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Ah the good old eighties. Yuppies, the FiloFax and it's when Harry met Sally. Oh, and people were using spreadsheets to run their businesses. Very progressive.
This post was inspired by a tweet I received after posting a recent Anaplan article last week, (SFDC vs Anaplan) outlining the differences between how Anaplan and salesforce.com perform sales forecasting. I'd like to genuinely thank that consultant, (who shall remain nameless), for inspiring me to outline how mis-understood forecasting sales and financial information is, especially in the CRM community and around how people think salesforce.com does it.
I am starting to notice a pattern here. As we talk to the ever-growing group of salesforce.com users, I am often asked what kind of "reports and dashboards" can you produce? Perhaps they ask for these static views of their data because that is what they are used to. Or maybe they are hoping to take the data deluge and turn it into something that is manageable. Regardless, what they get carries inherent latency and may well be out of synch with the current situation.
I recently found an article that talks about budgeting. I could not resist commenting as I think this has gone the way of the Dodo. Here's the original article from Fred Wilson, a VC in NYC who we follow. He writes great articles and blog posts and is well worth reading.
During the last several years I have worn many hats, from investment partner to COO, a Board member and advisor and, of late, start up exec. From these vantage points, I note a recurring theme: bad habits die hard. There is an entrenched fabric to most organizations that supports unquestioned assumptions and the reversion to: "this is how we do things". I recently read an interview in the MIT Sloan Review with Tom Malone, he of organizational effectiveness and design fame.
It's a cheesy title, (excuse the pun) I know, but it got you to read this far.
So here it is folks, the first Anaplan App of many to come: Anaplan Forecast 360° for salesforce.com users.. We officially launched the App today.
Doug Smith signing in. I am thrilled to be a part of the Anaplan team. My passion for changing the way people work together to produce extraordinary outcomes can be fullfilled by virtue of the breakthrough technology that Michael Gould and team have brought to the market. This will be fun.