Selection process: Both
functionality and ability to scale
A paradigm shift: From
spreadsheets to Anaplan
In addition to Anaplan, two other technologies were
evaluated: a point solution vendor specializing in supply
chain software, which received serious consideration, and
a small company with an Excel-based platform. But at
the end of the day, TSE knew it wanted to connect supply
chain processes to the rest of the business—and that
required a true platform.
For TSE, the implementation challenge was not only
about model building, it was about process engineering
as well. During the Anaplan implementation, Duwel
realized that his team slightly underestimated the
challenge of a clear step-by-step process of moving
the data out of Excel. “You have to get out of the
Excel limitation mindset. Because Anaplan is so easy
to change, re-engineer, and model, we basically built
Anaplan into interfaces twice in 12 months. It was a
good learning exercise,” he explained. “We modeled
almost the entire logistical chain to make sure we got
it right. This type of flexibility and scalability to reengineer models, hierarchy, or basic datasets would be
next to impossible with other solutions. We now better
understand our data because of the learning process
we went through.”
“The deciding factor was the robust nature of Anaplan’s
platform. It is not just a planning solution for supply
chain planning experts,” says Ardy Duwel, Head of
Commercial Projects Office at TSE. “We wanted
something that would scale to meet the needs of our
top planning professionals while bringing the rest of our
business into the planning process.”
“It was great to work with
the people from Anaplan
because that’s the best
way to learn. I especially
like the connection to
other customers, which
helps us continue to
learn what it takes to
be successful and to
understand the impact
of different approaches.”
“The implementation and going live was very simple,”
added Duwel. “While there were some challenges with
data transfer from the source system side—moving from
a standard weekly and monthly data transfer to a daily
data transfer—it simply took some discussions among
the team to figure out the problem.” TSE has now laid
the foundation for other projects, all facilitated by one
operational data hub.
More accurate pricing, procurement,
and delivery
TSE worked with Anaplan to develop a single, transparent
solution for sales staff to enter and view data, as well
as produce results for short- and long-term planning.
Sales and operations are now directly connected on one
platform. “We’ve defined our process and finally gotten a
grip on the data. We now have the necessary data inputs,
without making our sales and account managers’ lives
more difficult,” Duwel shared.
– Head of Commercial Projects, Tata Steel Europe
Driving a new age of connected planning
The company is seeing more accurate pricing,
procurement, and delivery forecasts. “We’re still scaling
up but having more robust processes in place makes
people more confident in what we do,” said Duwel. “The
single source and transparency mean we can do things
two to three times quicker and more efficiently than
we ever did before. We will now have much more data
around transactions by which we can strengthen our
analytical improvement loop. And because Anaplan is
easy to use, new ideas are being put into practice rather
than just discussed.”
Next up: Connecting downstream
As a result of this collaboration and transparency
between supply chain and sales on a single platform,
TSE is able to optimize inventory investment, including
raw materials, work-in-process, and finished inventories;
improve the accuracy of price and volume forecasts;
make more reliable customer order promises; and
prioritize orders for more customers across all markets.
Duwel appreciates the agility and transparency of the
Anaplan platform, and sees potential to expand its use
for planning and decision-making across the business.
They also plan to expand the use of Anaplan within the
sales organization. “We want to bring in things like risks
and opportunities. When there’s an opportunity, what’s
the value, what’s the margin? Are we going to do it?
Anaplan enables these types of foresights,” he explained.
TSE can now also better track progress against plan,
in addition to managing pricing in Anaplan. In terms of
process, they have what they call a split process, which
divides their planning into long-term and short-term
planning. The long-term S&OP process has a threeyear planning horizon, while the short-term planning
is a weekly process that looks at a six-week horizon
and is tightly integrated with execution. Additionally,
in the long-term process, TSE can keep an eye out
for deviations from the plan and how the company is
performing in terms of execution.
TSE’s goal is to connect downstream businesses to its
large steel business so it can offer an integrated service
portfolio to customers. The company not only wants
to be able to deliver from factories in large volumes,
but also deliver tailored solutions in smaller volumes
from their distribution centers. However, TSE has been
struggling with a decentralized data collection system
that prevented generating highly reliable planning
information to the business.
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