Gartner Recognizes Anaplan as a Leader for Supply Chain Planning

By: James Snyder

Having worked in supply chain my entire career, I’ve seen two constants for every supply chain planning team: a transactional system (OMS, WMS, IMS, etc.) that keeps everything running, and the work that is done in planning systems.

Let’s be honest, most of that planning work was supposed be done in big, impressive point solutions that had fancy analytics and were built on “best practices”. Though, the reality is that most organizations did most of their analysis and true planning in Excel. The “best practices” solved 70 – 80% of what was needed, but the other 20 – 30% crippled most organizations from yielding the benefits of their investment…and Excel models proliferated.

When I first started working, Excel quickly became my tool as the situation described above was my reality. I loved Excel…I can talk in terms of keyboard shortcuts and VBA. All of the tools I worked with for forecasting demand, managing open to buys, determining capacity needs, planning assortments, calculating transportation exposure, etc.…all excel. This ranged from fortune 5 to 500 companies. However, I was also keenly aware of the limitations and risks associated with Excel. Sound familiar?

Enter Anaplan-. It should be no surprise that Anaplan is now recognized by Gartner as a Leader in Supply Chain Planning. In Anaplan, there are not the limiting factors of “best practices.”. It is a platform that enables organizations to develop business processes and tools that best suit their unique needs. It can scale to the volumes that organizations need, and models can be rapidly built as needed to solve new business challenges as they arise. Anaplan provides the agility needed to support Supply Chain Operations and enables them to absorb the constant change we have seen and will continue to see. Finally, Anaplan can evolve and grow with your organization. You can change your Anaplan model and the accompanying business process based on what you can currently take on while also positioning for your ideal end state is.

Overall, after all my experience in Supply Chain Planning, it isn’t surprising that Gartner called Anaplan up to be a Leader In Supply Chain Planning. To read more about 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Supply Chain Solutions read 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Supply Chain Planning Solutions. If you are thinking about utilizing Anaplan, now is a great time to make the jump. Allitix is an Anaplan Gold Partner with a plethora of clients in Supply Chain Planning. To learn more about supply chain planning and Anaplan please visit our site www.allitix.com or email us at all-in@allitix.com.