Peter Upapong 0:00:13.9: 

Alright, wonderful. Hey, look at that. Look at this crowd. I appreciate it. Four o'clock. The only thing separating you and happy hour. Well, I'll put some fuel for happy hour too, if you want to hang out with me later, I have some, as my kids like to say, I have some lore from when I was younger. I used to be a battle rapper, I've been a Buddhist monk, but that's not my professional career, so we can talk about that during happy hour. My name is Peter Upapong, I lead our business value team here at Anaplan. My background is quite varied. I started out in futures and options, working for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I was there when people were still trading in pits on the floor and helping them move to digital trading. I then went over to banking, where there I was really young in my career. Where during the financial crisis, the CFO tapped me on my shoulder and said, 'We need you to lead strategic scenario planning. What's working right now is not working. LRP, all those things are not connected. You're the only one, because you have been through all this rotational program that can lead the way.' Maybe I didn't know better; I didn't know what I was doing. Maybe I was too young to care, but I did whatever I needed to do in terms of navigating what, at that time, was unprecedented times in terms of financial crisis. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:01:40.7: 

I've been able to lead practices at Accenture and the Hackett Group before joining Anaplan about six years ago. What I do at Anaplan is I think the absolute best part of this whole thing, which is value. We do value assessments, we talk about benchmarks, we share best practices across. Ultimately, my favorite part is the value realization. Here's the punchline, so that you can have a reason to stay until the end. The last part of this presentation is talking about a customer where we aligned with their leadership team in over one hundred million dollars of attributable value to Anaplan. Here's the double-punch. There was no productivity gains in there, so something to look forward to. From gut feeling to game plan. I would say a lot of us still rely on gut feeling. You can say whether that's good or not, but what we're going to go over today is a little bit about the business value team. How many people are aware of the business value team that exists? Okay, that's a good start. For those that are not aware, we're a non-sales advisory practice that exists at Anaplan. You can reach out to me. I'll share some contacts of folks on my team, their emails, so you can bother them immediately, and they can start sharing information with you. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:03:06.8: 

Oh, there's my beautiful face. Today, we're going to go over a kind of BVS. Maybe if you've experienced and worked with other value teams at other organizations, I would say the major differentiating factor for us is we carry you through the entire process of value. We set up the frameworks to help you to think about and actually capture value. I'm extremely, maybe optimistic, but also very practical in terms of what's worth tracking, what's important. I think the most important thing, actually, out of this is I love seeing people who take what we've done and the work we've done together to articulate value to their leadership and see them get whatever they want in life. Whether it's the next level, maybe it's another role, what have you. We'll talk about the footprint, we'll talk about the maturity assessment, and then we'll talk about that hundred-million-dollar punchline. A lot of words on here, but ultimately, the business value team is really focused on creating a framework in terms of assessing current state, thinking about where you are today, where you were before, mapping it. I think this is the hardest part for a lot of organizations is connecting strategic priorities to the challenges you’re facing, to project priorities and ultimately devalue drivers that are defensible. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:04:33.2: 

It's kind of like, hey, I'm always maybe like… You're in a position, like, hey, I've got to defend the value of Anaplan. What you're actually defending is the value of your existence. You're defending the existence of the broader operating model, and Anaplan is just a part of that. Okay, so think about the last time you were doing an implementation, you're working on a use case, your process. Was there a discussion around value? Was there an ROI? Maybe, probably maybe for some, depending on the size. What were you focused on? Were you focused on efficiency gains? Were you able to tie directly to revenue impact? How many of you feel like you looked across all of these areas, both quantitative and qualitative? Anyone? Okay, the reality is what we show here is not just like, hey, this is nice to have. This is literally how we think, and structure and work with our organizations in terms of what they tell us is important and what's valuable. I think the important thing to think about is when you get in terms of the maturity models, those give you a kick-off point or a starting point, that whole blueprint, to start the conversation around value and don't have it left behind. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:06:00.6: 

At the end of the day, I've led so many transformations, and the ones that were not successful, because I have to say that some were not, were the ones that we didn't articulate value well. We didn't align and manage expectations well, and I think we also didn't take good key design decisions upfront and agree on the level of planning and cadence and all those things. Okay, so the game plan. Alright, team, lock in. We have to have a game plan. We've got to work out what we're going to do. Now, I think you probably work with consultancies or different organizations, benchmarkings that have various maturity assessments. I think the key thing to actually force some of those is to say, well, what does it take for me to get to the next level? Yes, of course, I can assess myself, I can say where I am, I can define my gaps, but if they can't come back to you and talk about what are the particular KPIs and those of you that joined the tariff session got to see an example of us walking through that in detail. What are those particular KPIs that you have to look at to actually move to that next level? We have over 40 of these maturity models available for you, depending on your process and function. That can be readily available for you to self-consume. We can certainly facilitate that for you. I think a balance of both is the right thing. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:07:42.6: 

I think the reality of what happens is you should take this view of these maturity models that we've built up based on all this work we've had and continue to refine and talk with your team around it. I always say it's better to have an honest view in terms of where you rank versus like a, hey, we're really good, we're the best, we're already at five. I think it's important to talk about specificity. I think some of the maturity models I've seen in my career in the past have been too broad, too high-level. You have to really get down to the particular processes and sub-processes to really see impactful movement across these various maturity models. Here, great, I'm going to rank myself, then I can say, okay, in six months we're going to be at this level, that's part of the story. The other part of the story of being able to do this is we have a database of KPIs and metrics that directly correlate and tie to each one of the levels that you achieve. As you're looking and saying, okay, this is where we are, this is where our future looks to be, there's a natural Anaplan calculator that can essentially help you with that process. In terms of looking at specifically within your industry, what are the actual benchmarks associated to how they are assessed versus business cases that they had to make internally, as well as to realization studies. You'll get a separation of those two as well. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:09:16.5: 

Alright, time to guide you a little bit. That step-by-step process that you'll work with your BDS person or also your CS person in concert, goes through this kind of cadence and process, right? You're assessing current state, you're defining future targets, maybe you've already done this work, we don't have to repeat it, we can digest it. Can you really map those challenges to the enablers to the outcomes? Then we can help do the heavy lifting for all the business case work. I think that's one area that is maybe potentially underutilized. It can certainly create a lot of things for you to react to, as well as give the calculator so that… I think you don't know what you don't know, right? I think not having the perspective of how others are looking at value, those value drivers, I think a lot of my work is actually just giving people a framework of thinking. As we start to think about this, and we'll look at examples in a second of an actual company that went through this exercise, and it's associated to that over one hundred million dollars of value. There's no hard and fast rules saying you have to perfectly fit in one area. Obviously, these sub-processes within a function start breaking this down and making it more applicable in terms of moving the needle. Again, everything doesn't have to move in concert together. The reality is that there's often times of governance, and those pieces move slower because there's a lot of politics involved. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:11:00.5: 

The things that we can control, can we move those along and get those advanced as far as possible? As we start looking at defining that future state, and I had said this during the tariff forum, you don't have to be at level five for every process. We looked at some actual data on the tariff forum saying the majority of the value associated to COGS improvement associated to revenue really sat between level two and three, they've been assessed by a number of organizations. There you go. The exercise really becomes, hey, I think you can easily map your current challenges. What I think is often harder to articulate is differentiating Anaplan enablers. I think the key thing that often gets forgotten is articulating outcomes that are not just efficiency gains. How do we map those against all the maturity, and then tie this all together in a cohesive message that then we can present to our leadership team? You can see in this simple example here, we're saying, hey, in the current process, maybe you're using time-series models, very basic stuff in Excel. You move to something more sophisticated. Okay, we're going to say that's related to reducing inventory levels. Maybe you got to skew level forecasting. The forecast efficiency has improved significantly, and the impact correlates to so many elements of discounting and all different things that it's not just one; it could be multiple drivers that are associated to your improvement in terms of maturity. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:12:44.7: 

As we start to build that business case, yes, of course, you can have those productivity gains, of course, an element of that is messaging in terms of how do I not lose my budget? I've identified so much capacity that's been created, right? More so, and also thinking about cost categories or things that maybe are indirect or relate to other teams that, again, maybe you just haven't been thinking about. Here's an actual customer where they went through the process, and this is a high-level summary of all this deep work that we had done with them. In terms of where they were pre-Anaplan, again, this is a very large tech manufacturing company, and where they were before, where they are today. If you see at face value, they'd be like, oh, they're leading the way in terms of thinking of enterprise planning. They're constantly pushing themselves in terms of how do I really start now, combining inference with execution and get to a point where I can really say maybe I have an automated baseline? Maybe I have really done everything I could have possibly done in terms of driver-based forecasting and how this correlates to actual improvements with an organization. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:14:10.6: 

Okay, I've let you guys wait long enough for that punchline. This is an organization that I've worked very closely with within tech hardware. These are the specific drivers that they identified in terms of what's important to them, in terms of how they allocate and discuss value. If we move left to right, it's kind of like skew level and channel forecasting in terms of forecast improvement has really driven so many things around how they think about allocation, how they think about inventory, how they think about promotion. How do we take that into a real-world situation that's defensible? Their cadence in terms of management reviews within a quarter or as a monthly basis shifted with Anaplan. As they shifted the management reviews and those decision-making, they were able to directly say, okay, you know what? We see an opportunity now because we believe and trust the data. We need to move to higher margin skews, and that's exactly what they did. They can do that and then take the action within the quarter to be able to say I can realize all these benefits. That's how you get to $112 million of value that doesn't exclude efficiency gain. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:15:34.0: 

I think that's primarily on, let's call it the finance supply chain side. On the sales side, for those SPN folks, the biggest bet I've seen, whether you're talking, and we've had those speak at other Connects, you're talking about the AWS of the world, right? All those that talk about getting plans out at AKO and SKO. This organization is one of those examples. They were, I think, at eight weeks past AKO and they moved to day one. That's a very common story that we're seeing from a quarter planning standpoint. To be clear, it's not just shifting everything in so many months, and hey, we just did it because we moved everything before. I think it's also a function of aligning with finance in terms of preliminary targets that are set while they're still waiting for maybe the year end close to finalize. Then having those minor tweaks happening, saying if bookings for things change. That shift in terms of quarter planning and delivering, that's the big bat that everyone takes a lot in terms of Anaplan.. I think it's… You ask any CRO, you ask any sales ops leader, they can tell you how much is one more day of focus selling worth to their organization. That becomes, hey, we take that bed of sales productivity. I think the other element you can look towards beyond quarter planning itself is regrettable attrition. I would say in different environments, regrettable attrition wasn't the thing, but now we're in a very competitive situation where regrettable attrition is important. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:17:14.8: 

You're thinking about a ramping rap versus a fully ramped rap. You're thinking about the cost of that. That's hard dollars that a number of organizations can see direct correlation in terms of the value of transparency and view around equitable territories. I think that's all I had. These are some of the contacts of the folks if you wanted to reach out. I primarily focus on TMT myself, but kind of cut across now in the team. You also want to work with Rob and Francisco, and they can engage the broader team to help guide some of those things. Open it up to some Q&A. Any questions, comments, concerns. Ready for happy hour? Let me know. Want me to do a rap? I'm not sure. Maybe we'll see. Get a few drinks in me. Any questions? It's probably… I'll be patient. Wait for a question. Okay, I think the obvious thing is how to get started, right? Depending on how deep your existing footprint is, the reality is… If you're going to do a realization study of what's already there and happened, you have to really understand did you do all of the things that deserve value? We all want to assume, hey, we probably got some value, but you have to understand maybe there's opportunity to drive more value. That's always a great place to start, as well as if there's someone on the team that's driving a vision or a road map. Go ahead. 

 

Audience 0:19:02.6: 

So you mean for demand planning you are meant to be planning now, save X or to give them a value is actually or if you hit a strike [unclear word 0:19:16.3] because it is quantifiable. What if you are under the CFO [inaudible 0:19:13.2] the value is much more difficult to gauge and if you want to quantify it. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:19:17.8: 

Yes. 

 

Audience 0:19:18.8: 

How true your mature team assessment model... 

 

Peter Upapong 0:19:23.8: 

Sure. 

 

Audience 0:19:26.2: 

…specifically for finance. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:19:27.4: 

Yes. 

 

Audience 0:19:28.0: 

Do you have some, how do you take that value from going from a level three to a level four, maybe? 

 

Peter Upapong 0:19:41.7: 

Sure, I guess I'm uniquely able to answer this because I used to be an FP&A director myself. I think the obvious one is if you're looking at revenue, that also can translate in terms of forecast accuracy, but it can only do so far in terms of saying I can drive so much revenue impact. It really depends on your role as the business partner from a revenue standpoint, if you're providing insights in terms of ways to fill gaps for upcoming quarters. If you're playing a role of scorekeeping on revenue, you're probably not going to be able to articulate that much value. Now, for other organizations I think we have strife talk in the last one. They saw ten per cent, double-digit type of improvement in terms of forecast accuracy, and they had their first time able to have a full revenue rate card, and that's all coming from the finance organization. If they're driving and leading the way in terms of visibility in terms of opportunity, then, yes, you can start justifying revenue impact value there. OpEx becomes really straightforward too. How many times are we looking at peanut butter spread type of cost cuts or are we looking at that we've been surgical with maybe ZBB or more so in terms of finding opportunities to take out cost. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:21:02.5: 

I think the reality, also in terms of cycle time study that I've done a number of, you would hope the majority of OpEx time is spent on workforce planning and get those figured out, but the majority of time and effort is focused on these trendable line items. We have so many people involved, just doing basic trending, which is like, why are we doing this? Why are we spending so much effort here? We could be really driving the business partnering discussion around hiring, around strategic resourcing. Could we advance the capabilities around workforce planning so we're talking about skills? There's one organization that's so focused on this, not only in terms of global resource mismanagement, but also how do I factor contingent resources in a strategic way, where finance is driving that discussion? Not HR, nor operations. Then obviously you can get into CapEx, that whole component and connecting into strategic scenario planning that sits maybe above LRP. I would say for that component, you would need to think about also where those strategic niches are sitting and starting today. Some organizations have them sitting in more like a COO organization and not financialized fully. If you had a strong position in driving out strategic initiatives within finance and the financialization of them, then you can find more value in terms of tying out specific project-level projects with strategic initiatives. Say, hey, you're driving the way in terms of bridging those things together. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:22:45.0: 

I guess long story short, the answer to your question, I think, to move from a level three to a level four would be dependent on the particular process. It's probably harder in revenue unless you're playing that role. OpEx tends to be the easiest one to find cost cuts in, and say, we've been driving that, because we created those driver trees. We created all those things, right? We've created that cost clarity. I think, I mean, if you can do right by finance, you'd say, hey, I'm the organization that's driving the language of performance across the organization. Can you layer in financialization across those other functions that maybe don't have multi-quarter outlooks? That have been so focused on maybe in-quarter. That's how, I think, you can add a ton of value that moves up maturity. Did I answer? I don't know. Was that helpful? I don't know. 

 

Audience 0:23:47.3: 

Yes, it was a hard question, right?  

 

Peter Upapong 0:24:01.2: 

Yes. 

 

Audience 0:23:58.1: 

[Inaudible 23:58.2] efficiencies, right? 

 

Peter Upapong 0:23:58.8: 

Yes. 

 

Audience 0:23:58:9 

What other value can be linked [inaudible 0:24:01.3] value rather than direct value, so that's [unclear words 0:24:11.5]. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:24:14.8: 

Sure. 

 

Audience 0:24:17.5: 

We sit squarely in the CFO's organization. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:24:18.4: 

Yes. 

 

Audience 0:24:18.6: 

As we sit in the CFO's organization, it's, like, all this [unclear words 0:24:23.4] forecast [unclear word 0:24:27.6] that will give you a reforecast maybe, and those kinds of things like now, yes, we can see it, but now, hey, like how exactly [unclear words 0:24:37.8] what's the value, right? 

 

Peter Upapong 0:24:41.1: 

Sure. 

 

Audience 0:24:42.9: 

A little more difficult. Capital aside, we can probably make some arguments in terms of looking for better cash management, maybe inventory of [unclear words 0:24:45.4]. 

 

Peter Upapong 0:24:57.0: 

I think something else you can think about that I touched on earlier, too, was around how you dictate and drive management review cadence as well as level of planning, right? If you're driving further depth, further dimensionality in terms of your planning, then I think you can, you're shifting your role as we're keeping track of this and various explanations to saying we're doing the analysis that justifies that we're driving impact and business. Again, I think it's how your role as it sits in the finance, how do you play that business partnering role? Where you are having a seat at the table, and your analysis is leading to the position making, I think workforce planning becomes also a great one to take ownership of as well. 

 

Audience 0:25:48.3: 

Yes.  

 

Peter Upapong 0:25:55.2: 

Cool. Any other questions? Alright, well, I won't keep you. You have the BVS team here for you. I think that's the important thing. Whether you're assessing value, you want to see what good looks like, you want to have benchmarks from other organizations, you want to go, hey, I just did one where we walked through an LRP process, and I share what best practice process looks like. They had to rethink their existing process. They had an existing footprint. They had LRP in Anaplan, and they said, okay, well, we don't have all these components. Those are elements where our team can certainly help in a non-competitive way, sharing information in terms of what is successful and maybe at some of your peers. Yes, well, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate everyone here, and let's go and have some drinks. 

 

Audience 0:26:47.0: 

[Applause.]