How a Manufacturing GCC Transformed Headcount Planning and Utilization Governance for 5,500 Employees with Anaplan

Problem Statement

The client is the GCC of a global manufacturing leader, supporting workforce planning and governance for a 5,500-employee technology and business operations workforce. To manage rising planning complexity, they moved from spreadsheet-led coordination to a connected Anaplan-based workforce planning model, enabling governed visibility into project demand, utilization, hiring workflows, timesheets, budget control, and leadership reporting.

To solve this, Polestar Analytics implemented a connected Trade Promotion Management and Gross-to-Net planning solution on Anaplan, bringing promotion planning, pricing, financial reporting, accruals, and settlement workflows into one integrated planning ecosystem.

Key Bottlenecks

• Fragmented workforce hierarchies limited visibility across technology center and business leadership layers.
• Project planning, resource allocation, and timesheet management were not connected in one structure.
• Activity-level timesheet capture under specific projects created heavy drill-down and approval complexity.
• Projected hours, actual hours, billable effort, and utilization variance were not available in one governed flow.
• Open positions, hiring approvals, and fulfillment status lacked end-to-end workflow visibility.
• Budget versions, forecast changes, project feedback, and NPI calculations were difficult to control and trace.
• Leaders lacked role-based dashboards with clear slicing, drill-downs, and planning visibility.

Solution Implemented

• Connected Workforce Planning: Linked project demand, resources, hierarchies, ownership, and leadership views in Anaplan.
• Timesheet Governance: Enabled activity-level timesheet punching, approvals, billable-hour tracking, and invoicing readiness.
• Utilization Tracking: Connected projected hours, actual effort, variance, capacity gaps, and allocation risks in one view.
• Hiring Workflow Visibility: Tracked open positions, approvals, fulfillment status, and hiring demand against project plans.
• Project Feedback & NPI Control: Linked project feedback, resource data, and effort inputs for traceable NPI calculations.
• Budget Governance: Standardized budget versions, forecast changes, approvals, maker-checker controls, and ownership trails.
• UX-Led Dashboards: Built close to 100 role-based dashboards across projects, hours, hiring, utilization, budget, and leadership reporting.