Data-Driven Forecasting at TakeAway

Since its inception in 2000, the company has expanded rapidly. Both the growth of the company and the increasing complexity created by this growth demanded a powerful planning & forecasting solution. "We wanted a multidimensional tool to improve the control and power of our forecasting calculations," says Will Sanderson, FP&A Manager at Takeaway.com.

Takeaway.com is the leading online marketplace for meal delivery in continental Europe and Israel, connecting consumers and restaurants in 11 countries through its platform. In the Netherlands, the company is known for its Thuisbezorgd.nl brand.

Anaplan for planning & data-driven forecasting

The platform company chose Anaplan as its planning and forecasting solution. This decision was based on the tool's multidimensional functionality. Will:

"Anaplan has much more functionality and many more benefits than we expected. For example, we can build a dashboard that can be used by 15 different people, who all see a different dashboard with different dimensions. And when we update the income statement, we can immediately see the impact on the forecast." Anaplan's user-friendliness also played a role in the choice. "Anaplan is very flexible. Users can easily add comments and consolidate their own inputs," said Julia Nicolae, FP&A Analyst at Takeaway.com.

"Anaplan is very flexible. Users can easily add comments and consolidate their own input,"

In the original project approach, Will and Julia wanted to build the models themselves. "We wanted a tool that is not very labor intensive or requires a lot of consultants. Within Anaplan, we can do a lot ourselves, such as building or modifying models," Julia says. However, it soon became clear that Will and Julia could not free up enough time to work on Anaplan due to the daily demands of regular activities. Jort Cuperus, a consultant at Finext, therefore increased his involvement. "I started training Will and Julia. At some point, however, I stopped training and started building, because Will and Julia had so many other things on their plates," says Jort. Now Jort is still involved, but on a much smaller scale. "I'm here one day a month. Will and Julia themselves build the functionalities on top of the models I developed."

More analyses in the same time

Will and Julia are enthusiastic about using Anaplan. "It saves us a lot of time. Still, we're not sitting on the beach with a cocktail," Will laughs. "We use our time for other things, like analysis. The month-end model used to take us 3 days; now it's automatic. This doesn't mean we close the month earlier; we just do more in the given time," agrees Julia. "This makes forecasts more accurate and business insights better."

Another time saver is the fact that users have access to their own reports. "The current forecast is always available to everyone. We used to keep a number of monthly reports, which now don't even exist. The numbers are automatically generated in a dashboard that anyone can look at themselves," Will says. "This eliminates the cycle of collecting data, entering that data and creating the forecast. Now we can create the forecast based on the data users entered last time, and adjust the forecast with each input. So truly data-driven forecasting."

Tom Pereira, chief financial officer at Takeaway.com, is also positive: "There is a lot of value in forecasting in Anaplan. It allows us to spend less time calculating and checking, so we have more time to think about the underlying logic of the model. This allows us to test scenarios and ultimately create smarter forecasts. We can also try different types of forecasting methods to find out which one is closest to the actual values. A machine can do this much faster than a person."

Integration after an acquisition

As part of its ambitious growth strategy, Takeaway.com recently acquired Delivery Hero's German brands. Having planning and forecasting done through a scalable platform helped the integration. "The business integration of Delivery Hero's brands was fast; within 2-3 weeks we had about 3 million additional orders through our systems. At that point, management expected all financial actual and forecast data to be combined as well. With Anaplan, we were able to develop a combined forecast very quickly," Tom explains.

Even after integration, it helps to be able to rely on Anaplan's forecasts. "Every market is different, so it is important to have comparable figures quickly. We can rely on the tool because we know the system produces reliable information. It's all about understanding the context: if you have to focus on the technology and on comparing differences, you can't focus on the reason behind the numbers," Tom says.

"Invest in your foundation, because that will make it easier later.

Invest in the basics

Asked for advice for other high-growth companies, Tom does not hesitate: "Invest in your foundation, because that will make it easier later.'' When we started the Anaplan project, we could never have anticipated that we would make all these acquisitions and double the team size within a year. For a growing company, it's better to make these investments a little earlier rather than just too late. That way you can scale up properly and support the business in a much better way."