Very few people sell here - Account Executive Anaplan Employee Review

1.0
Jan 20, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great co-workers, and great infrastructure for training. If you need a job, come to Anaplan while you search for the real job you want. Anaplan is a great place to park your car for a little bit while you figure out your navigation to your true destination.... your ideal job.

Cons

Here's is the main reason why you should never work for Anaplan: I raised a discrimination grievance after my white manager came at me about performance, two weeks later I was let go as part of "global layoffs"....WHILE I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF CONTRACTS WITH MY CUSTOMER. A white account executive on my team inherited my account and closed the deal in 2 or 3 weeks after my departure and got the credit. The Chief Diversity Officer was useless in my situation and so was HR. I did all the heavy lifting on the account and they fire me and give the credit to some white AE on my team. Another white account executive on my team who started at Anaplan before me, who never closed a deal after being there for ~1.5 year, was not laid-off.... but instead he searched for another job and quit after securing another position. So they fire me who was in the middle of contracts with a customer, but let the white AE stay who didn't close a deal and was there longer than me..... and he ended up quitting the company ANYWAY! This should tell you the level of poor decisions Anaplan makes over and over again. That's not enough reason for you? There are AEs, SDRs, Customer Success team members who work their butt off in hopes to be promoted (and expressing interest in a higher promotion), but Anaplan will not do it. So many highly talented individuals have left Anaplan because they get passed over for a promotion. They'll hire someone from the outside and get placed in positions that people hoped to be promoted into. Every once in a while they'll promote someone to quickly fill a management position. Still not enough reason for you? Anaplan does not how to plan for a successful quarter. They are scrambling at the last minute to make their number. A lot of AEs do not make their first sale in the first year. It takes 1.5 years to make their first sale. On top of that, you can work on an account for an entire year, then the upper management will make the decision (with no rhyme or reason) to shuffle accounts and you're starting from scratch, or if you're lucky some poor AE has prime the pump for you on an account and you luckily inherit the account and you close the deal. Meanwhile that poor AE who worked on an account all year is left watching someone else get the credit for all you did. Your direct manager has no power no matter how much he/she will tell you that they will fight for you to keep your accounts or do this or that. Not even the Area VP has power. Anaplan does not know how to prove its value to the customer. They always say they save the customer time, but customers don't care about saving time, they care about 3 things: making money, saving money, and mitigating their risk. Anaplan does the worst job in figuring out how to put their value in those three buckets. Anaplan is now owned by a PE firm. A PE firm cares about one thing and one thing only....EBITDA. They will fire people, cut corners, do financial gymnastics to increase the EBITDA. They don't care about YOU!

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Anaplan Response
3y
I appreciate your feedback and most importantly, your appreciation for your colleagues and the employees at Anaplan. We take allegations of discrimination very seriously and are looking into your comments. In the meantime, please know you can share your experience anonymously by contacting the Compliance Hotline at 1-844-823-8923 or online at http://anaplan.ethicspoint.com. With regards to sales execution, we recently shared our new strategic priorities with employees and enhancing our GTM focus and execution is among them. We are proud to count 50% of the Fortune 50 among our customers. Engaging with these leading companies requires a strong understanding of their market, the complex business challenges they face, and why Anaplan can help them achieve outsized business outcomes. We understand that our sales process is not an ideal fit for everyone, and we believe that optimizing our GTM strategy will amplify the value we deliver to customers as well as our AEs’ success. - Carey Pellock, Chief People Officer

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- Collaborative & Inclusive culture - Commitment to well-being - Professional growth & learning - Market leading innovation - Work flexibility

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2.0
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Pros

One thing I genuinely appreciated was that the C-suite seemed invested in keeping everyone in the loop. The monthly town halls felt like more than just a formality and gave you a real sense of where the company was headed. When you had a good stretch, people noticed. The company feels like it has real momentum and on a macro level.

Cons

Leadership was inconsistent in my experience and seemed to depend heavily on which manager you ended up with. It often felt like luck of the draw. I personally found the planning process to be more reactive than strategic, with urgency only kicking in once results were already suffering rather than getting ahead of it. The workplace culture also had a gossip element that I found draining over time. My biggest frustration was around performance recognition. I observed situations where reported numbers didn't seem to reflect reality, yet the consequences appeared minimal at best. I would have liked to see more transparency and accountability around how top performers were identified and rewarded, because in my experience the current approach didn't always feel equitable to those who were playing by the rules.

1
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Anaplan Response
1w
We appreciate you sharing such a detailed reflection of your time with us. It is encouraging to hear that our commitment to transparency through monthly town halls and our company's momentum resonated with you. Fostering a trusting, equitable workplace where everyone is fairly recognized and rewarded is central to our culture. We wish you the very best in your future endeavors.
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