Anaplan Smart Business Platform

Main articles:

• Defining Business Intelligence
• Business Process Management
• CPM - Corporate Performance Management
• ERP (TAdviser definition)
• OLAP systems
• SaaS - History. Philosophy. Development Drivers

Anaplan Smart Business Platform is a platform that simplifies complex decision-making across the company. Anaplan provides a powerful planning and modeling system, cloud collaboration capabilities, and a simple interface for business users.

Anaplan is an innovative cloud-based platform for managing organizational performance, developed based on the experience of developing existing traditional systems. With Anaplan, business users can create, share, and maintain applications for tasks such as budgeting, sales planning, operational planning, demand forecasting, and many others. The solution uses in-memory in-house database architecture. HyperBlock

The solution architecture provides extremely high scalability and speed of computing, as well as flexibility in managing business models, which was previously unattainable using traditional CPM class solutions. Anaplan allows you to create detailed planning and analytical applications (models), quickly configure calculations, link models into a single loop of integrated business planning, while maintaining transparency of the process for business users.

In any bank, whether it is a large credit structure or a small commercial bank, the tasks of operational management, as well as managing the effectiveness of the bank as a business as a whole, are. Having this class of tasks means there is a constant need to make decisions at different levels of management. Business analytics as a management area includes planning, reporting, monitoring, analysis, and decision-making processes. All these processes should be based on up-to-date and accurate information.

Business analytics as a management area includes planning, reporting, monitoring, analysis, and decision-making processes.

All these processes should be based on up-to-date and accurate information. However, today's banking business is characterized by an ever-increasing volume of data, the need to change and adjust business models in real time, as well as the lack of optimal mechanisms for harmonizing data between persons involved in the process of managing the company's performance (business users). In the context of setting and solving business analytics problems, the banking sector has a number of industry features that fundamentally distinguish it. This is the presence of a distributed branch network, additional requirements for data security, customer orientation, multi-parameter settlements of banking products. Business analytics projects in banks should take into account a significant amount of data, the variety of their sources, the historicity of these data is very important, which determines a specific strategy for building models, including the development of various scenario calculations.

If we talk about the area of business intelligence in banks, we can distinguish the following typical tasks:

• planning, forecasting of financial flows within the framework of current and investment activities;
• Formation of transparent branch network budgeting system;
• scenario modeling of settlement blocks for banking products;
• Monitoring, analysis and evaluation of division performance;
• Development of multidimensional analytical models with flexible graphs and diagrams;
• development and visualization of internal and external reporting of any types (in terms of regions, branches, customers, products, managers, etc.);
• monitoring of various indicators online;
• Consolidation of financial and management reporting;
• risk management (credit, liquidity, market, operational, etc.);
• scenario calculations.

It is clear that each bank needs a powerful IT platform, which is a tool for budgeting, forecasting, analysis and reporting, focused on the tasks and requests of business users and capable of meeting all the requirements of business intelligence in the banking sector. The IT market now offers a wide range of business intelligence software products that have both their pros and cons. We have experience with almost all systems of this class, and are well acquainted with all their advantages and shortcomings.

But a completely amazing discovery was a new platform for us, which recently appeared on the market and immediately beat all competitors in performance and functionality - Anaplan.

Why Anaplan?

Anaplan has truly the most powerful functionality at the moment of all systems of this class. A good business intelligence system should include modeling and reporting tools. In Anaplan, both of these tools are integrated and are a logical complement to each other. At the same time, the generation of the report, for example, does not require any additional downloads and works in online mode, which allows you to make decisions, model and immediately see changes in the relevant reports and charts.

For modeling, you do not need to encode, program, write scripts. Building models, reports, scripts, graphs is no more difficult than in Excel. However, the analytical capabilities are enormous due to the fact that Anaplan is a multidimensional environment. The product has a special core, the so-called Living Blueprint, providing unprecedented simplicity in developing and supporting models; the organization and unification of all lists, directories and time scales is considered: it is enough to enter them once, and then only use them in the model; there are all the built-in functions necessary for the system of this class, allowing you to simply perform complex calculations, quickly add versions, etc.

In terms of schedules, charts, dashboards and reports, they are added in one click of the mouse in real time, and the update is immediately after data entry, which allows you to dynamically track the changes that are taking place: the issuance of loans at branches, the work of managers, changes in parameters (for example, early repayment and problem debts), changes in flows on loans and deposits, scenario changes and much more. Specially designed functions such as Pivot allow you to present data in different perspectives for deeper and more advanced analysis, and filter and comparison functions provide a convenient and accessible opportunity to conduct various types of analysis on the fly.

With easy-to-use export and upload features in the familiar Microsoft Excel format, you can quickly prepare various print forms and reports for shareholder meetings and other important meetings. The rich functionality of Anaplan is determined primarily by the professionalism of the developers - this tool was created by the team that brought Adeytum to the market at one time (it is also later Cognos Planning) taking into account all the shortcomings of the previous product and new market requirements.

And, of course, not the last place here is occupied by technology. Anaplan is not "twisting" old platforms, not patching holes that do not allow old applications to work efficiently in a modern environment. Anaplan is based on Saas 2.0, Java 6.0 and HTML 5.0 technologies, which speaks for itself and creates truly unlimited opportunities for modeling and development. Technical solutions are also characterized by thoughtfulness and depth. Anaplan is built on the most powerful computing engine.

Hyperblock technology allows you to ensure high speed online modeling, constantly track changes in the model and data, and calculate only the necessary cells and their dependencies. Combined storage and computing technologies produce instant results on a model of any scale. Anaplan has an advanced model management and data auditing mechanism and eliminates problems with traditional business intelligence systems, such as weak response to changes, limited access to data sources, and strong dependence on IT.

Anaplan is a cloud system. This means that there is no need for additional servers, power, there is no need to install software at all - it is enough to have a browser and the Internet. At the same time, model development can go anywhere, in user-friendly conditions, directly on a PC or tablet. Anaplan is the fastest and easiest way to build a stable, secure, and most functional business model with any detailed planning logic in the cloud.

All users are in a single space, using single data, updated online and immediately available for work. And no downloads, no expectations, no transfers between systems.

The main distinguishing feature of Anaplan - with all its processing power and great functionality, it is unusually simple in settings, support, use. The business-oriented architecture of the solution allows you to easily configure connections with real processes and functions, Anaplan users can quickly and conveniently both receive and provide access to data. Anaplan allows you to connect to an unlimited number of users and allows you to know what they see and do, and how they interact with data.

The efficiency of using Anaplan is visible from the first steps of development, and it is not necessary to wait months for the return, as in the implementation of other systems of this class. The implementation takes weeks, and it's really amazing! And yet, what is the most important argument that matters when choosing a business intelligence system? This, of course, is cost-effective from implementation.

What we get by implementing Anaplan:

• Hardware and IT consultant costs are zero
• Training costs are minimal
• quick start and quick result;
• Support and upgrade costs are zero
• reduction of implementation time at times: instead of months - weeks.

Anaplan's prospects are appreciated by Gartner in its reports, which speaks for itself and illustrates the rapidly growing popularity of this tool in the market, and the real implementations of Anaplan in the banking sector, including in Russia, have already proved how convenient and irreplaceable this powerful tool is in practice.

2021: Launch of Anaplan Platform Training

On November 30, 2021, Advanced consulting company, a partner of Anaplan, announced that now Anaplan business users in Russia will have the opportunity to undergo a training program on the work and development of the Anaplan platform, developed and presented by the Advanced expert team.

According to the company's representatives, the relevance of the service is dictated by the expansion of the platform in Russia, which led to the formation of numerous teams, the so-called internal competence centers (Central Committee), which independently develop the solution of their organization without the involvement of external consultants. Advanced team experts also noted the most common misconceptions and errors in the implementation and development of Anaplan both by their own teams and external contractors.

The Anaplan Integrated Planning Cloud Platform is designed to automate various business planning processes: demand planning, financial planning, S&OP, sales, personnel planning, and supply chain planning. Anaplan has proprietary Hyperblock technology, which allows you to process large amounts of information in RAM, thereby ensuring the speed of tens and hundreds of users from any device at the same time. Anaplan automatically integrates with any enterprise IT systems (including accounting and transactional systems such as Oracle, SAP and 1C, etc.), databases, and flat files.

According to Marina Dunets, a leading expert on the implementation of Anaplan in Advanced, Anaplan is a so-called no-code solution, thanks to which business teams can develop the solution on their own.

However, the implementation of Anaplan can be difficult. The Advanced team of experts notes a number of common errors and helps customers prevent them.

• There is a risk of overestimating your own strength, especially when the company has not yet formed an internal center of expertise. The launch of Anaplan is a major transformational technology project that involves employees from different departments: IT, business experts, and a master data team. Proper planning of employee involvement, most of which during the project continue to perform their main operational tasks, determines the speed and quality of platform launch. To reduce the load on the client, the best solution is to connect external Anaplan implementation experts.
• Anaplan is not a "box" solution and is flexibly tailored to the customer's specific business process. As part of the project, business teams have a desire to constantly improve the terms of reference, adding new requirements to the system to it, stretching the Design stage and delaying the Solution Development phase. This causes the launch to be delayed. On the contrary, the approach to implementing the Agile project is designed to ensure the fastest receipt of a working MVP solution. It eliminates the increase in project planning time and specific sprints, as well as many iterations of the design of the IT planning tool.
• The implementation of Anaplan is not a project of the IT department of the company, although the role of this team is significant. The task is always set by business experts. They work on the platform daily and act as project leaders on the part of the customer. That is why it is critical for the client to assemble a suitable cross-functional team to ensure the success of the project. Also, this requires clarity in setting tasks and creating motivation to involve employees so that they have the desire to get a working solution as quickly as possible ("timetovalue").
• In projects of this kind, the role of the "Sponsor" on the part of the customer is important. His contribution does not end at the time of purchase of the platform. At the same time, several large transformational projects can be launched in the company, each with its own pace and depth of transformation. The presence of the Project Sponsor guarantees the right priority of the initiative within the company, helps to ensure and maintain the required level of involvement of people and resources in the project. It monitors the implementation of the strategic objectives of the project agreed upon earlier, as well as assists in solving possible problems and conflict situations. After the launch, the Project Sponsor helps the business team and "change agents" popularize the use of the platform in order to accelerate adaptation and a full transition to Anaplan.
• To automate planning processes, even such flexible modern solutions as Anaplan require clarity of roles and responsibilities of participants. Only in this case will it be able to fully bring efficiency to the business. As part of the planning and subsequent implementation of Anaplan, you need to create and configure all processes that need automation.
• Anaplan is a specialized platform for building an integrated business planning process. The tasks of, data storage business analytics or providing transactions must be carried out by profile solutions with which Anaplan automatically connects (as part of the solutions of). integration
• In parallel with the integration strategy, a change management and training plan for key platform users should be formed. Part of the team after the project forms the internal Central Committee, immerses itself in the system and modeling in the early stages of implementation. Other members, including business users, are closer to launch. No matter how effective and practical the trainings are, you need a stage of intensive user support in the first 1-3 months after launch in order to ensure the most painless, smooth transition and debugging of the business as usual process.

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On November 18, 2021, Advanced consulting company announced the restructuring of the training process for users of the Anaplan platform.

The development of Anaplan will be carried out using a technique that allows you to achieve deep immersion in particular the program. Training was conducted before, but not all customers managed to use the full-capacity planning system. Complex digital products cause difficulties in mastering, so users need additional attention. Advanced experts analyzed common errors and developed techniques that simplify interaction in the team.

The Anaplan Integrated Planning Cloud Platform is designed to automate various processes in the business: financial planning, S&OP, sales management, personnel management, and supply chains. It has great integration capabilities with other enterprise IT systems to automate complex calculations and easily combines with Oracle, SAP, and 1C.

In order for Anaplan to adapt favorably in the company, internal configuration readiness is required. business processes Without unification of masters data from different IT systems, functioning will be difficult, since the program takes everything information from external sources for processing, "said Gurgen Melkonyan, managing partner, expert on to marketing Advanced strategic management.

It is important for business not just to create innovations, but to do it correctly so that the transition to a higher level of management goes as smoothly as possible. Depending on the position and qualifications, different employees at first find it difficult to work in the system. Several cycles are required to train users. At the same time, if the company did not have any automation before the implementation of the program, and only manual labor - you need an intermediate stage in the analysis and construction of business processes.

Advanced identifies more than ten major errors when implementing Anaplan. This is a reassessment of your own forces when allocating a team to projects, a complication during castomization and too long planning before launch. There are also very often problems in management due to the lack of clear focus and the lack of long-term planning of the result. It is important for companies to have a competent project leader who will set the tasks to be solved, and use the principles of agile.

After each individual project, it is worth continuing to debug the program and plan for further development of the system so that it is as consistent as possible with all business processes and goals. And after completing the training of the initial group of users to involve other employees of the company. The transition from one product to another takes time and causes resistance, and if the rest of the specialists do not master the platform, then the efficiency and coherence of all work begins to decline.

Anaplan has its purpose and can only improve a number of certain sectors. It has a priority to use - planning and complex calculations. The remaining tasks must continue to be solved with specialized tools.

Before installation, the company must have an internal unity of mind, otherwise everything will be difficult to start and configure. Switching to any new platform is a complex and slow matter. Even in ideal conditions, there will be difficulties and hitches, so additional concentration and special focus on the time of the transition period are needed.

It does not have a limit of rows and columns, and the size of one table can reach hundreds of millions of entries. The entered data dynamically affects further calculations - everything is instantly recalculated. Users do not need to manually transfer information from one table to another. As a result, the business receives a system that combines the work of all employees into one space. Process modernization and standardization becomes easier and faster.

Anaplan has an intuitive interface with good visualization of all processes. Formulas in the program are protected from unauthorized interference. This prevents accidental errors and prevents manipulation. By improving the calculation methodology and differentiating access rights for data entry, each user receives rights only for the target action at a specific point in the fill chain. You can apply a single formula to an entire table or array of data at once.

Anaplan improves information security. It also allows you to see all the communication relationships between project participants, providing transparency of flows: the user sees what data flows from one block to another and how they are converted in the process.

As a result of the introduction of Anaplan, business increases the efficiency of specialists by automating processes and simplifying a number of actions that are impossible in previous generations. This leads to increased manageability and improved management in the organization.-- >

2016

Application Lifecycle Management

On December 26, the solution was announced to be replenished with a number of new functions, including Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), the History of Changes (History) was also improved, the history of changes has become more informative and offers more opportunities for visual analysis and control.

Key features of Application Lifecycle Management include:

• Separate management of the business model (application) within its life cycle (Development/Test/Production), including the introduction of changes, their monitoring and synchronization, through a single convenient administrative console.
• Improved data protection and model business logic. When the ALM option is activated, the actions and rights of users regarding model building, administration and deployment are clearly separated and monitored.
• Version control that allows administrators to mark changes to the model structure that are ready for testing or deployment.
• Improved control over changes in the structure of models being developed before these changes are synchronized.
• An optional protection feature that can block a deployed environment to prevent unintended or unwanted changes.

This update is also designed to improve security and control through a more informative history of change. Now authorized users can track any changes to the model (not just changes to its data), as well as see by whom and when they were made.

In addition, Anaplan announced a number of additional features and new applications:

• Anaplan's easy and improved integration with third-party data sources and applications is achieved with Anaplan HyperConnect functionality developed with Immatica. Anaplan HyperConnect provides flexible data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) capabilities, as well as integration with third-party sources and applications in the intuitive interface of the popular Informatica Cloud environment.
• Improved visualization of Anaplan data thanks to the collaboration of Anaplan and Tableau Software. Customers of both companies can now easily transfer data from Anaplan to Tableau for further analysis and reporting.
• Announced the release of a number of new applications, such as Long-Range Planning, Asset Management and P&L Forecasting. They are already available in the AppHub application catalog, which already contains more than 150 specialized applications from Anaplan, its partners and customers.

Predictive Analytics added to Anaplan

"International and Russian companies are increasingly using predictive analytics, while they are experiencing difficulties with business modeling and the generation of analytical data to reflect the real state of affairs with the accuracy that is necessary for making managerial decisions," said Velesevich Evgeny, head of Russia and CIS at Anaplan. According to him, Anaplan solves this problem through a combination of forecasting, modeling and planning capabilities that business representatives use daily. "These new functions can be used to solve problems in any area of ​ ​ business - from predicting prices for raw materials and resources to forecasting sales," says Yevgeny.

First of all, Anaplan forecasting capabilities will be implemented for statistical forecasting tasks in demand, sales and production planning, corporate planning and budgeting, sales forecasting, and customer support. Over time, these functions will also be used to optimize human resources planning, supply chain planning, transportation tasks, product marketing, and more.

• Tools that allow you to combine plans and forecasts of all departments of the company.
• An updated application architecture that allows you to easily manage all applications that are used by different business functions of the company.
• Application lifecycle management features that enhance automation capabilities, making it easier for business users to create and update applications.
• Structure of data and metadata management for applications in all planning directions and types.
• Visualization methods and a number of new graphs to show data more clearly.
• Business Process Map, which displays the entire Anaplan application system in a single window, how to optimize and group data across the company.
• Interactive charts of your company's organizational structure to help you manage your workforce more efficiently.
• Enhance collaboration with colleagues with new features, including activity feed, messaging, and mobile applications.
• Improve scalability and platform performance.

These improvements are designed to help companies optimize business planning and make complex decision-making available to all departments of the company, including finance, sales, marketing, human resources, supply, manufacturing, and IT.

2015: updating

On August 10, 2015, Anaplan announced the release of the cloud platform of the same name for financial and operational planning, sales and personnel management. This is the third release during 2015.

In this version, the color scheme of data visualization has been adjusted, the convenience and performance of the system has been improved, and features that extend the capabilities of interactive planning and analysis have been added.

Anaplan View, 2015

The user interface focuses on the presentation of data. Graphs and charts use new colors that add clarity, simplified the design of buttons and controls (various data slices, import-export, formatting). Each of the interface elements is based on the usability studies that Anaplan conducted in the process of supporting its customers.

The current version of the platform is easy to master, both by end users and model creators.

also notice that now Anaplan (dashboards) displays are not only becoming clearer, but also processing large amounts of data even faster. Our platform users have models that contain tens of millions of cells and with which thousands of users work, "said Yuri Rotmanov, managing director of Anaplan's representative office in Central and Eastern Europe

Other innovations include single sign-on technology for Excel reporting to simplify user experience and improve data security.