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Adaptive Insights vs. Anaplan | Side-by-Side Comparison

Adaptive Insights

How Does Adaptive Insights Compare?

A deeper look into the right CPM software. If you’re in the market for new CPM software for your business, chances are you’ve come across both Adaptive Insights and Anaplan. Both companies have been in the news recently, but for very different reasons. Adaptive Insights, founded in 2003, recently welcomed its 3,000th customer, while Anaplan is relatively new to the market, and announced a new round of funding on Jan. 14.

With so much buzz around both companies, it’s worth taking a look what exactly sets these two cloud-based CPM solutions apart.

If you’re looking to improve your financial planning and forecasting with cloud-based CPM software, ask yourself these four important questions when comparing Adaptive Insights to Anaplan:

1. How many customers do Adaptive Insights and Anaplan have?

When it comes to cost/risk analysis, take a close look at the number and kinds of companies that have chosen each CPM software provider. Adaptive Insights is used by more than 3,000 mid to enterprise-level customers in 85+ countries around the world while Anaplan has fewer than 100 customers. There’s a difference in price, too: Adaptive pricing averages less than half the cost of Anaplan.

2. What’s the average cost of deployment and maintenance?

When it comes to deployment time and cost, Adaptive and Anaplan vary considerably. Whereas Adaptive comes with out-of-the-box functionality, Anaplan requires extensive custom development to get it up and running. Unlike Adaptive Insights, Anaplan has no formal Consolidations product — no built-in journals, no currency functionality, no multiple actuals, etc. Less out-of-the-box functionality means Anaplan requires significantly more investment in IT time and resources over the life of the product.

3. How intuitive is the CPM software?

If you’re looking for new CPM software, chances are you’ve decided that the on-premise or even “Excel hell” system you’ve been using is no longer viable. In the 21st century, finance teams require budgeting, consolidations, planning and forecasting at their fingertips with minimal onboarding and training required. There’s a big difference between the leading CPM providers here.

Adaptive Insights features familiar “Excel-like” interfaces, drag-and-drop functionality and intuitive, customizable dashboards. There’s also an integrated Process Tracker — a task management system allowing users to assign tasks to themselves and others and track progress toward completion. These are features that Anaplan simply does not offer.

4. What kind of Business Intelligence do Adaptive Insights and Anaplan offer?

Today’s business leaders are looking for more than just corporate performance management solutions; they’re looking for solutions integrated with powerful Business Intelligence functionality for strategic insight. Unfortunately, not all CPM software is created equal — especially when it comes to Anaplan. Anaplan does not include the same BI capabilities that Adaptive does and does not offer the out-of-the-box end-user, self-service dashboards necessary for strategic analysis and decision-making in real-time across the organization.

There’s a better option than Adaptive Insights and Anaplan. Learn about NetSuite’s Planning & Budgeting (NSPB).

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