1) Anaplan for Sales Named a Leader in Sales Performance Management
Announced at Hub 17, Anaplan for Sales has been recognized by Gartner as a Leader in 2017, moving up from the Challengers Quadrant in the previous 2016 report. Gartner cited the company’s vision and execution of its solution as driving factors in this upward shift. You can read the full Anaplan press release here.
2) Connected Planning Becomes the Focus
Anaplan announced massive improvements over the coming year to enable businesses to take advantage of connected planning across the entire organization. As early as release 2017.2, you will be able to view the new (and appropriately named) “Business Map” - which depicts all your models across your entire Anaplan workspace in one location.
The Business Map visualizes exactly how data flows between models within the software and what external systems are providing and consuming this data. This makes it even easier to split out separate models for Account Segmentation, Territory & Quota Planning, and Incentive Compensation Management and link them together in exactly the way you need.
3) Improved Approvals Workflow Allows For Advanced Customization
When it comes to approvals, Anaplan is planning a number of improvements to enable custom workflows based on the processes that you build for your organization, maximizing the value you get out of your solution. With this future update you’ll be able to create distinct approval workflows. This means that if adding sales reps to your organizational hierarchy requires approvals from HR, while changes in quota only needs sign off from Regional VPs or Sales Operations, you can create these rules and push a workflow that fits your unique business needs.
4) Process-Based Notification Changes to Increase User Efficiency
One of our number one customer questions when it comes to Anaplan is: “Are there automatic notifications for when user-action is required within a process?”
While action-driven notifications are possible in Anaplan today, future releases will include the ability to have those notifications sent out automatically as a process moves forward.
This upgrade offers significant improvements to organizational efficiency. You’ll be able to plan next year’s sales territories and rep quotas, while maintaining changes to those same items in the current year, without you or your team losing sight of how far along in the process you are.
5) Permanent Personalized Dashboards Expand Model Effectiveness
In today’s Anaplan environment, contributors are able to adjust dashboard filters and pivots on the fly to get the best view possible of their data. A future release will add the ability for contributors to permanently save these custom views for future use. This allows even infrequent users of Anaplan to get the most out of your models, while your model builders are free to build additional functionality to strengthen your overall sales planning process.
Do you have questions on how you can make the best use of these new features within your Anaplan system? Reach out to Intangent today.