Anaplan
Careers at Anaplan
Mission
Anaplan’s mission is to change how business aligns people and plans to market opportunities.
Founding story
Michael Gould was a developer who had strong opinions about existing vendor architecture. Specifically, he believed that it could not support the next generation of planning software, thanks to disconnected legacy applications and outdated technologies. So with his colleague Guy Haddleton, he founded Anaplan in Yorkshire, UK in 2006 -- a company devoted to coming up with a solution.
The men spent two years working on a planning platform that could take advantage of new computing abilities, including 64-bit multi core processing, in-memory computing, SaaS delivery, and database innovation. By 2008 they had created Hyperblock, a technology that enabled organizations to have a single modeling environment and recalculate large models at a spreadsheet-like speed.
Based on its promise, the company was able to raise $5.5 million in Series A funding in 2010. In October of that year it officially unveiled its product, and soon landed its first client, Jive Software. In 2011 it was named a“Company to Watch“ by FSN, and by 2012 it had garnered many prominent customers, including HP, McAfee, and Pandora.
The next few years saw more growth. By 2014 Anaplan had 15,000 users. It also acquired Vue Analystics; opened offices in Stockholm, Paris, Singapore, and Amsterdam; and raised $100 million in funding in a Series D round led by DFJ Growth, its largest-ever investment. In 2015 its number of employees, customers, and revenues more than doubled. By 2016 it had a $1 billion valuation.
Benefits at Anaplan
Business model of Anaplan
Customer Segments
Anaplan has a mass market business model, with no significant differentiation between customer segments. The company targets its offerings at organizations of all industries and sizes.
Value Proposition
Anaplan offers three primary value propositions: accessibility, performance, and brand/status.
The company creates accessibility by providing a wide variety of options. Its platform enables clients and partners to build their own apps on the Anaplan App Hub, which has more than 150 apps. The apps can be applied to a broad range of processes, from financial forecasting/budgeting to sales performance optimization to call center operations.
The company demonstrates strong performance through tangible results. Specific positive outcomes for clients include the following:
- Del Monte used Anaplan’s solutions to implement an integrated planning/budgeting system across channels, resulting in a reduction in budgeting time from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 days
- ServiceMax used Anaplan’s solutions to replace an array of spreadsheets and introduce a complex modeling solution, resulting in a 40% reduction in cycle time with first run through
- ZBB used Anaplan’s solutions to replace legacy systems unable to handle granular budget models, resulting in cost savings of up to 25% on support functions and overhead
- Riksbyggen used Anaplan’s solutions to create a unified monthly management report, resulting in a reduction in data aggregation time from one day per month to a few hours per month
- Tableau used Anaplan’s solutions to streamline updates from system-of-record data sources, resulting in a reduction in weekly hours needed to manage workforce planning from 30 to 10
The company has established a strong brand due to its success. It experienced 100% revenue growth year-over-year in 2016. It has over 100,000 employees operating out of 17 offices worldwide. It has more than 600 customers in 21 countries. Its prominent clients include United Airlines, VMware, Del Monte, Verizon, Boston Scientific, Intel, HP, and P&G. Lastly, it has won many honors, including:
- Recognition as a “Leader“ in the Forrester Wave: Enterprise Performance Management, Q4 2016
- Recognition as a “Visionary“ in the Gartner Strategic Corporate Performance Management (SCPM) Magic Quadrant, 2016
- Recognition as one of Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise Software
- The 2016 CTO Award for Innovation from Morgan Stanley
- Ranking on Forbes‘ first-ever “World’s Best 100 Cloud Companies“ list in 2016
Channels
Anaplan’s main channel is its direct sales team. The company promotes its offerings through its website, social media pages, and participation in conferences. It hosts an annual conference called Anaplan Hub, where it invites clients, prospects, employees, and partners to network and learn.
Customer Relationships
Anaplan’s customer relationship is primarily of a self-service nature. Customers utilize the service through the main platform while having limited interaction with employees. The company’s website features a “Resources“ section that includes useful tools such as papers, data sheets, case studies, demos, webinars, and videos. The site also offers on-demand training courses featuring videos.
Despite this orientation, there is a personal assistance component. The company offers phone, e-mail, and live chat customer support. It also provides personal training on its products in four formats: classroom instructor-led, virtual instructor-led, online private training, and on-site private training. Training is delivered by company consultants.
Key Activities
Anaplan’s business model entails maintaining and updating a robust platform and developing related software for its customers.
Key Partners
Anaplan’s key partners are consulting firms that are experts on its platform. They build and deploy apps and provide advisory services to the company’s clients.
Specific partners include Accenture, Deloitte, NetSuite, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Workforce Insight, and Bedford Consulting. Anaplan provides partners with access to training, marketing resources, and its Partner Portal.
Key Resources
Anaplan’s main resource is its proprietary software platform, which serves over 600 customers.
It depends on human resources in the form of the engineering employees that maintain and update the platform and develop software, the sales employees that promote it, the training employees that provide instruction, and the customer service personnel that provide support.
Lastly, it has relied heavily on funding from investors, raising $239.9 million from 14 investors as of January 2016.
Cost Structure
Anaplan has a cost-driven structure, aiming to minimize expenses through significant automation. Its biggest cost driver is likely sales/marketing, a fixed cost. Other major drivers are in the areas of customer support/operations and administration, both fixed costs.
Revenue Streams
Anaplan has two revenue streams: revenues it generates from subscriptions to its platform and revenues it generates from sales of related services (e.g., training).
