Oracle EPM Cloud has Changed

Oracle has made a lot of changes to EPM Cloud, and many of our clients have been asking us what it means and why it matters. This blog will provide clarification in regard to the following topics:

  • Why has Oracle changed how it messages and sells EPM Cloud?
  • What are the changes to product names, bundles, and pricing?
  • How will these changes impact current customers?
  • Where are we heading from here?

 

Why Oracle is changing EPM Cloud

In summary, customer adoption has matured over the past ten years. This has meant customers are more comfortable migrating their entire Enterprise Performance Management workload to a public cloud. In tandem, Oracle’s solution has also matured to the point in which all EPM workloads from planning, reconciliations, close, and reporting can be accommodated. By simplifying the pricing model, Oracle aims to encourage broader and deeper adoption with continuous innovation enabled through the SaaS model. This reflects an underlining rationale by Oracle that customers are ready to make buying decisions on an EPM level. Customers will now pay a single price per user with the ability to expand features as needed to meet changing business requirements.

New Product Names, Bundles, and Pricing

A useful shorthand: no more “Cloud Service” naming and no more acronyms. Rather than technical sound names, Oracle has opted for names that reflect the “business process” they solve. The new bundle and pricing model aims to provide more value and integration between business processes.

The new product names:

PBCS & EBCS ➡️ Planning (Note: Oracle no longer distinguishes between regular and enterprise, RIP EPBCS).

FCCS ➡️ Financial Consolidation and Close

ARCS ➡️ Account Reconciliation

EPRCS ➡️ Narrative Reporting

PCMCS ➡️ Profitability and Cost Management

TRCS ➡️ Tax Reporting

EDMCS ➡️ Enterprise Data Management

The new product bundles:

With respect to bundles, Oracle is consolidating all products into three SKUs. These products will no longer be sold separately (caveat: Enterprise Data Management is the only exception to this rule – there is now a 1,000 record cap option).

Standard Edition includes…

  • Module-based Planning
    • Capital, Financials, Projects, Workforce (2x), and Strategic Modelling (6 cubes total)
    • 2 custom cubes (1 hybrid BSO and 1 ASO cube)
    • Note: All modules come with configurable content (dimensions, rules, dashboards, reports, etc.) except for Strategic Modelling which uses standard or industry templates
    • Note: Groovy is NOT available for Standard Edition
  • Narrative Reporting
    • This includes the two most popular tools Narrative Reporting and Management Reporting
    • Note: does NOT include Disclosure Management
  • Financial Consolidation & Close
    • This includes Supplemental Data Management, Financial Consolidation, Close Management
    • Note: does NOT include Advanced Calculations, Custom Calculations, Intelligent Process Automation (integrations for Task Manager), and Intelligent Performance Management
  • Account Reconciliation
    • This includes Reconciliation Compliance
    • Note: does NOT include Transaction Matching

Note: Each module will be provided in a different environment each with a test/prod and within the same data center. To counter the complexity of managing across environments, a landing page will link the environments as well as Data Maps in the future (*Safe Harbour statement applies).

Standard Pricing – Customers will utilize a single pod across all business process options. Additional pods will cost an additional $2,500 per month. Standard costs $250/£198 per named user (a single, unique user across all included business process options) per month for ONE business process. A 10-user minimum is also applied.

 

Enterprise Edition includes…

  • Planning
    • Module-based (see above)
    • Custom (6 custom cubes + 6 ASO cubes)
    • A framework similar to EPBCS (3 custom cubes, 4 ASO cubes, and Workforce ASO cube)
    • Free Form (we’ll get to that later…)
    • Note: Enterprise Edition includes Groovy.
  • Narrative
    • Includes Disclosure Management
  • Financial Consolidation & Close
    • Includes all features and support for Complex and Custom Calculations
  • Account Reconciliation
    • Includes Transaction Matching

PLUS…

  •  Profitability & Cost Management
  • Tax Reporting
  • Enterprise Data Management (up to 5,000 hosted records)

Enterprise Pricing – Enterprise will cost $500/£396 per named user per month. A 25-user minimum applies and Enterprise Data Management is capped at 5,000 records (with the option to buy more). Unlike Standard, buying more pods will NOT incur any new fees and you can add/subtract users at any time.

Remember that Free Form planning option? This gives customers the flexibility to develop stand-alone Essbase cubes within the planning offering, minus the usual planning restrictions such as required dimensions and dimension size (caveat: technically there are thresholds but these are quite high and can be adjusted upon request). Free Form planning comes with a single application per instance (and 2 instances per pod, which is usual for Planning Cloud). Moreover, Free Form planning will allow 1 cube per application (either ASO, BSO, or hybrid). You will also be able to import directly from an Essbase via otl. file and BSO Essbase outlines that are imported will have the option to enable hybrid. If more Essbase cubes are required, the customer will need more pods (as mentioned earlier, these are at no extra cost for Enterprise). This may prove useful for customers who are using a couple of Essbase cubes to run their Hyperion Planning on-premises but don’t want to buy PaaS (Oracle Analytics Cloud) in addition to a SaaS application.

 

How do these changes impact current customers?

Let’s analyze this by customer scenario.

  1. Stay on your current license agreement until it expires and then transition to the new license model. This is the simplest path, although it may not be the most affordable option for some customers.
  2. Migrate to a new license model and cancel your existing agreement. Use Lifecycle Manager (LCM) to archive existing objects, create a new agreement and migrate the archived objects to the new environment. The BSO cubes can be tweaked to leverage the new hybrid BSO functionality. This would require a robust retest of all the rules, formulae, and performance. This is more complex than option 1, however, it may save cost.
  3. For customers today using a single, value-priced solution ($125 per user per month) such as ARCS, FCCS, and PBCS you will have to pay more post-license expiry unless they intend to expand into more than one business process. Oracle believes these customers will see the value in accessing a capable EPM stack. This doesn’t change the fact, however, that it is now more expensive unless the customer is already using 3+ EPM solutions.

 

Where are we heading from here?

The big picture vision is an integrated EPM stack from planning to financial close to reconciliation and reporting. This is good news for customers looking to extend their investments.

This new integrated approach can help you to rationalize your EPM portfolio, and reduce your TCO.  Get in touch with one of our teams to explore your options, and learn more about how we can help.

Contact us today.

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