I recently demonstrated Optimizer, a new Anaplan capability at the Thorogood BI & Analytics Update seminar in London. It was a popular session so I thought I’d record a video to share here on our new Perspectives hub. Here’s the premise…

Large organizations are often faced with daunting multi-dimensional business challenges. Ongoing changes in the business and macro environment compound these situations and the need to find the optimum solution fast is key to maintaining a healthy business. Optimizer provides business planners with a simplified way, without requiring programming skills, to consider billions of possible solutions to find the best outcome based on the objective when presented with multiple potential permutations to solve a business issue. many complex questions, from pricing and staffing to capitalization, asset utilization, and much more.

So what does this mean for users? Well, they can define objectives, such as revenue or profit maximization, or cost reduction, then set multiple variables or constraints to guide the planning process. Using linear programming techniques, Optimizer determines pathways to the best outcomes for many challenging, multi-variable decisions with enormous speed.

For me, the real sweet spot with Anaplan Optimizer is the combination of the speed of problem-solving in conjunction with Anaplan’s ability to flex assumptions and inputs. This provides a perfect environment for what-if and scenario modeling, allowing users to immediately understand the impact of business changes on the model and update plans fast. I’ve recorded a short video to give you an idea of how this could be used …

If you’d like to know more about Anaplan, Optimizer, or if you’ve got any other Anaplan challenges, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email.

Howard