Anaplan Strategic Workforce Planning

Demo it only if someone can build your plan on it

Anaplan's customer stories report lower costs and faster planning

• In one division of 60,000 full-time equivalent staff, a Fortune 500 bank cut 30% of open vacancies as not needed. Anaplan estimates that filling just a quarter of those cut roles would have cost more than $125 million.
• The Executive Centre cut its long-range planning cycle from one month to one week. It now updates its forecast every month, instead of twice a year.

Customer stories with a headcount all show at least 2,000 staff

• If you employ fewer than 2,000 people, ask Anaplan for a named customer with fewer than 2,000 employees.
• The Executive Centre links Anaplan to SAP SuccessFactors, its HR system. Its workforce forecasts use live payroll data as a result. If you run SuccessFactors, ask to see that link in your demo.
• Anaplan's listing on G-Cloud, the UK government's buying site, says partners train clients to build models on their own. Training from a partner suits you if you want your own staff to run the plan in the end.

Your team or a partner builds the plan, and subscriptions cannot drop

BT has run its own workforce planning models on Anaplan for about five years. A Fortune 500 bank built its workforce plan on Anaplan, starting in 2019. The Executive Centre's own Anaplan team set up its data links without outside help. So decide who on your side will build and maintain the model.

The only public copy of Anaplan's contract is a Google Cloud Marketplace edition from November 2018. It says your fees cannot be cancelled or refunded. It also says you cannot cut the number of subscriptions you bought during the term. So you still owe the fee for every subscription until the term ends, even if fewer people use it.

Anaplan's 2018 Google Cloud Marketplace contract gives you 30 days after it ends to take your data out. Anaplan's data protection terms, version 2025.1, also delete your account and remaining data after 30 days. Plan your export before the contract ends.

No published price, and Anaplan's own help costs extra

Anaplan publishes no price for Strategic Workforce Planning or its other planning products. Ask for a written quote that covers the subscription and any help to build the plan.

Anaplan Professional Services cover setup, training and advice. Anaplan's 2018 Google Cloud Marketplace contract sells them apart from the subscription. If you want Anaplan's help to build the plan, you pay for it on top.

Anaplan's G-Cloud listing gives UK public bodies a discount that grows with the yearly contract value. The discount is 5% under £250,000 a year and rises in steps to 30% over £5,000,001. Ask Anaplan whether it gives volume discounts like these outside UK government.

What to ask Anaplan before you sign

1. Who will build our plan, how long will it take, and what will Anaplan's help cost? Good answer: named people, a timeline and one price, in writing.
2. Does the tool, or Workforce Analyst, predict anything about a named employee? Good answer: a plain yes or no, in writing. The EU AI Act lists employment uses in Annex III. A system on that list is always high-risk once it profiles people. From 2 December 2027, employers in the EU must tell workers' representatives and affected workers before the system is used.
3. Does this tool track this year’s approved and open roles, or do we need Operational Workforce Planning? Good answer: the product that does it, and its price.
4. Which outside labour-market data feeds our scenarios, and does it cost extra? Good answer: the named data supplier and its price.
5. Does your current contract still stop us cancelling fees or cutting subscriptions during the term? Good answer: the current contract, sent in writing.
6. Can we have more than 30 days to take our data out when we leave? Good answer: a longer period and an export process, in writing.
7. If our Finance team already uses Anaplan, what does adding Strategic Workforce Planning cost? Good answer: one written figure for workforce planning alone.

Alternatives to Anaplan

The main alternatives to Anaplan are Pigment, Workday Adaptive Planning, Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning and Orgvue. Pigment gives you ready-made templates to adapt, so your team starts from a model. Carta, a Pigment customer, still took 12 weeks to build its plan with Pigment's own modelling team.

Workday Adaptive Planning is Workday's finance planning software, and it covers workforce plans. A setup wizard links it to Workday HCM. Ask Workday who builds the plan. If Workday HCM is your HR system, that link is the reason to demo it first.

Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning loads employee data from Oracle Fusion HCM, Oracle's HR system. You or a partner set up its demand drivers, the business figures that decide how many staff you need. Oracle says it predicts the performance and attrition of individual employees and teams. Demo it if you run Oracle Fusion HCM, and ask how it uses those predictions.

You build your plan on Orgvue with its own consultants, called Expert Services, or with a partner. Orgvue's Order Forms add 7% a year to the price through the term. Compare that yearly rise with Anaplan's quote over the full term.

If you want a method that comes ready-built, look at Nakisa or Visier. Nakisa's tool reviews your workforce, then sets out options to close the gap. Visier's planning tool starts you from one of four ready planning models.