Our latest evaluation compares SAP ERP and Anaplan, drawing insights from user reviews across key areas.
Starting with the initial setup, Anaplan is noted for its agile and straightforward approach, albeit varying in complexity based on user needs, with deployment times ranging from a month to a year. In contrast, SAP ERP presents a more diverse experience, with some finding it easy but others viewing it as complex and time-consuming, often requiring years for full implementation.
In terms of valuable features, Anaplan users find its integration capabilities, user-friendly web interface, and no-coding platform valuable, making it adaptable for various use cases. Its real-time calculations and machine-learning capabilities also stand out. SAP ERP, on the other hand, is lauded for its robustness, extensive documentation, and real-time reporting, beneficial for comprehensive business process management.
Room for improvement for Anaplan includes enhancing workflow components, improving reporting tools, and integration issues with MS Office products. SAP ERP users suggest improvements in user-friendliness, technical integration, implementation ease, and customization processes.
Regarding pricing, Anaplan is considered affordable, with a $50,000 licensing fee and generally reasonable costs compared to its competitors. SAP ERP, while offering value, is considered expensive, especially for larger implementations, with license fees ranging significantly. In ROI, Anaplan shows a positive impact by reducing personnel costs and enhancing operational efficiencies. SAP ERP, though taking time to cover its cost, is perceived as valuable in the long term, particularly for large-scale operations.
Customer support experiences vary for both. Anaplan's support is generally viewed as responsive and helpful, whereas SAP ERP receives mixed reviews, with some praising its efficiency and others pointing out delays and communication challenges.
To summarize, Anaplan stands out for its ease of use, adaptability, and efficient deployment, making it suitable for a range of business needs. SAP ERP, with its robust features and comprehensive integration, is ideal for large-scale, complex business environments. It is important to note that while both solutions are used to manage business operations, they have different functionalities and focuses. Anaplan is not an ERP solution, it focuses on financial planning and performance management, while an ERP solution manages various day-to-day operations.
"You don't need to have a programming language to use Anaplan."
"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."
"This product has a very good modeling feature, and its graphical representation of visualizations has also been valuable."
"Where we're seeing the opportunity in the market is at the Fortune 100 companies that have far more complex modeling type scenarios where you need to be able to have a lot of people collaborating together, and you need a lot of information all at everyone's fingertips. This is where you see the big advantage of a solution like Anaplan."
"Anaplan's strongest feature is that its GUI is very modern and user-friendly."
"The best thing is that it's very intuitive and user-friendly. You don't need coding skills to manipulate the platform."
"Technical support has been good."
"It's simple to use with a lot of functions."
"SAP ERP has a good user interface with a lot of functionalities and good interface options."
"The solution can easily be standardized across processes."
"The Material Management and Sales and Distribution modules are great. The Financial Accounting module is also great."
"Overall the solution is very good in the industry."
"The most valuable features of SAP ERP are the general operations. It has a good way to manage a business and do financial reporting. Overall we are happy with the robustness of the solution."
"It provides great visibility into the details of enterprise resource planning."
"The product connects to every software."
"SAP is a very process controlled application. It does not allow users to manage the data. Once the initial process is set, it works smoothly."
"There are workspace issues, like the limitation on model sizes."
"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."
"The dashboard could be better. Because within a dashboard or report, you have to do a lot of scrolling. You need to scroll down because the table doesn't fit in a single view. That's why even the users aren't happy with that kind of user experience. They need to scroll to see all the data, and it could be better if it fits in just one page. That way, you can see everything. In the next release, I want automation that's connected to Anaplan. For example, to load master data from SAP to Anaplan. I don't know if this already exists, but a log where you can see the progress and see if there's an error will also help. It would be better to give you the error message, for example, if there is an error within the automated process importing to Anaplan."
"Anaplan is a relatively expensive piece of software."
"When there is a lot of data, it sometimes takes long to load."
"Automation needs to be built into this solution."
"Anaplan could be improved with a stronger consolidation module."
"The cloud engine slows down when working with a large dataset. It still lacks a powerful engine."
"The solution is not ready for the current e-commerce environment."
"More integrations and built-in integrations with other environments and products are needed."
"SAP is not making a big effort to make it easy to integrate solutions from other vendors. It's not easy at all... Integration is what they can do better."
"SAP ERP's initial setup phase needs to be simplified."
"I'm only working on the front end with ERP's user interface, which isn't very easy for end-users. It's an old-school interface, so it's often challenging to find what you need."
"The system is very big. It is not exactly user-friendly, due to the fact that it's so massive and complex."
"The user interface could be improved. For example, sometimes you're missing some data and can't complete a task. There should be some built-in support and suggestions on how to solve your problem. I would also like the interface to be optimized to work better with mobile devices like tablets and smartphones."
"Technical support is an area that is in need of improvement."
Anaplan is ranked 1st in Business Performance Management with 24 reviews while SAP ERP is ranked 1st in ERP with 100 reviews. Anaplan is rated 8.0, while SAP ERP is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Anaplan writes "Great for large-scale modelling, easy to learn, and very stable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP ERP writes "The amazing, robust framework with unlimited scalability earns its #1 status". Anaplan is most compared with SAP S/4HANA, Oracle Hyperion, SAP Analytics Cloud, IBM Planning Analytics and Board, whereas SAP ERP is most compared with SAP S/4HANA, Microsoft Dynamics AX, SAP Business One, Infor M3 and Infor LN.
We monitor all Business Performance Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
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.