relationships with our customers and our partners.”

Jason Ambrose: “We will try to make our offerings and content more relevant, but also respectful of the circumstances. We may or may not get that right, but we want to do our best to support our customers.”

Are we getting it right? That is our goal, but we want to hear from you. What other topics can we provide to help you navigate this time? Who else would you like to hear from? We invite you to share whatever is on your mind in the comments below.