Can You Keep Up?
The Red Queen Race in Finance
In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
This image of a frantic effort just to hold ground has become a powerful metaphor in modern finance. Changes that not long ago seemed revolutionary, like cloud-based planning, real-time reporting or scenario modelling, have already become just a minimum expectation.
CFOs and their teams find that innovations quickly turn into a baseline, and the constant forward motion they make in the name of progress ends up only being enough to keep them standing still. Meanwhile, the pace of change never slows.
Finance leaders are operating in a paradox. They have to strive to stay ahead just to maintain their current position. In order to break free from this, they must find a new way to harness innovation while also keeping up the same rate of progress.
From Reaction to Leadership
The simple fact is that actively adopting technology alone is no longer enough. What distinguishes the leaders is not only the platform they use, but how good they are at harnessing it.
At Mavens Cloud, our answer to the Red Queen race is a model of execution that puts you ahead of the curve so that acceleration becomes your friend. We build applications on Anaplan that are designed to be deployed quickly, adopted fully and adapted easily, giving finance teams the power to move beyond reaction and to take control of the pace.
Applications are the Best Method
The strength of the applications model lies in its ability to combine structure with adaptability.
Having an organised structure, delivered through pre-configured applications, is particularly transformative. Instead of starting every initiative from scratch, our clients can deploy proven frameworks that already reflect industry best practices. In addition, applications are built with the adaptability to be tailored to the unique requirements of the business, ensuring relevance without delay.
The benefit is twofold. Clients gain the speed of implementation that a pre-configured design offers, while also having the flexibility to adapt models to immediate requirements and to evolving future business conditions. This balance of efficiency and agility reduces risk and accelerates delivery. Furthermore, it also makes adoption more natural.
Go from Concept to Capability in Weeks
One of the most visible shifts is speed to value. In the past, building a new planning capability often required months of design, testing and deployment. With Mavens Cloud applications, including the Profitability App, clients can achieve this in weeks.
Take predictive forecasting as an example. In the past, this would involve workshops, extended build phases and delayed testing. With applications, the essential components such as logic, data structures and interfaces are already in place. Projects become exercises in refinement rather than invention. This shortens the timeline, reduces cost and ensures measurable outcomes are achieved much earlier.
Speed, however, is not the only advantage. Because our applications are structured and auditable, they embed best practice by design. Each solution reflects the accumulated learning of dozens of finance-specific implementations. Improvements drawn from real-world finance challenges are built into the product. The outcome is not just faster delivery, but more resilient and sustainable models.
Design for Adoption
A solution only creates value if it is adopted by the people it’s designed for, and adoption cannot be assumed. It must be engineered into the process. At Mavens Cloud, this principle shapes every project we work on.
Applications are created with clarity, usability and transparency in mind. Calculations are traceable, data flows are visible, and documentation is embedded directly into the solution. Our delivery process also treats enablement as a continuous activity. From the first design sessions through to testing and go-live, client teams are actively involved. Training is integrated into each sprint, and annotated blueprints capture not just what was built, but why.
The effect is to ensure that when a project concludes, the business is not simply handed a tool. It already understands it, owns it and can evolve it confidently.
Scale Without Confusion
Finance rarely needs a single model in isolation. More often, organisations require a suite of interconnected capabilities: forecasting, budgeting, scenario analysis, fund modelling and risk management.
Because our applications share a consistent architecture, they can scale together without creating complexity. Data structures align, governance models are coherent and processes interlock smoothly. Each Application works independently, but collectively they form a connected planning ecosystem that grows with the enterprise. This ensures scalability without chaos, and expansion without unnecessary cost.
A Good Partner Makes All the Difference
Platforms provide the potential, but the partner determines whether that potential becomes reality. At Mavens Cloud, we combine our proven Anaplan delivery skills with deep financial expertise. Our teams also remain consistent throughout projects, and our focus is always on outcomes rather than outputs.
We measure success by visible adoption and clear impact, not by the completion of deliverables. Our consultants embed closely with client teams, adapting as needs evolve and ensuring that every sprint delivers obvious value. This approach has enabled us to maintain 100% client retention over the past two years, while delivering all projects on time and on budget. Clients have also recorded meaningful reductions in cycle times and reporting effort, alongside stronger ownership of their planning environments.
Work Out How to Set the Pace
The lesson from the Red Queen is clear: standing still is not an option. For finance leaders, the goal is not simply to run faster, but to change the nature of the race itself.
With applications built on Anaplan and delivered through our methodology, finance teams can move from months to weeks, from theory to adoption, and from keeping the pace to setting it.
In a world where the frontier is always shifting, the winners will be those who can see the “new normal” as a starting point rather than an endpoint. At Mavens Cloud, our mission is to ensure that finance is not locked in a race for survival but is shaping the track and leading from the front.