NTT Data, a global IT services powerhouse, was
undergoing a major standardisation initiative
across its business units when it sought to
implement a sophisticated Territory and Quota
(T&Q) planning solution using Anaplan. This
initiative was mission-critical and time-sensitive
yet layered with complexity due to concurrent
transformation projects.
This was the largest Anaplan project Bedford
Consulting had taken on at the time, with high
executive visibility and complex cross-functional
dependencies. The scale, pace, and visibility
demanded leadership beyond conventional
delivery.
Omar Mehdi, now CEO of Formation Management Consultancy,
was appointed lead delivery consultant during this
pivotal engagement. Recognising derailment risks amid
organisational change, he established governance,
reset stakeholder expectations, and introduced
agile sprints to maintain momentum.
He collaborated with senior NTT Data stakeholders
to clarify scope, prioritise outcomes, and align
the roadmap with the broader standardisation
programme. His ability to simplify complex
requirements and remove blockers was key to
building trust and sustaining progress.
Despite the competing pressures of enterprise-wide
standardisation, the T&Q project was delivered
successfully on time and with strong adoption from
end users. The Anaplan solution enabled NTT Data to
drive greater visibility, accuracy, and agility in its sales
planning processes.
This project set a new benchmark within the
consultancy and became a cornerstone case study
for large-scale SaaS delivery under pressure. Omar’s
leadership was widely credited as a decisive factor in
the project’s succes
The Financial Times, a prestigious business and financial newspaper with over 130 years of history, undertook a
critical transformation of its workforce planning. With around 2,500 employees across international offices and a
fast-evolving digital-first strategy, FT needed a sophisticated workforce planning solution that integrated smoothly
with existing systems and enabled accurate, real-time forecasting.
The project was complicated by the media
industry’s stringent governance requirements affecting editorial independence and commercial outcomes. However, the
FT team was largely unfamiliar with Anaplan’s capabilities and had limited experience with large-scale planning
implementations, coming from a high-pressure media environment with high expectations but unclear understanding of
the technology’s potential.
Early communication gaps appeared, with key sponsors missing updates, leading to tense
steering meetings and executives feeling disconnected from progress. Most importantly, there was no internal
alignment on expectations, prompting a fundamental re-evaluation of the original Statement of Work and project
scope.
Omar Mehdi recognised that success required rebuilding trust and establishing clear foundations before any technical
delivery could commence. He immediately initiated a comprehensive foundation stage that brought together all key
stakeholders across HR, Finance, Operations, and Editorial teams to ensure no critical perspectives were overlooked.
Working directly with C-level sponsors, Omar redesigned the steering committee structure to include detailed,
executive-focused sessions that provided complete transparency on project progress, risks, and decision points. These
sessions became the cornerstone for rebuilding stakeholder confidence and ensuring strategic alignment.
During the pre-foundation scoping phase, Omar took a meticulous approach to requirements gathering, personally leading
sessions with subject matter experts across different business units. His focus was on understanding "what good looks
like" from an operational perspective, ensuring the Anaplan solution would deliver tangible value rather than just
technical functionality.
Despite the significant initial challenges around communication, expectations, and technical familiarity, the
workforce planning project was delivered successfully within the agreed timeframe. The Anaplan implementation
provided the FT with enhanced visibility into workforce costs, improved forecasting accuracy, and the real-time
planning capabilities essential for their dynamic business environment.
The project's success was evidenced not only
by its on-time delivery but also by the FT's growing confidence in the solution's value and adaptability. Provisions
were immediately put in place for a Phase 2 expansion, demonstrating the strong foundation Omar's leadership had
established for ongoing workforce planning sophistication.
This engagement became a testament to the importance of
stakeholder management, clear communication, and expectation alignment in complex SaaS implementations, particularly
when working with high-profile clients in demanding industries. The experience also highlighted how tailored change
management and training can accelerate user adoption and maximize technology impact.
Next Energy Group, a rapidly expanding renewable energy developer with over £2 billion in assets under management, was
experiencing the growing pains of a business scaling at unprecedented speed. With operations spanning solar, wind, and
battery storage projects across the UK and Europe, the company's traditional Excel-based financial planning processes
had become a critical bottleneck threatening their ability to capitalise on market opportunities.
The energy sector's volatile regulatory environment and fluctuating commodity prices demanded sophisticated financial
modelling capabilities that could adapt to changing market conditions in real-time. With approximately 800 employees
across multiple jurisdictions, the FP&A team was drowning in manual consolidation processes that took weeks to complete
and were obsolete by the time they reached senior leadership.
Next Energy's aggressive acquisition strategy had resulted in a patchwork of legacy systems and inconsistent financial
reporting standards across different business units. Most critically, the company's rapid growth trajectory meant that
any disruption to financial planning processes during implementation could jeopardise upcoming funding rounds and
regulatory
submissions.
Understanding the mission-critical nature of the engagement, Omar Mehdi immediately established a parallel-run approach
to maintain business continuity while building the new Anaplan solution. He recognised that Next Energy’s success
depended on a seamless operational transition that would not compromise their growth momentum.
Omar worked closely with the CFO and senior finance team to map the complex financial relationships across various
energy assets, currencies, and regulatory frameworks. His approach focused on building robust data integration
capabilities capable of handling diverse inputs from project management systems, commodity trading platforms, and
regulatory reporting tools.
Given the time-sensitive nature of the renewable energy sector, Omar implemented an accelerated delivery methodology
with fortnightly sprint reviews to enable rapid iteration and stakeholder feedback. This proved crucial for adapting to
frequent regulatory changes and market shifts. His deep expertise in financial planning allowed him to design
sophisticated scenario modelling within Anaplan, enabling Next Energy to simulate commodity price assumptions,
regulatory scenarios, and acquisition outcomes, transforming their FP&A from reactive reporting to proactive strategic
planning.
The Anaplan FP&A solution was delivered successfully ahead of schedule, enabling Next Energy to complete quarterly board
reporting in days rather than weeks. This transformation was immediately visible to stakeholders, with the CEO
highlighting that strategic discussions could now focus on growth opportunities instead of time-consuming data
validation and reconciliation.
The solution’s real-time scenario modelling capabilities proved invaluable during a major acquisition negotiation just
months after go-live. It allowed Next Energy to rapidly assess financial impacts and secure board approval within 48
hours—dramatically faster than the previous timeline of several weeks—demonstrating the power of agile, data-driven
decision-making.
This successful implementation positioned Next Energy to complete a £500 million funding round, with investors
specifically citing the company’s enhanced financial transparency and planning sophistication as key factors in their
confidence. The project became a catalyst for Next Energy’s ongoing expansion and established a scalable, resilient
foundation for sustained future growth.
Compare the Market, the UK's leading price comparison website serving over 18 million customers annually, has
implemented multiple Anaplan models across sales planning, workforce management, and financial forecasting. However,
these models operated as isolated silos, requiring manual data feeds and creating significant overhead for the
growing business intelligence team.
With over 1,200 employees and partnerships with more than 500 financial services
providers, Compare the Market generated massive transactional data daily. The existing Anaplan infrastructure
buckled under the strain of manual data management that required dedicated resources to maintain integrity across
models. The fragmented data architecture meant senior leadership lacked a unified view of performance, with
departments presenting conflicting metrics due to timing differences and manual errors.
This complexity increased
after acquiring additional comparison platforms, each with its own data structures and reporting needs. Most
critically, the company’s expansion into new verticals—including energy, broadband, and travel—required a scalable
data infrastructure to support rapid model development without manual integration bottlenecks.
Omar Mehdi recognised that success required architecting a sophisticated data hub solution to serve as the central
nervous system for all Anaplan models while supporting future expansion. His approach focused on creating an
intelligent data orchestration layer that seamlessly integrated with Compare the Market's existing ecosystem.
Working closely with the Head of Business Intelligence and IT Architecture teams, Omar designed a comprehensive data
hub to automate data flows from multiple sources, including Salesforce, Google Analytics, transaction databases, and
partner feeds. He implemented a phased deployment strategy prioritising critical data flows, ensuring existing
models operated while the new hub integrated progressively.
The solution included data validation and reconciliation
processes to flag quality issues before they reached downstream models. To encourage user adoption, Omar designed
intuitive monitoring dashboards providing visibility into data flow status, processing times, and quality metrics,
enabling proactive infrastructure management.
The datahub implementation transformed Compare the Market’s Anaplan ecosystem from isolated models into an integrated,
real-time planning and analytics platform. Data processing times dropped from hours to minutes, and manual efforts to
maintain model integrity fell by over 80%.
This unified data architecture enabled Compare the Market to launch new comparison verticals 60% faster, directly
supporting expansion into new markets and revenue streams. Senior leadership gained real-time, consistent metrics across
all business functions for the first time.
The solution’s scalability was tested during a major acquisition integration, where the datahub seamlessly handled new
data sources and model requirements without disrupting operations. The project set a new benchmark for Anaplan
infrastructure and became a reference architecture Bedford Consulting used for similar complex integrations.
Building on this success, the enhanced platform also improved forecasting accuracy and decision-making agility,
empowering Compare the Market to respond swiftly to market changes and customer demands while sustaining rapid growth.
Finlays, one of the world's largest tea and coffee plantation operators with over 150 years of heritage, faced
unprecedented challenges balancing supply and demand across global operations. With tea estates in Kenya, Sri Lanka,
and Argentina, and coffee plantations in Kenya and Ecuador, the company manages over 22,000 hectares serving major
brands like Unilever, Twinings, and Tetley. Supply planning was inherently complex, with crop yields dependent on
weather, seasonal variations, and long-term climate trends impacting production volumes.
Traditional spreadsheets
and legacy systems proved inadequate for managing the intricate relationships between plantation output, processing
capacity, quality grades, and customer demand across continents. The challenge was amplified by volatile commodity
markets, where tea and coffee prices fluctuated significantly due to global supply and geopolitical events.
With
about 45,000 employees, many in remote plantations, accurate forecasting required sophisticated coordination between
field operations, processing facilities, and commercial teams. Finlays’ commitment to sustainable agriculture meant
supply planning had to incorporate variables like Rainforest Alliance certification and fair-trade commitments,
while expansion into value-added products required plans accommodating both bulk commodity sales and premium
packaged products.
Omar Mehdi understood that success in agricultural supply and demand planning required a deep appreciation of both the
seasonal rhythms of farming and the fast-moving dynamics of global commodity markets. His approach focused on creating
an integrated planning platform that could accommodate the unique complexities of agricultural operations while
providing the commercial agility Finlays needed.
Working directly with plantation managers, agronomists, and commercial directors across multiple countries, Omar
designed a comprehensive supply and demand model that incorporated historical yield data, weather pattern analysis, and
market intelligence to create robust forecasting capabilities while accounting for the 12-18-month lead times inherent
in agricultural planning.
Omar implemented sophisticated demand sensing capabilities that could analyse customer order patterns, seasonal
consumption trends, and market intelligence to provide early warning signals for demand shifts. The solution
incorporated advanced scenario planning functionality that allowed Finlays to model the impact of weather variations,
commodity price movements, and supply chain disruptions on their operations.
Recognising the importance of field-level input, Omar designed mobile-friendly interfaces that enabled plantation
managers to update crop condition assessments and yield forecasts directly from remote locations, ensuring that supply
plans remained grounded in operational reality.
The Anaplan supply and demand solution transformed Finlays' ability to optimise their global agricultural operations,
reducing supply-demand mismatches by 35% and improving customer service levels despite the inherent uncertainties of
agricultural production. The integrated planning approach enabled more efficient allocation of processing capacity and
reduced waste across the value chain.
The solution's predictive capabilities proved invaluable during a major drought event in East Africa, allowing Finlays
to proactively adjust customer commitments and source alternative supplies months before competitors recognised the
supply shortage. This market intelligence advantage resulted in both retained customer relationships and improved
margins during a challenging period.
The platform's sustainability tracking capabilities enabled Finlays to achieve 100% Rainforest Alliance certification
across their key estates while maintaining commercial performance targets. Within 18 months of implementation, Finlays
reported a 15% improvement in working capital efficiency and a 25% reduction in emergency supply chain interventions,
positioning the company as a technology leader in the traditional commodity agriculture sector.
Specialising in SaaS project management, enterprise transformation, and AI strategy, we bring structure, alignment, and measurable outcomes.
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Specialising in SaaS project management, enterprise transformation, and AI strategy, we bring structure, alignment, and measurable outcomes.