Salesforce Delivers Real-Time Insights to Enterprise Business Planning with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO, April 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, today welcomed Anaplan and Host Analytics to the Analytics Cloud partner ecosystem--enabling every business user to take a more dynamic, data-driven approach to business planning and performance management.

In today's business environment, high-performing companies stay competitive by leveraging data to inform every tactical and strategic decision, and by responding to real-time shifts in market conditions and customer demands. The Salesforce Analytics Cloud was designed to deliver this competitive edge--empowering sales, service and marketing professionals to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device.

However, strategic planning and forecasting is entirely disconnected from real-time performance management in most companies. Planning is often limited to an annual management exercise that is handicapped by rigid, top-down legacy planning software and mountains of spreadsheets that are extremely labor-intensive to manage. And because legacy planning solutions are not dynamic, ongoing adjustments based on economic changes or customer demands are not reflected. According to a recent KPMGreport, fewer than five percent of employees are aware of, or understand, their company's strategies, and an alarming 60-80 percent of companies fail to execute those strategies.

Anaplan and Host Analytics Join Analytics Cloud Partner Ecosystem to Deliver a Dynamic Data-Driven Approach to Business Planning

Just as Salesforce reimagined the entire analytics process end-to-end for the data revolution, cloud-based enterprise planning and performance management companies such as Anaplan and Host Analytics are disrupting the static planning and forecasting approaches that have underserved companies for decades. By delivering services that are dynamic and easy to use, they have transformed planning into a fluid, interactive process for every business user that is connected to company performance in real-time. Now, as part of the Analytics Cloud Partner Ecosystem, every business user can leverage real-time insights from any data source to inform and connect their planning with their performance. For example:

• Anaplan: Annual budget and sales plans become out of date within moments of being finalized, but Anaplan's Planning Cloud enables a sales leader to stay ahead of critical business events and dynamically adjust plans. Now, when a sales manager begins selling a new product or covering a new region, he can instantly explore and model potential scenarios using a variety of data sources to reassess his territory and quota assignments. With Anaplan and Analytics Cloud, he can confidently arrive at a new execution strategy that optimizes sales resources and performance.
• Host Analytics: Traditionally, lines of business and finance teams tracked and updated planning and performance metrics using static spreadsheets or siloed systems, creating multiple, disconnected sources of truth that impeded their ability to course-correct on plans with any agility. Host Analytics' Cloud EPM Suite delivers an integrated view of revenue and performance across finance and lines of business. And now, with Host Analytics and Analytics Cloud, when a department leader identifies a new business opportunity based on real-time customer insights, she can instantly work in concert with finance executives to allocate the sales and marketing resources to pursue it.

"Today's complex, fast-moving markets have rendered the traditional approach to planning obsolete," said Keith Bigelow, SVP and GM of Analytics Cloud, Salesforce. "By combining instant insights from the Analytics Cloud with a dynamic planning approach from Anaplan and Host Analytics, companies can act quickly and decisively as new opportunities unfold--connecting the dots between planning and performance."

"As the leading Planning Cloud solution for sales, finance, and operations, Anaplan is excited to be extending its partnership with Salesforce," said Anthony Reynolds, EVP of Operations, Anaplan. "The Salesforce Sales Cloud already feeds actuals into Anaplan models and plans, and now with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, we can deliver planning insights to every Salesforce user. This better connects and aligns an organization with their plans and performance drivers."

"This is a dream come true for organizations and users who want greater business agility and tighter alignment between operations and finance," said Dave Kellogg, CEO, Host Analytics. "The combination of purpose-built cloud planning applications from Host Analytics and real-time insights of the Analytics Cloud put companies in a position to take planning and performance to the next level."

Analytics Cloud Ecosystem Extends Analytics for Every Business Need

Powered by the Wave Platform, Analytics Cloud brings together a dynamic user experience, indexed search and a powerful computing engine to explore any data source, and seamlessly works together with Salesforce's apps for sales, service, marketing and communities. Designed from the ground up to be open, more than 75 partners have joined the Analytics Cloud ecosystem to extend analytics for every conceivable use case and enable data-driven companies to connect with customers in a whole new way.

Pricing and Availability

• Salesforce Analytics Cloud is generally available in English, with additional language support forthcoming.
• The Analytics Cloud mobile app is available on Apple iOS for iPhone and iPad, with additional device support forthcoming.

Additional Information

• Learn more about the Salesforce Analytics Cloud http://www.salesforce.com/analytics-cloud/.
• A free playground version of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud is available today for the desktop at https://www.salesforce.com/analytics-playground, and also on the Salesforce Analytics mobile app for Apple iOS for iPhone and iPad, available for download at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/salesforce-analytics/id916982402?mt=8

Connect with Salesforce

• Like Salesforce on Facebook: http://facebook.com/salesforce.
• Follow @salesforce and @salesforcewave on Twitter.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce CRM, visit: www.salesforce.com.

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