568: Operationalizing AI in Planning: Go From Experimentation to ROI, with Anaplan
Scott Jennings, Director of Retail and Supply Chain Solutions at Anaplan, leverages over 18 years of retail industry experience to discuss the practical application of AI in planning. He argues that organizations must move beyond costly experimentation to proving tangible ROI by carefully selecting use cases and financializing the outcomes. Jennings introduces the concept of a 'latency tax' to describe the financial cost of delayed decisions and emphasizes that a common business ontology is critical for providing AI with the necessary context to be effective. He also shares his perspective that the role of the planner is evolving from operational tasks to a more strategic one focused on validating AI-generated insights.
Today I’m joined by Anaplan, a company that builds connections and collaboration across organizational silos, allowing its platform to intelligently surface key insights, so businesses can make the right decisions, right now.
Anaplan is the only scenario planning and analysis platform designed to optimize decision-making in today’s complex business environment, so that enterprises can outpace their competition and the market.
Today Scott Jennings, Director of Retail and Supply Chain Solutions at Anaplan, will be talking all about operationalizing AI in planning. We’ll be exploring why the era of vanity AI demos and isolated pilots is over, eliminating the latency tax, the shift to autonomous multi-agent systems, and the actionable next steps leaders need to take now.
Guest bio:
Anaplan’s Director of Retail Supply Chain Solutions brings over 18 years of retail industry expertise driving planning and analytics transformations across merchandising, store operations, marketing, supply chain, HR and IT. At Anaplan he oversees retail planning and supply chain planning initiatives with major retailers across the Americas. He is a recognized member of the RetailWire Brain Trust, a published author, keynote speaker, and over his career has led the Retail Industry Strategy at prominent enterprise software companies including Qlik, Cognos, and Informatica.
Scott’s role at Anaplan, what they do, and their ideal customer profile.
From use case selection and success criteria to cost, why – despite huge investment in AI experimentation – many organizations are still struggling to demonstrate tangible business value, and why 2026 is the year of change when it comes to businesses moving from AI experimentation to proving ROI.
What ‘AI ROI’ actually looks like in planning, and the metrics executives should be looking at to know whether an AI investment is genuinely paying off.
Why planners are often reluctant to rely on AI recommendations, and what organizations need to do to move from a ‘black box’ to a more explainable, transparent approach.
Why ‘AI for AI’s sake’ can actually create more problems, and why it’s critical to ensure your data is ready for AI use.
The importance of real-time planning, the cost of the ‘latency tax’ when decisions are delayed because data, teams and systems aren’t connected, and how significant that impact can be for large organizations.
Why a common business ontology and semantic layer are critical in helping AI understand how demand, supply, inventory, capacity and financial outcomes are connected to drive more effective results.
How an AI system can move from identifying a change in demand to understanding its implications for things like bills of material, plant capacity, lead times, inventory buffers and ultimately the P&L.
How organizations should think about combining probabilistic AI – for things like demand sensing and pattern recognition – with deterministic calculation engines for financial math, rules and governance.
How the role of the planner shifts when AI stops simply answering questions and begins continuously monitoring the business, generating scenarios and routing exceptions for people to act on.
Multi-agent AI systems – what a world of specialized AI agents look like in a planning environment, and where humans should remain in control.
What organizations should be looking for in a planning platform, and the importance of capabilities like an embedded calculation engine, business-owned models, connected data and native AI.
How organizations can identify a high-value planning use case, prove ROI quickly, build trust and scale AI across the enterprise.
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Head over to Anaplan’s website now to find out more and discover how they could help you too. You can also connect with Anaplan and keep up to date with the latest over on LinkedIn or YouTube, or you can connect with Scott on LinkedIn.
- If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more from Anaplan, listen to 514: Turn Strategic Planning Into Retail Profitability, with Anaplan or 499: Navigating the EV Revolution, with Anaplan.
- Check out our other podcasts HERE.
