By Hiran de Silva
When you look at SaaS promos (Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning, DataRails, Oracle NetSuite Planning, etc.), their pitch usually revolves around four repeating themes:
- Scalability & Data Integration
- SaaS pitch: Excel is fine for small models, but once you have thousands of cost drivers, products, or service lines, the spreadsheets “break” or become unmanageable.
- USP claim: Their cloud system centralises data automatically, integrates directly with ERP/HR/CRM, and scales without copy-paste.
- Collaboration & Control
- SaaS pitch: With Excel, different managers each have a version of the file, version control is a nightmare, and consolidations take days.
- USP claim: A single, secure cloud platform with controlled access, audit trails, and simultaneous user entry — “one version of the truth.”
- Automation of Cost Allocation
- SaaS pitch: Excel requires complex formulae, VBA, or manual updates to maintain allocation rules (drivers, percentages, time-based rates).
- USP claim: Pre-built allocation engines that automate ABC calculations with drag-and-drop configuration instead of formulas, and update dynamically as new data flows in.
- Governance, Auditability & Compliance
- SaaS pitch: Spreadsheets are opaque, risky, and error-prone. Regulators and auditors dislike black-box formulas buried in cells.
- USP claim: SaaS gives transparent workflows, full audit logs, and “enterprise-grade” governance — reducing operational risk and compliance headaches.
In short
The SaaS ABC USP is framed as:
👉 “Excel is messy, error-prone, unscalable, and unfit for collaboration — our platform gives you a single source of truth, automation, and control.”
That message plays directly into managers’ fear of Excel Hell (errors, version chaos, risk exposure) rather than into the actual capabilities of Excel itself.
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