Mikael Schwarzman 0:00:05.3: 

Our audience is familiar with your companies. Why don’t we get [sic] also, familiarize our audience a little bit with you? Carl-Johan, can you tell us a little bit about your career trajectory that’s led you to the role you have?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:00:17.2:

Yes, sure. Yes, so I worked fifteen-plus years in different finance roles, implementing different systems, BA tools, etc. I joined Anticimex six years ago and I’m now the head of business control at the group. I think what’s interesting about the business control part of finance is that we are looking at the historical data, analyzing that, the forward-looking with the planning, and also the different dimension that we work with the HQ, top-down, but also bottom-up with different KPIs, so that’s where I kind of... Anaplan is in the middle of that, yes, so that’s where we are.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:01:02.8:

Great. How about you Tim?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:01:04.7:

Well, I started in banks and then also came from pension funds, mainly working with illiquid investments. One of the funds we actually owned was CIP and then I applied, I got a job. They were working with Anaplan, and first I’m sitting in the valuation team where we are [unclear word 0:01:19.8], of course, valuation, but also consolidation, different sensitivities. I think in general we use Anaplan in a very different way than a lot of other customers, but that’s also the interesting thing, because where I come from, normally we were used to looking back in time, so we were using the present to explain how everything actually was when looking back in time. But now what we’re actually doing is we’re looking 30, 40, 50 years into the future to actually explain the present, so it’s a very different way that we’re actually working, and that’s also one of the reasons that we choose Anaplan. 

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:01:52.6:

Great. Can you tell us a little bit more about the business challenge you are solving with Anaplan?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:01:57.9:

Yes, so you could say for us it is that we really have to use a lot of sensitivities, like, we are growing so quickly and we have a lot of different challenges because what we do different compared to our competitors is that a lot of them work with what we call brownfield, which means that they actually buy projects when they’re actually finished, where we actually have developed them from the bottom, which means we have a way bigger complexity in that regard. That also means that if the winter is not blowing or we might have a hailstorm, we have to be able to always predict what is going to happen to have investor alignment.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:02:37.1:

Great, exciting. Carl-Johan, how about you? What is the main business challenge or problem you were [over speaking 0:02:42.8]?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:02:42.6:

It’s similar to what people have described there this afternoon, that a lot of Excel-based work, time-consuming, error-proned, but I think for us it has been also to be able to... We’re a growing company, like our CEO explained, it’s a very decentralized business model. They have local entrepreneurs, different maturity level in different companies that we operate, so for us, of course it’s very important to be able to scale the finance department, not to... We are grown. We are doubled in size over the last four, five years, so instead of just adding people to the team, we have been able to scale with Anaplan. We are the same amount of people in the finance department today on the business control. Also similar to what other people talked about, we want to increase the quality, the business insight that we give to our stakeholders so the executive management, but also for ourselves doing the analysis. I think the third, and I think there was actually one presentation that had the exact same three - I think it was Vestas that had the exact same three, it was also the efficiency part of the... We have 30-plus platforms across the globe, and if we can help them to save a bit of time every month, that helps the efficiency. We have done management reporting in Anaplan, so instead of people creating PowerPoints, we automate graphs, etc., so focusing on the insights, so those are the three, scalability, quality, efficiency.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:04:27.4:

Great. Could you share a little bit how things were before Anaplan?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:04:31.5:

Yes, it was the opposite, but nobody... It was more manual, much more... Someone else said it earlier as well that it was more on demand so, ‘Can you help us with this?’ We run back to our computers and start to run the numbers. Now, it’s more, we can be more proactive and pull out the number and have them and know them beforehand, so much more [?managing 0:05:00.8], much more stress. Now we are, kind of, capped away some of these peaks with the workload, so I think it helped. It has helped us a lot.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:05:13.2:

How do you think people are able now to work differently, that that information is at their fingertips?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:05:21.6:

It helps us in... Just an example. Now we have dashboards for our executive management team, so they can... Our CEO, who you saw here on [unclear words 0:05:32.2], he can pull up the numbers. We try to utilize the app as well, so he can actually pull up the numbers when he’s travelling, when he’s meeting people. We have 250 local branch offices, so for him, for us as well, it’s impossible to know all the numbers so he can have it and it’s on his cell phone or laptop or whatever all the time, so that has helped us a lot in the decision-making.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:06:00.3:

Tim, how were things at CIP before Anaplan?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:06:03.4:

Well, in CIP, actually a fun story was when I started, right after I started about two years ago, we went to [?Graftik 0:06:10.1] and we had to stand up compared to when we started, and one stood up, then two, then four, and it ended up seventy per cent of the people stood up in the last two years, so for us it was not that much, and if, [?but a win 0:06:21.7], because everything was done in Excel and we still use Excel a lot, and for us we could not choose the software where we would not have the right flexibility. So for us, it was, like, well, we had Anaplan. We keep on having demands on what is a fixed [unclear words 0:06:35.2] and our solutions is so various. We have so many different themes that use Anaplan, and we solve so many different [?tasks 0:06:43.8]. We have a very huge model that will never be able to be done in Excel, so for us, it’s just been keep on improving our system, keep on keeping up with demand and both make our partners, investors and everyone involved happy.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:07:00.3:

What would you say are probably the greatest value that you get out of partner working with Anaplan?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:07:06.0:

Of course, it’s standardization, I think that’s really important, but also the fact that we actually have billions of data points that is changing every quarter, so for us to do this in something like Excel, or also maybe had a system where we’re not able to keep on improving it and building new solutions. I think that is what excels in Anaplan, so when we actually take Anaplan as the solution and we keep on building, but also have a system where we can go back in time, track the changes that have been done, and also actually have a development environment where we can test off and do stuff, but also have our key production environment that keep on working for everyone. That is one of the best things for our situation.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:07:45.1:

Great. You, Carl-Johan?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:07:47.8:

I think we have, of course, we are more professional, I mean, at our basis control, FP&A team, we can deliver a better product, I think, that’s - to our stakeholders, but also locally we have implemented budget modelling in several of our different regions, and just to be able to fund the group, provide already a, not a pre-built model, but to say this is a product that we recommend. We can help you set it up to be able to also save a lot of money across the company by using one tool, instead of having everyone running around buying different things.

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:08:35.7:

Also, the integration with other softwares, I think that’s really important as well. You have to be able to always get information from your data warehouse and different other places. Also, Excel, the integration that we have with Excel is also really important, so I think for that situation, that people can actually sit, build the model in Excel and always extract the right data from Anaplan. That is really important from our end that you don’t have to look around and find the right spreadsheet.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:09:00.9:

Great, so thank you for the positive words. Now, a little bit about the challenges. What were the greatest challenges you had to overcome to reach the success that you’re describing to us now, Tim? 

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:09:11.5:

I think it generally was that we have a lot of stakeholders and also demand is always changing, so I think for us, that we kept on finding out what we actually need, so what is actually need and what is nice to have. Then staff, what is needed and then trying to say, okay, when we actually solve these different steps, that we can actually provide a solution that we can push into production and then our end users can start using it, because when you have a lot of different people to have to do different kind of analysis, then it’s really important that we have a good solution.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:09:43.4:

Carl-Johan? 

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:09:44.4:

We didn’t have either a BA tool or a planning tool at the group before Anaplan, so first I think, at least for me, it was very important to have some quick wins, low-hanging fruit, to show that we are - that the investment that we making is making sense, so building some... We did a business planning tool that helped us a lot, and we had four consultants making that implementation, but I think also it was very important for us to establish our in-house knowledge as well. I think today we have about five model builders. Two of them are here somewhere and they are... It’s a great combination to have that in-house and to also be able to run bigger projects with external consultants, so those I think... Now we can manage most of it ourselves.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:10:47.4:

Can you share a little bit of your future vision? 

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:10:50.9:

Yes, I think it’s... We are a service company so we are not product-... To some extent we do produce product as well, but we don’t have the same kind of demand planning or big models, but I think we can still work more to implement budgets and forecasting, so now we’re running a project this year to improve the budgeting process. I think we can leverage the management reporting more to be able to do monthly board reports, investor reports, the quarterly and annual reports at some point as well, instead of having agencies, etc., doing that.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:11:34.7:

Tim?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:11:35.1:

Well, I think especially optimization, we really need to have to be able to move data around, but also data diligence where you have so much data that flows into a system over time and you record it, it’s really important that you can trust that data. Also, I think we are looking into building more reports in Anaplan so we can serve them live to our stakeholders. Then we are also trying to build smaller models that can actually support different functions, so in that way we can actually have more people that only have to do one task and then all the models actually feed data between each other, and that’s something that we’re working a lot on.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:12:12.1:

Do you have an example of one of those smaller models?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:12:15.1:

Yes. We have one that is used for more smaller sensitivities so it’s like... We have our [?big 0:12:23.0] model that have to solve everything, and where people do changes they have to see it in the whole [?big 0:12:28.4] perspective. Sometimes you only want to see certain KPIs and in that situation you really just need to only do a part of the calculations. In the other way, we also have a clone model I think that is real nice. We have our production environment, but every day we actually take all the data and push it into a clone environment, and in there, people can do whatever they want and we know the data will reset the next day, so we have no risk in that regard.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:12:55.5:

What is the craziest thing you saw them do? 

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:12:57.8:

People do a lot of stuff, and the fun part is you can go back in time and track it, so like... I think everyone has worked with Excel and at some points some numbers disappear or change, but here you can actually go in and find who did it, so it might be the same person who actually asked the question but did it a week ago and forgot about it.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:13:14.4:

Interesting. I do have more questions but being mindful of time, I would like to give an opportunity to the audience to ask some questions as well. Do we have some questions from the room? Do we also have a volunteer mic runner?

 

Unknown speaker 0:13:31.7:

[Unclear words 0:13:31.7].

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:13:32.4:

Yes, great. Questions? Then I’ll ask one more.

 

Unknown speaker 0:13:42.1:

We’ve got one.

 

Audience 0:13:42.9:

We’ve been hearing about very good things about Anaplan, so maybe my question is about what do you think that Anaplan should improve based on what you have been using, and what would make it better?

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:14:02.0:

Shall I start?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:14:03.1:

Yes, you can start.

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:14:06.8:

We have been a customer for four years or so and I think the management report, as an example, when we started using it maybe three, four years ago, it was maybe not at the level that we wanted but, so we put that in the drawer for some time. Then we had seen that the product or the feature has developed, so now I think it’s really good so it has... That is one part. Also, I think what we are struggling with is more the admin part too, but of course, that comes with any system that you implement, that someone has to be responsible for who is the user, who should have access to what, so - but it’s a different... We have to learn how to work with that, but that will be my - if someone in Anaplan is listening, admin control.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:15:04.0:

I’m making notes for you.

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:15:06.8:

Yes, I think we’re generally really happy that we have the solution, because we can build so many different things, but I know it’s been fixed [unclear words 0:15:13.2], but we don’t have that model, but we had a big issue with all these serials that allocated a lot of space. We had to rebuild our whole model. That has solved it, but I think that was one of our key issues. Then also what we do is quite heavy calculations so that’s also something that we have to work on because we do it in a specific way, but you can also say it’s still ten times faster than Excel, so it’s comparing what you are actually, yes, what you compare it with.

 

Audience 0:15:38.2:

Yes, thank you guys. Could you maybe just talk us through a little bit the human angle of implementing Anaplan? Did you experience some resistance from some people, or - and how did you overcome it?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:15:54.6:

Actually, I started after we implemented it, so I think our case is actually a good one because we only used external consultants and that both meant that of course nobody actually knew the model what they left, so that was where I came in. I rebuilt all of it, so I think I was - there was some of it... I think personally that having internal resources is super great, and I think I did half of the model build, of course, then in two weeks I start fixing bugs, so it is a really easy software to get into. If you have worked with any kind of programming or just are good in Excel, I think you’re already really far ahead in terms of learning to use Anaplan.

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:16:35.4:

Yes, I think it’s a bit similar for us. We have not built super big models like some of the things we are seeing here today, but in the implementation, I think we have had really good helpful consultants, but I guess that we also wanted to have the in-house knowledge so that we can fix stuff ourselves, so want to be part of that. Of course, there’s pushback here and there when you want to implement new, change things, but I think we had also been a bit mindful of the fact that some of our companies are at a different maturity level than others, so we have started with the ones that are mature, that can see the benefit of, example, for a custom budget model, we’ll help them first and then we’re kind of... It has grown a bit organically. Someone hears that, okay, this is working good for us and then we have moved on to the next platform or country, so it has been a bit different.

 

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:17:35.8:

I think actually I will take a shot at that question because in Anaplan we use Anaplan to plan our business obviously, and one of the things in the way we drive change management is in our business reviews, PowerPoints are not allowed [?as a forum 0:17:49.0] because with PowerPoint you take the data out of system, you manipulate it and then you present how your business looks like. Well, we do this in Anaplan, so if I want to manipulate the numbers and say here, I’ve done some overrides and here is the reality, the full cost, how the business should look like in the future, we just do it straight into the system. I build the company, eight, nine months. Yes, my first business review was very challenging because it's very uncomfortable to go there and sit in the [unclear word 0:18:15.8]. Everybody can see, it’s 100 per cent transparency. I can’t go in the night before and build some graphs to say and this is how I’m going to make everything magic again. We have to show it in the data. Once you get there, the quality I would say of the business reviews that I’m in is totally different to many, many high-tech companies I’ve been in in the past 20-plus years. I have one final question for the gentlemen. What advice would you give to someone who is new to this, maybe encounters the world of Anaplan for the first time today? In a way if you were able to go back and start over, or if you would start with a totally white sheet of paper, what would you do differently?

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:19:00.1:

Yes, so I think from our perspective it was that when you have so many Excel spreadsheets that work together, you actually have a big bunch of spaghetti, and in this spaghetti you have so many pain points that you have to solve, so actually trying to understand how everything should work together, but also just get into it, because the more you use it, the more you learn. First of all, find out what you need and not what is nice to have because then you know that it will actually be used and that will also create better data diligence, but also just go into it and then try to find out what is actually the best method of making a strong model.

 

Carl-Johan Roman 0:19:37.0:

Yes, I think it’s... It’s been pretty good, the implementation and everything, so I don’t think there’s anything I would change dramatically but I think in the way we have maybe to structure the data more from the beginning, but there was also a reason for not doing a big IT project from the beginning, because then it would’ve felt like a much bigger implementation, so we... I would suggest to start, find some small things like Tim said, to step-by-step try to learn the system, and then build it out after that need that you see, so not do a big bang or anything. We didn’t do that, at least.

 

Tim Emil Lentz Schmidt 0:20:24.6:

Also, your first plan does have to be your last. You can just build one and then if you find out you can build it smarter, then you can use the old model to build a new one, just in an upgraded version.

 

Mikael Schwarzman 0:20:36.5:

Great, fantastic. Thank you very much, gentlemen.