Anaplan Connect: The power of connectedness and bringing people together

What does “connectedness” mean to you? It’s a question we ask all our Connect attendees to think about. What does being more connected as an organization enable you to accomplish, and how would it impact your desired outcomes?

In my personal and professional life, it all starts and stops with connectedness. Everything we hope to achieve in our communities and organizations requires establishing solid connections. An effective way to communicate and collaborate is foundational for success, always. But achieving connectedness is not a one-time, simple act. Practicing and enhancing connectedness is a daily process — and one I’m continuously working to refine.  

In June I had the privilege to deliver the keynote address to a crowd of my peers at Anaplan Connect Chicago and spoke about the power of connectedness to drive better decisions and, ultimately, better outcomes. Now in its second year, the Anaplan Connect live event series brings our industry-leading customers and partners together around the globe to network and knowledge-share. Each Connect event, from San Francisco to New York and London to Tokyo, is a compelling day of real-world insights and actionable guidance from those who have already solved some of the most persistent problems you face.

Real-world stories of connectedness

One of my highlights was hearing directly from Anaplan’s customers and partners about their own accomplishments — with connectedness emerging as the essential ingredient of every success story. Whirlpool’s director of supply chain planning and execution discussed how they’ve implemented integrated business planning (IBP) to connect their supply chain, finance, and sales functions to build a more collaborative planning culture. I was particularly fascinated to learn how they’ve incorporated some of Anaplan’s groundbreaking AI and machine learning capabilities to increase the accuracy and efficiency of their forecasting processes. 

The director of budget, ​financial analysis and reporting from the​ University of Virginia School of Medicine shared how they successfully launched and expanded their planning and forecasting initiatives across finance, HR, and other diverse organizational units. This session focused on the importance of building a center of excellence (COE) to address the evolving needs of various functions, all while reducing reliance on IT resources.

Daikin’s SVP of finance walked us through their finance transformation journey and explained how they leverage data from across the enterprise to plan and lead their manufacturing and distribution business forward through a whirlwind of change.

These are just a few examples from industry leaders who have made bold decisions and unlocked incredible value for their organizations through the power of connectedness. Want to hear more of these stories? Visit our Connect on-demand page to catch the latest sessions, inspirational keynotes, cutting-edge innovations, and more from Connect.

The tangible value of connectedness

In my keynote, I shared how horizontal and vertical connectedness across your organization is crucial to achieving a level of decision excellence that will drive higher financial returns. But can the value of  decision excellence truly be quantified?

Well, as a matter of fact, it can. The answer for a typical company, say one the average size of the top 1,000, is up to $10 billion. How do I know this? Because we’ve done the research. 

Anaplan surveyed 500 senior executives from the largest 1,000 organizations in the US, UK, and Canada, as well as conducted more than 20 in-depth interviews, and collected more than 50,000 data points. Our research focused on the correlation between decision performance and organizational connectedness. 

We found that companies achieving the most improvement in decision excellence outperformed their peers by 6.1% in total shareholder returns (TSR) which equates to $4.3 billion in market cap. Organizations that improved decision-making the least underperformed against their peers by -8.2% or -$5.7 billion, resulting in a significant 14-percentage-point difference, or $10 billion in TSR. 

The $10 billion difference between high-performing companies and their less well-performing peers underscores the pivotal role of connectedness in driving decision performance and superior financial outcomes. More specifically, our research found a direct correlation between the connectedness and decision excellence: the higher an organization’s connectedness, the higher they scored on our decision excellence index. To learn more about this research, be sure to visit our site dedicated to these findings and insights. 

Don’t miss your Connection

The findings of our decision excellence research support Anaplan’s purpose to help our customers outperform their peers by continuously making the best decisions across their business without friction. We make this possible by enabling enterprise-wide connectedness, and it has been momentous for me to see the power of this connectedness live and in person over the past few months at our Connect event series.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to attend one of our upcoming Anaplan Connect events. Join your finance, supply chain, sales and marketing, and workforce planning peers, from across a wide range of industries, who have unlocked decision excellence value by achieving enterprise connectedness.