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So, let’s start off with a simple question – do you know how many people in your organization are actually involved with Planning and Budgeting?
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Planning extends far beyond the walls of the finance organization. Every department in your company is involved in developing a plan and budget, with at least managers and business analysts directly participating. The reality is that the vast majority of planning and budgeting work is done outside FP&A by LOB users
And while common wisdom holds that more inputs can help lead to more accurate forecasts, the problem is that often these inputs are applied via disconnected processes on spreadsheets. The result is a huge amount of inefficiency and general loss of productivity in the Planning process. According to a recent study by Hackett and FEI, on average:
On average it takes a company on average 60 days to prepare a budget.
80% of employees spend time gathering data in the Planning process
This can add up to 3% of a company’s revenue, or
$1,000 per employee!
Slide Transition: So, how can a cloud-based solution help?
Obtaining the input and intelligence of line of business managers becomes much more feasible with a cloud-based model that can be easily and flexibly rolled out across the organization.
While a couple of years ago, we still saw reluctance in the Finance department around adopting cloud applications, largely driven by security and data confidentiality concerns, this has changed rapidly. We’ve seen this within our own customer base over the past couple of years, and confirmed by a recent survey we conducted:
CFOs are increasingly buying into the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Over the next year, 75% of companies surveyed use or will consider deploying EPM in the cloud.*
*Source: Oracle 2014 Top Trend Survey
Finance also sees huge benefits of moving to the cloud and find this compelling. In fact finance consider this a game changer in allowing them to do more with less and faster.
No having a huge capital outlay upfront and the ability to get up and running quickly was substantiated by the results of the Oracle 2014 Top Trend survey where 70% were motivated to avoid the large upfront investment and 62% favored the ability to get up and running quickly.*
*Source: Oracle 2014 Top Trend Survey
This is where Oracle marks a difference.
From a technology standpoint, Web-based planning, budgeting and forecasting applications have become popular over the past 8 years, because of their ease of deployment and flexibility in supporting dynamic, event-based planning and forecasting. At Oracle, we continue to lead the market with over 3,800 customers worldwide that have adopted our Hyperion Planning solution.
Most Hyperion EPM customers have deployed these applications on-premise. In addition, since over 5 years ago, Hyperion EPM applications have been available as hosted solutions through Oracle Managed Cloud Services (formerly called Oracle On Demand) or through many of our hosting partners around the world.
Now we are starting to deliver the new generation of EPM applications via the Oracle Cloud, leveraging the experience gained with our market-leading technologies on-premise and hosted, but with the simplicity of the cloud.
Cloud-based applications can remove adoption barriers for many organizations that didn’t have the IT resources or budget for packaged software applications in the past.
Definition of the different cloud types on the arrow:
There are different ways to consume software and technology with cloud computing. In addition to traditional on-premise models, customers can build their own private clouds or use a third party provider like Oracle to manage their IT for them as managed services. And then there are Public Clouds, where hardware and computing resources are shared amongst customers and there is no hardware at all to buy or software to manage – your technology is delivered as a subscription-based service..
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service is part of Oracle Cloud, specifically part of the Application or SaaS services. It shares the same infrastructure, security, operations, etc. with the rest of Oracle Cloud.
Oracle delivers a full suite of integrated, enterprise-grade applications services. By choosing Oracle Cloud, businesses can avoid the fragmented data and business processes that can result from using multiple, siloed clouds from different vendors.
Oracle has invested many years and billions of dollars in R&D and strategic acquisitions to offer the most comprehensive, modern, flexible, and secure cloud on the planet. Companies of all sizes rely on Oracle’s broad suite of applications and enterprise-grade platform, all of which offer social, mobile, and business analytics capabilities.
So let’s look more closely at Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service. It is based on the market-leading Hyperion Planning application but built for and optimized for cloud. Or, as we like to say, World-Class Planning with the Simplicity of the Cloud.
There are three key points that I want to take you through now:
Fast adoption
First-in-class functionality
Flexible deployment
So, the market is moving and therefore momentum is building for many finance functions to look at modernising their operation. This is also something that we are seeing, from the many discussions and engagements we have had with CFO’s, there are three common change themes that is enabling those CFO’s to take a different approach to the critical business process of budgeting and forecasting.
Moreover, many organizations have limited IT staff and know-how, and they lack the financial resources to make capital investments in hardware or purchase software licenses
One of the issues that companies face with regard to rolling out planning systems beyond finance is that current systems do not allow line of business self-service.
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service eliminates those challenges and enables rapid adoption or world-class Planning processes across the organization. We have included a number of capabilities in the service to make it extremely easy to get users up and running with virtually zero training needed, leveraging:
- A new intuitive role based interface which is mobile ready
- A large amount of online help and tutorials.
- Best practice design templates and guides
- Guided application navigation features that literally take a new user through the whole process of building an application
- Plus diagnostics and governors that assist with monitoring and troubleshooting an application.
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud and Oracle Financials Cloud (GL) leverages the powerful Oracle Essbase calculation and business rules engine to plan, forecast, and simulate changes to your business.
The benefits of Fast Adoption with Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service are evident.
[Summarize key benefits]
In the end, it’s about the Speed and Flexibility for deploying planning and budgeting in your organization, but without giving up application capabilities.
We ran a customer and partner preview program several months ago, and the feedback was extremely positive.
The quote here emphasizes rapid deployment and the ability to get users going with little to no training.
[Note on customer preview – these customers have not yet purchased Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service. They have merely previewed and tested the functionality. Please do not represent as a standard reference customer.]
Another preview customer was rather impressed with the built-in training and online help/tutorials that come with Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service.
Moving on, the next point is First-in-Class functionality
The planning environment has changed considerably for most organizations in today’s global economy. Global recession, erratic growth and recovery, market volatility all make accurate planning and forecasting a challenging process. In fact, a survey by CFO Research Services revealed that 40% of CFOs can only accurately forecast one quarter into the future.
To make matters worse, a recent Oracle survey on planning and forecasting revealed that 93% of finance managers globally are drowning in spreadsheets. This was especially true in the area of budgeting, planning and forecasting with 75% of respondents indicating they used spreadsheets in this area.
While spreadsheets are easy to use and are the preferred tool for many professionals, they are not well-suited for enterprise-wide processes like planning when they are disconnected.
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service solves this problem by delivering first-in-class functionality via both, a browser interface and Excel.
It leverages the code base of the market-leading Hyperion Planning application, including the Oracle Essbase multi-dimensional analysis engine, workflow and process management, and other pre-built functionality to address planning and budgeting requirements.
Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service supports driver-based planning to help connect operational assumptions to financial outcomes, and supports a hierarchical planning process that encompasses both corporate finance and the lines of business within an enterprise.
It also delivers a powerful predictive budgeting engine out of the box. This allows you to move to an advanced modelling process where you can run stochastic modeling and monte carlo simulations against your data. It allows you explore a range of outcomes and give you a high level of confidence on the outcomes of your budget.
This reduces risk and allow you to focus on the key factors impacting your business.
Indeed, that’s a very important benefit of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service. While it’s a new cloud application, it leverages the code base of the market-leading Hyperion Planning, which has seen rapid adoption over the past 10 years with close to 4K organizations implementing it. Many of these deployments have become quite large with over 1000, and some even over 5000 users globally. This is what sets Oracle apart in the marketplace, proven on-premises technology, now optimized for the cloud.
This is a quote from one of the Partners who participated in our Preview Program. Very impressed with the functionality of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service –very robust, with comprehensive functionality on par with our on-premise technology.
Here another Preview Program Partner speaks about how Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service allows organizations to move away from disconnected spreadsheets to a more mature, workflow-enabled formal planning process on the cloud, to improve the accuracy of their budgets and forecasts.
In short, the benefits of First-in-Class Functionality delivered in Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service are clear.
[Summarize key benefits]
Executives and managers are continuously looking for ways to help their organizations survive and thrive in an uncertain and volatile economic environment. Some common initiatives include cost management, greater forecast accuracy, more flexible planning and budgeting processes, risk management etc.
But the challenge that most companies face today is that the systems that are in place are outdated or lack the tools & functionality required to respond to this evolving environment, resulting in high costs to integrate and maintain applications.
Many companies are assessing Cloud options in parallel with traditional upgrades of on-premise solutions. But they are cautious because they do not want to be locked into a single approach from vendors that can only offer either a Cloud solution or an on-premise solution with no way back.
For most organizations today, flexibility of deployment holds the key to the way forward. That is, the ability to adopt public, private and hybrid Clouds as desired and to alter the mix when business circumstances dictate it. Only Oracle can deliver this leveraging its own hardware, database, and applications technology, plus its cloud infrastructure.
Oracle has been offering applications in the Cloud for more than 12 years supporting the disparate needs of small, medium and large multinational organizations. And now we are further extending this value with Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service.
Unlike niche cloud vendors, Oracle lets you decide when upgrades happen, so you don’t have to go through planned downtimes at a critical time. With Oracle’s flexible upgrade schedule, you can choose an upgrade window that best fits your business.
You also have flexible deployment options, so you’re not locked into a single deployment mode forever. Because Oracle Cloud is built on open standards, it enables a smooth transition from on premise to the cloud -- and even the ability to move applications back and forth between Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service and Hyperion Planning on premise, through Lifecycle Management (LCM) packages, which is proven technology from the Hyperion applications portfolio.
In addition, you can seamlessly integrate data between your cloud and on premise applications in a hybrid or co-existence fashion.
As noted by this customer that participated in the product Preview Program, having a choice of deployment is a critical, highly valued benefit.
So this is how Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service delivers Flexibility in Deployments.
[Summarize key benefits]
Before we conclude, let me summarize a few details of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service
service, built and optimized for the cloud, includes features to help accelerate adoption, such as built-in starter kits and online tutorials, best practices, deep Excel integration , or diagnostics and governors to simplify admin & maintenance.