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Anaplan vs SAP ERP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (1st), Production Planning (5th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
SAP ERP
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
ERP (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Anaplan and SAP ERP aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Anaplan is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 14.2%, down 16.5% compared to last year.
SAP ERP, on the other hand, focuses on ERP, holds 21.8% mindshare, down 22.1% since last year.
Business Performance Management
ERP
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 09, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Kumaran Singaram - PeerSpot reviewer
May 23, 2023
Effective machine learning, constantly evolving, but price could improve
Anaplan is used for various financial planning, such as supply chain, and consolidation My clients exhibit enhanced efficiency in financial planning, supply chain management, demand planning, and financial consolidation. They possess superior visibility, enabling swift action-taking. The most…
Srinivasan Kuppuswamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 1, 2022
The amazing, robust framework with unlimited scalability earns its #1 status
The solution is not ready for the current e-commerce environment. Its was built for large enterprises who need to predictably optimize their human, material, and financial resources. ERP has evolved and businesses are changing. There are not many large corporations. Most are small enterprises with the capabilities of large enterprises through networking and platform integration. Some companies promote products but get things done with other enterprises as a network. Companies do not want to create new capacity but want to leverage existing capacity with innovative products. They do not want to spend resources on duplicating capacity or facilities. I do not think any ERP product is ready to support this environment so ERPs as a whole might end up being used for back-office functions only. It is not easy to evolve an ERP product because its intent is to integrate functions and processes within an organization. Whereas, in the new business model, processes are not limited to one's own enterprise but cut across different enterprises. There is no enterprise solution as this point in time for the current e-commerce environment so companies must integrate with many solutions.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution scales well."
"Anaplan's most valuable features are that it's a no-coding platform, everything can be scaled to your other functions, and it's easy to learn and use (especially because Anaplan provides excellent interactive training)."
"The most valuable feature of Anaplan is machine learning. The solution is constantly evolving from feedback. Additionally, there is a wide range of training material online."
"Anaplan's strongest feature is that its GUI is very modern and user-friendly."
"It's highly flexible. If you've got a complex environment with complex calculations, you can build that out. So that's a really good positive."
"Anaplan's in-memory calculation engine is super-fast compared to the old tools we previously used. You enter the data and everything shows up in one go."
"Anaplan's scalability stands out compared to other platforms, especially for scenario planning and what-if analysis."
"Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility."
"ERP can help manage all enterprise resources. It brings them together and provides some analytical data to inform management decisions."
"Control and governance are the best features."
"The most valuable features are the ease of installation and the MM functionality."
"The transactional integration of operations is the best-recommended feature of this product. It provides integration of all operational modules."
"MDG provides a central location for governance of the creation/updating processes of master data. It allows you to change several fields in the same object. For example, we can change a field on the purchasing view and change another field on an accounting view to the same material at the same time."
"This is a robust and feature-rich solution."
"The solution is very mature."
"The product connects to every software."
 

Cons

"Anaplan could be improved with a stronger consolidation module."
"It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions."
"There are so many business rules to set up in the system that as a business user it's hard to gauge what they're doing and it's possible to get lost."
"The solution can improve by providing an easier form of integration to different platforms, such as receiving data from different Salesforce. There is a process to do it through the use of some APIs but it could be made much easier. This would be a large help to us."
"Space and integration are a problem."
"Anaplan is a relatively expensive piece of software."
"The negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer."
"Anaplan's workflow component is probably the biggest area for improvement. I'd also like to see Anaplan add an ad hoc reporting tool that allows users to query things. It's going to factor into how you design your data set and your models, but I'd like the ability to create ad hoc queries against the data that's in there."
"In the next release, I would like to see more technical integration for directly designed solutions on behalf of the selling process so that you can design solutions and not have to use ten or more other tools to get the solution for selling."
"There are a lot of manual tasks that are used by a lot of people, so it is a very good candidate for RPA."
"SAP is more expensive than some of its competitors."
"This solution could be made more user-friendly for development teams."
"In general, a user should attend training before they can use this platform. There's definitely a learning curve. As a new user or employee, there may be some difficulty with onboarding."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"It is not flexible for the users. SAP works in a specific way, and the users and the processes have to adapt to the way it works. It is hard to customize it to the level that we need for our work. It is not easy to get new extensions for process functions, modules, or activities."
"There should be better support provided to be able to migrate to S/4HANA easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently using a free workspace license for 90 days. We are satisfied with the price of the solution. There are additional costs if you want more storage, the default limit is 250 GB."
"A value-for-money product and a very reasonable price compared to competitors like SAP or IBM."
"The entry-level is anywhere from about $30,000 to $50,000 a year, however, it does go up significantly after that depending on the complexity and how much space you're using."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced then it would attract more customers."
"The cost of Anaplan is a challenge for clients, especially if they don't have an ongoing long-term use case for it. It's a $50,000 licensing fee just to get started. Clients need a strong business case to switch from Excel to Anaplan. But if clients have used something similar in the past, such as Hyperion or other solutions, that's not a factor because they know what to expect."
"This is a yearly subscription. So a customer initially buys a workspace and specifies how much GB they want. The minimum starts at around 30 GB. You can buy multiple workspaces."
"The solution is expensive and is best-suited for large enterprises."
"Licensing can vary, but for educational institutions, there are often favorable conditions."
"The pricing is based on the license per user, which I think makes the solution a bit costly...Basically, the prices of the solution are high, and we don't have that much revenue."
"When you have a solution that is stable, reliable, and has a high performance as this solution, the price is going to be expensive. However, when you evaluate the service you are paying for the cost is quite reasonable for this solution."
"Some components are available at an additional cost, depending on the type of contract that you have."
"This is a costly product."
"SAP ECC is not cheap but I consider it the best system for managing an organization's data and processes."
"We pay annually for the use of this solution."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 9, 2021
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also li...
See 2 answers
JM
Oct 13, 2021
SAP ERP and Anaplan serve different purposes and actually work well together.   Think of SAP ERP focused on the Actuals, while Anaplan models the future. The reason why I’ve seen clients use Anaplan for planning vs. SAP BPC is Anaplan is more flexible and can easily keep up with constant changes in business planning.  While BPC is more of a consolidation tool, with Anaplan you can also have your driver-based models in a system vs. running them offline and only putting the answer into a system.   Therefore, my recommendation is to use both.
Janet Staver - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also like that Analplan is a collaborative solution - it makes building out forecasts and modeling data much easier than just using Excel because it is in the cloud and is more structured. Anaplan is also very well connected. For example, data from one use case can be used in other models. Moreso, if a change is made to one model, it will be changed in all other models as well. Although Anaplan requires a slight learning curve and some training, initial setup is fairly easy. And for the times where you have technical questions, I have found that support is adequate. However, Anaplan is quite expensive. Nevertheless, I am very impressed with the stability of the solution and its performance. Not only that, but I am impressed by its ability to scale phenomenally. SAP ERP has been recognized as the best solution in the class of ERP products. In addition, it provides excellent visibility into the details of enterprise resource planning. Like Anaplan, it is very scalable. I think one of the best features SAP ERP has to offer is the claim management. One disadvantage is that you cannot easily create customizations. Also, outside of the SAP for RPA it is required for you to use an additional solution on a platform as a service if you want to extend the solutions. Another downside is that the initial setup is not straightforward and can be quite complex, so you have to be prepared to handle that. Conclusion: Overall, I would give Anaplan a 9 out of 10 rating. Anaplan has many more advantages for me than SAP ERP and since both options are very pricey, Anaplan takes the win because I like that it has so much more to offer.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
What do you like most about SAP ERP?
The solution has made the most significant impact on our human resources function, specifically in HR operations and HR analytics. One feature of SAP ERP that I found most valuable is its use of co...
What needs improvement with SAP ERP?
The solution's graphical user interface (GUI) is outdated and could be improved.
What is your primary use case for SAP ERP?
Our business is completely integrated into SAP ERP, including all our machines and processes, such as vendor sales, customer support, production, and quality management. We currently use a bunch of...
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
B&G Manufacturing, Unilever, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town, Bhopal Municipal, Corporation (BMC), adidas Group, Butcher & Packer Supply Company, Franklin Valve L.P., Evoshield, Prime Meats, a Norsan Group company, EMC Corporation, Varian Medical Systems Inc., FC Bayern Mªnchen AG, AkzoNobel Chemicals B.V., T¾V Rheinland, Pacific Drilling S.A., Fire & Rescue New South Wales, University of Amsterdam, Pa_alon S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: October 2024.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.