TMT companies advance transformation efforts with Anaplan

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Anaplan

The platform for orchestrating performance.

Anaplan Connect is a global event series designed for business leaders that are ready to pave new paths, lead with confidence and drive outstanding outcomes for their business. As an attendee, you’re given access to a dynamic community of industry experts sharing new ways to see, plan, and lead your organization to growth.

We had many customers in technology, media and entertainment, and telecommunications (TMT) discuss how they’re using Anaplan to become catalysts for change at their organizations. Here's a recap on how they’re re-thinking what’s possible to accelerate their transformation journey.

How to prepare for an uncertain future

Whether facing a minor economic downturn or a more severe crisis, it’s impossible to be 100% prepared. To continue driving success in disruptive times, your organization must be enabled to make informed decisions quickly on how you pivot your strategy and redeploy resources. Business leaders in FP&A, sales strategy and workforce joined a panel discussion and shared memorable moments that highlight the transformative impact of the Anaplan platform.

  • Identity and access management company, Okta, recognized spreadsheet limitations, automated workforce planning, and ensured consistency across platforms.
  • Big data processing platform, Databricks, eliminated offline spreadsheets, centralized spending, recruitment, and business partner planning, and achieved efficiencies in handling hiring requests and resolving errors. 
  • Retail data science, insights and media company, 84:51, shifted from manual Excel spreadsheets to automation for headcount planning, gaining instant visibility to drive growth opportunities in their new fiscal year plan.

These customers take pride in the seamless integration across business functions that brought greater efficiency and accuracy to their organizations, enabling confident decision-making.

Watch the video: Dealing with uncertainty in the new normal

Workforce planning as a catalyst for strategic growth

The media and entertainment industry is highly competitive which makes it harder to achieve profitable growth despite the larger market. Electronic Arts (EA), a top video game company, implemented Anaplan in FP&A to streamline processes, break down silos and gain a holistic view of the organization. Since then, they’ve expanded into strategic workforce planning and shared their journey on creating a winning talent strategy and building a business case to drive change across their organization.

The finance department at EA develops budget forecasts for hiring but lacked a means of tracking actual hiring against the budget. They used spreadsheets and manual communication between finance personnel and business leaders. And there was no integration between Workday and their finance system, adding another time-consuming task to their workload.

To overcome these challenges, EA initiated the initial phase of integrated headcount planning, where finance develops financial forecasts for staffing and budget, and any hiring activity is instantly and automatically reflected in real-time. This allows studio staffing to observe micro changes, cost center adjustments, and headcount modifications. The goal is to improve budget forecasting, minimize the variance between budgeted and actual expenses, and evaluate potential overspending on hiring to explore alternative areas to allocate those resources.

Watch the video: Creating a winning talent strategy at EA

The power of finance to accelerate transformation

Financial transformation allows companies to adjust to fast-changing markets, enhance operational efficiency, fuel growth with strategic investments, and ensure long-term sustainability. Autodesk shared their journey and highlighted the realization among business leaders about the need to enhance financial planning. Anaplan helped them overcome challenges with data reconciliation and discrepancies, taking a transformative step to streamline their financial planning processes.

Their journey began by establishing a single, reliable source of data through consolidation and access management. This formed the basis for four key transformation pillars:

1.     Introduce touchless transactions by adopting robotic process automation (RPA) to automate manual processes and workflows.

2.     Focus on transforming financial reporting, aiming to shorten the close time and enhance efficiency.

3.     Enable timely delivery of performance metrics to business partners with real-time insights.

4.     Connect planning and forecasting processes, starting with migrating models to Anaplan and connecting them across the organization.

By continuously assessing and enhancing their Anaplan models, Autodesk aims to increase adoption rates and maximize the value and effectiveness of their planning capabilities.

Watch the video: Transforming finance at Autodesk

Sales management in a dynamic landscape

Adapting to shifts in product and go-to-market (GTM) strategies is complex yet essential for sales organizations in TMT. Genesys, a contact center service provider, discussed their transition from on-premise to cloud-first operations, which included a substantial business model transformation that greatly impacted their planning processes. They successfully deployed Anaplan to implement sales strategies, territories, quotas, segmentation, compensation, and capacity, effectively adapting to their dynamic business environment.

Leaders across the organization found Anaplan to be the ideal solution, offering flexibility and scalability to update planning models seamlessly. The iterative nature of updating models within Anaplan allowed for continual optimization and integration of segmentation, territories, and quotas, enabling agile decision-making and effective account management.

Implementing Anaplan for planning brought significant benefits to Genesys:

  • Enabled quick adaptation and helped achieve growth goals by efficiently adjusting incentives and territory design.
  • Eliminated the need for multiple tools or manual processes, enabling swift adjustments and supporting their transition to a cloud-first company.
  • Streamlined resourcing and effort management, preventing employee burnout throughout the year.

Watch the video: Managing sales performance for success alongside an evolving product and go-to-market (GTM) strategies

Business resilience through demand planning

­Demand planning plays a crucial role for tech companies as it allows them to optimize their production and procurement processes, reducing production overruns and unnecessary costs and ultimately leading to improved profitability. Google shared their demand planning transformation journey that involved realigning sales, operations, finance, and partners on a unified Anaplan platform. The comprehensive transformation program included executive alignment, change management, and adoption, resulting in several business benefits, such as:

  • Coordination and collaboration of planning activities—involving 150+ users from sales, operations, and finance— linked to Systemic Master Data.
  • Established a centralized planning system that synchronized and published processes across various product lines, enabling scalable business reporting.
  • Automated move orders from central distribution centers to mini fulfillment centers, enabling touchless Order Management and Omnichannel Fulfillment.
  • Reduced plan costing and budget approval time while enhancing customer engagement with CPFR process through exception-based dashboards.

Watch the video: The drumbeat of Google consumer hardware demand planning

Organization alignment and performance

Organizational transformation is vital for success in the fast-paced TMT sectors. HP Inc. and Synopsys Inc., leading global technology companies, discussed how Anaplan drives alignment and change within organizations, sharing their own transformation stories.

HP Inc. faced challenges with fragmented processes and a lack of standardization, leading to fragmented workflows and multiple spreadsheets. Adapting to CEO-driven changes was complex due to the diverse nature of business units. To address these issues, HP Inc. underwent a transformation journey that involved extracting and cleaning data, creating multiple models, and consolidating tools and insights. By leveraging Anaplan, they successfully streamlined and improved planning and forecasting across various functions, including finance, supply chain, category, and operations, spanning different timeframes and geographic regions.

Synopsys initiated a digital transformation project to improve integrated planning by implementing Anaplan in sales operations for territory and quota planning. The success of this implementation led to the adoption of Anaplan in finance for business planning and forecasting. The need for integrated planning arose from the desire for insights into growth, scalability, and margin management, while leadership aimed for data-driven decision-making. Three key drivers influenced Synopsys' choice: strategic improvement, performance optimization through revenue and headcount analysis, and consideration of external factors. With Anaplan, they achieved integrated planning, providing visibility into plans and performance, reducing inconsistencies, and mitigating biases.

Both HP Inc. and Synopsys implemented change management strategies by appointing ambassadors to represent different teams in various markets, monitoring adoption metrics, and facilitating effective communication to support informed decision-making across the organization.

Watch the video: The power of Anaplan to drive organizational transformation with HP Inc. & Synopsys Inc.

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