Adopting Anaplan: Comparing Approaches and Best Practices
A planning solution is only as valuable as the way it’s used. When it comes time to choose a user adoption strategy for Anaplan, one essential question arises:
DiscoverOpen-to-Buy:
an integrated Merchandising–Supply–Finance view to manage your purchasing
OTB structures seasonal purchasing (dedicated budgets) and complements Demand Planning for permanent assortments. With Anaplan, Finance, Merchandising and Supply jointly manage budgets, assortments, margins and availability within a single collaborative model.
Why
Beyond Plans?
Beyond Plans masters end-to-end Retail processes (Assortment, Buying, OTB). We structure a collaborative OTB across Central Merchandising, Regions, Supply and Finance, integrating seasonality, permanent ranges, supply constraints and financial objectives for robust, omnichannel management.
OTB (Open-to-Buy) :
the essentials of retail budget management
With Beyond Plans and Anaplan, OTB becomes a strategic tool to secure your sales plan while controlling inventory. Visualize your budgets, compare plan vs. actuals, simulate replenishments and manage margin, sell-through, GMROI and coverage to achieve sustainable profitability.
Context
A lack of visibility on plan vs. actuals vs. remaining OTB undermines margin and product availability.
Our approach
Cloud-based OTB model: budgets, assortments, what-if scenarios and Lemon Learning adoption.
Key benefits
Optimal inventory levels, protected margins and aligned teams for faster decision-making.
OTB management to be strengthened amid seasonality, stockouts and excess inventory
Still largely managed in Excel, Open-to-Buy often remains disconnected from actual sales and inventory. The result: gaps between budgets and commitments, limited visibility on remaining OTB, and delayed decisions. This poor orchestration impacts margin, inventory turnover and cash flow—hence the need for a connected, real-time OTB model.
Our OTB solution: connected purchasing planning on Anaplan
Beyond Plans structures your end-to-end OTB cycle in Anaplan: Budget → Buy Plan → Receipt Plan → Allocation → Replenishment. A unified model that aligns Merchandising and Supply, from budget to replenishment, by category, season, country, clusters or stores.
Key benefits for Procurement and Merchandising
Beyond Plans structures your end-to-end OTB cycle in Anaplan: Budget → Buy Plan → Receipt Plan → Allocation → Replenishment. A unified model that aligns Merchandising and Supply, from budget to replenishment, by category, season, country, clusters or stores.
OTB & merchandising, from assortment planning to budget management
OTB fuels your merchandising decisions. Beyond Plans connects OTB and assortment planning in Anaplan, distinguishing permanent ranges, newness, capsules and events to calibrate the Buy Plan and coverage. Allocations, promotions and replenishments are automated to manage inventory, margins and budgets.
Anaplan, the cloud platform for OTB management
Anaplan connects sales, inventory and budgets to recalculate your OTB envelopes in real time. With multi-season support, budget versions, workflows and POS/ERP/WMS/e-commerce integrations, you can reliably simulate stockouts, excess inventory and margin–cash trade-offs.
The Open-to-Buy (OTB) FAQ
Here are the answers to the key questions about retail Open-to-Buy: OTB calculation, performance indicators, Anaplan integration, and links with Supply Chain and Finance for unified budget management.
What is Open-to-Buy and how is it calculated?
OTB = (forecast sales + target inventory) – (opening inventory + open purchase orders). This calculation determines the available purchasing budget for each period. In Anaplan, it is automatically updated based on actual sales.
Open-to-Buy and Open-to-Sell: how should they be aligned?
OTB manages your purchasing investments, while OTS measures your sales potential. When connected in Anaplan, they ensure cash-to-revenue consistency: what you can still buy and what you can still sell.
Which KPIs should be monitored?
OTB consumed vs. available, sell-through rate, GMROI, coverage, stockout rate and committed cash. Anaplan dashboards enable real-time monitoring and fast decision-making.
How can OTB be connected to existing systems?
OTB integrates with your ERP, POS, e-commerce and WMS systems via API connectors. Data is consolidated in Anaplan to secure sales, inventory, purchase orders and forecasts.
What is the link between OTB, Supply Chain and Finance?
OTB translates financial objectives into operational purchasing decisions. It aligns Finance, Procurement and Merchandising around a single model to manage margin, inventory and cash simultaneously.
What are the implementation timelines?
From a few weeks to a few months depending on complexity. Beyond Plans manages scoping, integration and change management, with reinforced adoption through Lemon Learning.
Request a demo
Discover how Beyond Plans and Anaplan transform your Open-to-Buy (OTB). In 30 minutes, we show you how to calculate your remaining purchasing budget, simulate scenarios and manage your margin through a unified dashboard.
Discover all our use cases
Beyond Plans deploys Anaplan across all processes: budgeting, P&L modeling, MPS, S&OP, cash flow forecasting, Workforce Planning… Each use case illustrates how we transform a standard application into a robust, business-ready and widely adopted solution.
Our Finance and Supply insights
Want to go further? Explore all our articles dedicated to the world of Finance and Supply Chain here: project methodologies, expert insights and Anaplan deep dives.
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