Wondering about a new FP&A platform? Check out what customers say

In a digital age, choosing an enterprise software tool is momentous. It’s the interface through which your company will store, analyze, and share its information and insights (as valuable as any physical facilities) — maybe even use it to create and deliver your product.

Its security, robustness, and interoperability are major factors in your overall uptime. Its functionality will determine what your employees are able to do and the number of other applications or information sources they need to refer to. Its user experience will influence your customers’ productivity and their daily level of contentment or annoyance, an important factor in worker retention. (In fact, usability is a major factor in adoption rates. Even the strongest ROI case is unachievable if the tool remains unused on the shelf.)

All this means that organizations shopping for software—particularly for a planning platform that will be used by many different people and lines of business—want to be sure they’re making a well-informed choice. Cloud and subscription models have lowered the adoption barriers (nobody wants to go back to installing programs from disks), but changing software packages still entails a lot of time and effort training users and getting them used to new workflows.

Customer comments: A reliable guide

Even though we here at Anaplan think we’ve done a great job with our marketing and support efforts, we’re not asking you to take our word for it that our software will streamline your planning processes from finance to workforce to supply chain and more, that it will flexibly adapt to growth and change, and that it offers a user-friendly interface that’s quick to learn.

Instead, listen to what our customers say. Anaplan has a large, mature ecosystem of engaged users who are happy to talk about their experiences developing and using solutions on our Connected Planning platform. (In fact, our number of trained end users continues to double yearly, a function of both the ease for our platform as well as the high satisfaction they report in using it to solve business challenges.)

But if you’re thinking, “oh sure, they’re going to say nice things on Anaplan’s own user forums,” check out the unbiased, third-party user input collected by leading analyst firm Gartner, reflected in the 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Voice of the Customer report (for Cloud FP&A Solutions)¹. Gartner Peer Insights is a free peer review and ratings platform designed for enterprise software and services decision-makers. Reviews go through a strict validation and moderation process in an effort to ensure that they are authentic.

(Meanwhile, Anaplan was also recognized in Gartner’s Market Guide for Sales Performance Management 2021² which is, we believe, the firm’s first full-scale report on trends, developments, and leading vendors in the SPM market.)

We perceive that common threads in comments about our FP&A platform include quick adoption, ease of use, excellent support, and how Anaplan helps businesses move away from fragmented planning processes based on a clutter of spreadsheets and memos. Here are some selections from the validated comments:

• Anaplan is an excellent combination of simplicity and complexity. It allows us to create bespoke solutions to complex problems extremely quickly and effectively.
• It’s incredibly flexible and easy to implement and use.
• The breadth of their customer community and planning experience and knowledge across industries has particularly helped us develop our vision for Connected Planning. They have connected us with several customers across industries and did so without having to be in the discussions or feel like they were trying to guide the conversations.
• We have been able to migrate many spreadsheet-driven processes to add standardization, security, and process improvements.

And here are some comments about expanding Anaplan to multiple use cases:

• From workforce planning and budget forecasting, to reconciliations and expense tracking, Anaplan has the flexibility to grow and adapt with us as our needs grow and change. The adaptability and scope of this platform is without compare.
• We originally purchased [it] as a planning tool but have now rolled this out across many aspects of our business.
• Because Anaplan is so adaptive, we are able to constantly integrate new features and reconfigure old [ones] whenever we want. In fact, we have probably “started over” many times with many modules, each integration more powerful or efficient than the last…. Models have the capability to constantly change, grow, and adapt alongside our business.

We could hardly have said it better ourselves. You can see all the user comments or learn more about our FP&A solutions.

¹ Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer”: Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions PEERS, Published 11 March 2021
Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

² Gartner, Market Guide for Sales Performance Management, 8 March 2021, Melissa Hilbert