Deliver Quick T&Q Success With an Anaplan App
By: Russell Gummelt
When you're responsible for overseeing a sales team, your technological setup can make all the difference in terms of efficiency, accuracy and overall success.
Working with the right territory and quota (T&Q) solution is a way to gain visibility into the department's operations, all while automating manual processes to free up time for value-adding work. As a highly configurable and feature-packed planning solution, Anaplan can offer you the suite of T&Q options your business needs.
You don't have to go through a protracted process to unlock that T&Q value from Anaplan, either. Working with an expert partner like Allitix on a configured and streamlined app implementation allows you to shorten your path to value and start achieving positive returns quickly.
Adding Anaplan as a configured app doesn't mean you'll receive a diminished or limited version of the platform. This is a real Anaplan implementation, built with best practices and meant to lead to a faster return on investment (ROI). It is just what your sales team needs to stay ahead of the curve.
What Are Anaplan's T&Q Features?
Using an app implementation focused on territory and quota planning grants you access to a best-in-class suite of T&Q offerings. These include:
Quota Scenario Modeling and Analysis: Comparing multiple future scenarios for your sales team (base, best- and worst-case outcomes) allows you to lay out more detailed, actionable targets.
Account Potential Analysis: Breaking down sales projections and potential at the account level allows for easy prioritization and oversight.
Quota Allocation: It's possible to set quotas from both the top down and the bottom up, depending on the scenario. Top-down allocation is best for setting company-wide targets, whether based on past data or addressable market numbers. Bottom-up methodologies derive from team leaders based on their own knowledge. Allocating at the individual representative level supports seasonal effects and other expected variances.
Flexible Assignment Processes: No matter how your organization assigns reps to territories, you can bring that method into Anaplan. It's possible to run rule-based territory assignment or do it manually. Other features include manual rep, overlay, sales leader and sales ops assignment.
Global and Named Account Management: Companies that manage large-scale accounts, transcending territories, can assign these accounts directly to the responsible reps and support personnel. Assignment of these accounts should align with the organization's bottom-up planning efforts.
Overlay Management: Employees whose quotas are based around consulting and helping with multiple accounts are easily trackable through Anaplan's T&Q features. This means tracking progress as team members assist subregion managers.
Dynamic Approval Processes: Approvals on sales team targets can proceed from the bottom up or the top down, with automatic notifications for responsible parties. There are also tools to review and sign off on sales reps and teams' activities.
Reports, Dashboards and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Anaplan includes numerous tools for tracking the progress of various departments, regions, accounts or individuals. These include frequently updated dashboards and scheduled reports, all keyed to metrics that make sense for a specific business.
The core functionality of the T&Q app and its included features is to:
Assign every sales rep and team a realistic target that reflects the actual conditions of their work and the company's overall goals.
Plan for multiple scenarios that would make it easier or harder to attain individual and overall goals.
Track results regarding the performance of the sales team as compared to their goals and the market conditions.
With a streamlined way to produce these accurate and actionable numbers, your sales team is free to spend less time on manual calculations and more time on value-adding work.
Why Use an App To Implement Anaplan for T&Q?
When you have a specific use case in mind for an organizational Anaplan implementation — in this case, T&Q oversight — an app approach can accelerate your path to value. The concept behind Anaplan apps is that they comprise a selection of modules patterned around a specific theme, set up following best practices and ready for configuration.
Breaking the long list of Anaplan use cases down to just the functionality you need, without irrelevant options, allows you to shave time off the early parts of the implementation process. Some of the advanced configuration work is already complete, which allows you to stay focused on making the adjustments that will tailor the modules to suit your specific T&Q preferences and practices.
Time to value is a key metric when considering a platform like Anaplan. The T&Q app implementation process, led by Allitix's team of experts, ensures you start making back your investment as quickly as possible. This in turn leads to favorable total cost of ownership (TCO) numbers, as the returns start rolling in.
How Does Anaplan Configuration Work With an App?
Implementing Anaplan via the T&Q app is remarkably straightforward, considering the open-ended nature of the platform. By focusing on specific modules, processes that would normally involve building models and user experiences from scratch are simplified to button-pushing.
The Allitix approach to app implementation comes down to three phases:
Configure: The initial setup for the T&Q app involves a guided setup process built by Allitix's experts. The purpose of this step is to build and configure an Anaplan model that suits your company's departmental structure, naming conventions, assignment rules and more. Rather than manually working with the code, your team simply answers questions, streamlining the initial build and shaving time off of the overall requirements.
Extend: Initial setup is just the beginning of app implementation. The end result is a fully-featured Anaplan deployment, and the extend step is where your team adds on extra functionality beyond the basic T&Q modules. You can add extra modules targeting the sales department or bring in other parts of the company. Anaplan has the ability to target financial and supply chain processes, in addition to sales, meaning this expansion can be significant in scale.
Deploy: The deployment phase is generally the same as in any Anaplan implementation, with User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and expert support. Your company gains access to a full suite of modules and functionality with a user experience tailored to your preferences. The key difference is that you can arrive at this phase far more quickly than in a less structured Anaplan deployment. The app approach has saved time while equipping you with modules that suit your exact needs, in T&Q and beyond.
Allitix follows an agile methodology when setting up and configuring Anaplan deployments. The full build time for your deployment will depend on the number of sprints required to bring your system in line with your needs and expectations.
During the early stages of the implementation, Allitix's experts will determine a fitness score which indicates how much work will be required to implement the T&Q solution. That score is the bespoke measure that determines how many sprints will be necessary, typically between one and four.
What Goes Into an Expert Anaplan Implementation?
An app-based Anaplan implementation is only as good as the partner organization that assists you through the process. This is because while the crux of the app's value comes from the streamlined, quick configuration and deployment process, there is another aspect to consider: whether the modules have been built in line with industry best practices.
Your chosen partner should apply institutional knowledge to build the most effective T&Q capabilities within the Anaplan platform. This dedication to creating an optimized experience is part of the Allitix app deployment process. One of the key considerations during implementation is tailoring the Anaplan solution to fit the needs of your industry.
Since sales departments and T&Q activity transcend several verticals, there is a full spectrum of configuration possible to make sure the relevant modules match your requirements. Companies in the technology, manufacturing and direct-to-consumer sectors, for example, may benefit from Anaplan experiences that conform to their specific situations and needs.
Transform Your T&Q Experience Now
Using an app implementation method takes all the complexity out of Anaplan use, while still providing your organization with the benefits. Allitix is the ideal partner for this quick but study approach to revolutionizing your T&Q processes and sales in general.
Allitix is an experienced Anaplan partner, having earned eight badges from the PartnerAccelerate program to demonstrate proficiency with varied use cases across functions and industries. A team of Allitix experts can guide your business through the early stages of deployment seamlessly, setting you up with all the T&Q features you need and nothing superfluous.
Time to value is remarkably short when you take an app approach to implementation, following the tailored question-based approach forged by Allitix. Following a few quick and purposeful sprints, your new platform will be up and running, and all your personnel will be briefed and trained on the ideal usage of the chosen modules.
To start investigating this smooth, best practices-based approach to Anaplan implementation in sales, contact Allitix today.