You use HFM, what’s next?

Many small, medium and large enterprises are still depending on HFM as their Financial Consolidation and Reporting system. Many of them have not decided yet what to do next. Let’s look at the options.

Upgrade HFM to version 11.2

Many organisation will decide to upgrade to 11.2 but the reasons differ from the past. Although 11.2 will be supported by Oracle for the next 10 years or so, not all clients that do decide to upgrade are planning to use HFM for the coming 10 years. Many are deciding for this step as an interim decision. This is buying time for the ‘bigger’ decision to come and reliefs the pressure to stay compliant with IT and Support policies. The bigger decision most organisations are, or will be, looking at is whether to replace HFM with Oracle Cloud or an alternative EPM/CPM solution.

Migrate to Oracle EPM Cloud

The Oracle EPM Cloud suite is the Oracle solution to replace the On-Prem EPM products. So for Oracle users this would be a logical choice; replacing Oracle On-Prem with the newer Oracle Cloud solutions. But HFM users are hesitating, especially organisations that have large and complex setups of HFM. Oracle Cloud is not simply a Cloud-version of the On-Prem products, it’s a completely different solution rebuild from the ground up. So to replace HFM with Oracle Cloud is from an organisation perspective similar to replacing it with another alternative software solution. To successfully do this it will require reassessing and redesigning your finance processes and applications, rebuilding your applications and integrations, retraining your admins and users, and a re-investment in software licensing.

Migrate to another solution (OneStream)

There are quite some alternative EPM/CPM solutions on the market. Amongst long time HFM users many favour OneStream over the other alternatives. OneStream has been growing massively over the past years and is expected to continue to grow their market share in the coming years. If you look at the EPM/CPM consultancies there has also been a significant shift and growth in OneStream capabilities and implementations. Why do people love OneStream so much? Customers seem to be happy with the (integrated) solution and great support they get from OneStream. OneStream staff seem to be happy with the atmosphere in their organisation and community. External consultants seem to be happy with implementing the solutions and the business it generates.

Do nothing

Although doing nothing is the worst choice you can make, there will be plenty organisations that will do nothing in the foreseeable future and continue to use an outdated and soon unsupported solution going forward.

Conclusion

HFM users have an important decision to make. For the long term, we expect that most large enterprises will move to either Oracle Cloud or OneStream XF. Organisation that decide to stay On-Prem are in most cases ‘buying’ time to postpone the ‘bigger’ decision. The battle for the large enterprises that use HFM will be mostly between Oracle and OneStream. Success stories will be playing a big role in this battle.

TVR21

Our EPM Advisors bridge gaps between Finance and IT and have extensive experience with EPM & IT Technologies. Our independent Advisors have worked with many large corporates, EPM vendors, Consultancies and global IT service providers. We help our customers with their Cloud Journey, Product Selections, Sourcing & Support models, and Governance & Compliance challenges. We can also help you with making the ‘big’ decisions moving forward.