Walki got better business planning and forecasting with Anaplan

Comprehensive business planning solution

Walki had a need to find a comprehensive solution for their entirety that would serve as a forecasting tool, but which could also be used for other business planning purposes. This would put an end to a large number of separate software.

“We realized that there are quite a few business cases that we could do with the same tool in the future and that Anaplan would be the right solution for this,” says Controller Filip Björndahl, who is in charge of the project at Walki.

In cooperation, we started to solve this challenge based on the premise of improving the accuracy of business forecasts and the transparency of plans. 

From reactive action towards proactive with price simulation

The first stage was to export Walki’s past sales and production planning process to Anaplan. At the same time, Anaplan’s ready-made IFRS16 solution was implemented for Walki. As a “by-product” of the project, we also developed a solution for the management of raw material prices, which was previously done in several different Excel files. Based on the sales forecasts, the solution began with production plans, starting with the analysis and procurement of raw materials. It has enabled changes in the price of raw materials to be taken into account and simulated for the pricing of the final product.

Price simulation has enabled the company to move from reactive to proactive operations, which has been seen as a very positive thing with the sales staff as well as the management.

“Anaplan has been a very precise tool to help pricing. We have never had a tool like this before. If the price of the raw material or component changes, we can simulate this very accurately on the customer, product and vendor level with Anaplan,” says Björndahl.

In later stages, a financial forecast model, a management reporting model and, most recently, a group accounting solution have been developed tailored to Walki’s needs. At the moment, Walki is undergoing an ERP reform, which also requires the development of existing Anaplan entities.

Agile and solution-focused cooperation

The cooperation has been carried out agilely, stage by stage. The skills of Walki’s experienced operators have also grown throughout the project, and this has accelerated the cooperation.

Björndahl highlights the flexibility of twoday’s key personnel and, on the other hand, the relentlessness in regard to finding solutions. “When sparring together, we have always found a solution for even the toughest situations,” says Björndahl.

Towards automated design and improved predictability

Currently, Anaplan is strongly involved in sales and production planning at Walki, and the use has been extended to other business areas. According to Björndahl, the company is now starting to have a basis in order. The next step is to optimize the various areas and move, for example, to computational predictability, where both history and trends are taken into consideration, and this gives an even better view of the future.

Particularly with the ongoing ERP reform, Anaplan will be an increasingly important tool at Walki to support operational planning and business decisions.

“Anaplan has created a good basis for high-quality data and the right information is now much easier and faster to access to support business decision-making than before. In the future, when new companies come on board, the synergies will become even more evident,” says Björndahl.

In the future, the aim is to make business planning and forecasting more functional, automated and comprehensive. This is where Anaplan will play an even bigger role.