Your first build, done by people who have done it before.
A first Anaplan or Pigment implementation is where the model's whole future gets decided. Get the architecture right and the platform earns its cost for years. Get it wrong and your team quietly drifts back to Excel by the second close. We build for the second outcome to never happen.
If a planning platform implementation fails, it doesn't normally fail at go live. It fails 3 months late, when the one person who understood the model is buried, the numbers stop matching reality, and the team starts keeping a "real" version in a spreadsheet.
That failure is designed in early, usually in the first four weeks, by a build that fit the demo instead of the business. A first implementation is your one clean shot at the architecture. Everything after is a renovation.
So we treat the first build as the highest-stakes work we do. The senior consultant who sits in your scoping call is the one who writes the formulas, wires the integrations, and hands the model to your team. No associate learning on your model. No handoff to a bench you never met. The judgment that scopes the work is the judgment that builds it.
A working model, and a team that can run it
A first implementation is more than the model. It's the data feeding it, the logic behind it, and the handoff that lets your team own it once we step back.
We pin down the use case, the data, and the real constraints before anyone opens a platform. If Pigment is the better call than Anaplan, or the reverse, you hear it here.
The structure your model will live inside for years: dimensions, logic, and calculation flow, designed to flex when the business changes instead of breaking.
Live connections to your ERP, CRM, HRIS, and payroll, built to fail loudly. When a source system breaks, you find out before the number is wrong, not after.
On Pigment, the AI agents run inside the governed model with your permissions and live data. We build so they amplify a sound model, not a shaky one.
Every assumption, calculation, and integration written down. Not a slide deck. A record your team can actually use when someone new inherits the model.
Training on your model, not a generic course. Your team leaves able to change the model themselves. The handoff is built into the project, not bolted on at the end.
Five phases, one senior consultant across all of them
We map the use case, the source data, and the way your team plans today. Then we design the model architecture: dimensions, logic, and how the pieces connect. This is where the model's future is decided, so we spend the time here rather than discovering the gaps mid-build.
- Use case and success criteria locked
- Source systems and data quality assessed
- Model architecture designed and reviewed with you
- Firm timeline and scope, not a rough estimate
The model gets built to the design, in short cycles you can see. You review real structure as it takes shape, not a status slide. Building in the open means the model that reaches go-live is one your team already recognizes, because they watched it come together.
- Core model built in reviewable increments
- Calculation logic validated against known numbers
- Your team sees the model as it's built, not at the end
We wire in your ERP, CRM, HRIS, and payroll. The integration layer is where planning trust usually breaks, so we build connections that fail loudly: when a source feed changes or drops, the model flags it instead of quietly serving a stale number that nobody catches until it's in a board deck.
- Native connectors where they exist, custom work where they don't
- Validation that catches bad or missing data at the door
- Alerts when a source breaks, before the number is wrong
We run the new model against your existing process before you rely on it. Numbers get reconciled, edge cases get tested, and your team uses it for real work while the old process is still there as a backstop. Go-live is a decision you make once the model has earned it, not a date on a plan.
- Reconciled against your current numbers and process
- Edge cases and period-end scenarios tested
- Go-live only once the model has proven itself
The handoff isn't a final phase, it's a thread that runs the whole project. Your team learns the model as it's built, gets trained on the real thing, and receives documentation they can actually work from. When we step back, you can run it yourself. If you'd rather we stay on for ongoing evolution, that's a choice, not a dependency we engineered.
- Training on your actual model, not a generic course
- Documentation your team can maintain from
- You own the model, with or without us
The things that decide whether it lasts
Every implementation firm will show you a finished model. The difference shows up months later, in whether your team still trusts it. Four things decide that, and we build for all four from the start.
Big firms sell with a senior partner and deliver with a junior bench. The context from your scoping call gets lost in the handoff. Here, the person who understood your problem is the one who solves it. Nothing gets translated through three layers first.
A model that only works for this year's org chart is a model you'll rebuild next year. We design the architecture to absorb change, new products, new segments, a reorg, so a business shift is an edit, not a teardown.
The quietest way a planning model loses trust is a broken feed that keeps serving old numbers. We build the data layer to surface its own failures. A silent wrong number is worse than an obvious error, because nobody goes looking for it.
Some firms build dependency on purpose, then charge to keep the lights on. We hand you a documented model and a trained team. Staying on for managed services should be a decision you make, not a trap you're in.