Smart Demand Planner vs. Anaplan

The Smart Demand Planner™, an innovative tool for demand planning and statistical forecasting, is part of Smart's Inventory Planning and Optimization platform, known as Smart IP&O. This tool, which utilizes the SmartForecasts® Engine, merges strategic forecasting across various levels of a product hierarchy with detailed forecasts for the specific item mix, enhancing overall forecast precision. It lays a robust and unbiased groundwork for your sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes. The collaborative workbench feature of Smart Demand Planner enables forecast overrides, allowing authorized users to apply, import, review, and approve the consensus plan effectively. Furthermore, the system allows for the measurement of forecast accuracy, ensuring that the most reliable predictions are provided for both aggregate data and item-specific levels. As a result, this tool significantly streamlines sales planning, budgeting, production scheduling, ordering, and inventory management. By integrating collaborative efforts, it fosters a more cohesive approach to demand planning across teams.

Anaplan delivers a powerful AI-driven scenario planning and analysis environment designed to help organizations anticipate change, optimize strategies, and act with precision. Its connected planning framework eliminates barriers between strategic, financial, and operational functions, fostering real-time collaboration across the enterprise. Industry-tailored solutions for sectors such as financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and technology empower teams to respond quickly to market shifts and emerging opportunities. The platform’s comprehensive AI capabilities — predictive, generative, and agentic — work together to uncover hidden patterns, evaluate complex scenarios, and recommend data-backed actions. Enterprise data orchestration ensures that information from multiple sources flows seamlessly into the planning process, while its advanced modeling tools enable intricate simulations without sacrificing speed. Anaplan’s security and administration features safeguard sensitive data while supporting enterprise-scale deployment. Recognized as a leader in both financial planning and supply chain planning by Gartner and IDC, Anaplan is trusted by over 2,500 leading brands worldwide. Its applications cover a wide range of business needs, from financial consolidation and sales forecasting to workforce planning and supply chain optimization. Customers leverage the platform to break down silos, improve productivity, and enhance shareholder value. With Anaplan, organizations can outpredict, outplan, and ultimately outperform their competition in an increasingly complex business environment.