Decision Point for Hyperion EPM Customers: What is the Future of Hyperion?

This article was originally published on OneStream.com by John O’Rourke

 

The Oracle Hyperion enterprise performance management (EPM) applications have been in the market for over 20 years and have delivered a great deal of value for many customers.  But as demand for EPM applications has shifted to the cloud, Oracle has reduced its investment in the Hyperion on-premise applications and is encouraging customers to migrate to the Oracle EPM Cloud applications.

This is creating a critical decision point for Hyperion EPM customers and is begging the answer to several questions. What is the future of Hyperion EPM?  Will the Oracle EPM Cloud applications meet my needs and what will it cost to upgrade?  What other options are available in the market?  Read on to learn the answers to these questions.

End of the Road for Oracle Hyperion Applications

Thousands of organizations around the world are relying on multiple Oracle Hyperion EPM applications to support their critical finance processes.  This includes products such as Hyperion Financial Management, Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Strategic Finance, Hyperion Profitability, Cost Management, and others. These were market-leading products for many years, and customers have received great value from them.  However, the fragmented nature of these products has created extra work and costs, including the following:

• Multiple points of maintenance
• Multiple points of data integration
• Time spent synching and reconciling data across applications
• High costs of ownership and upgrades

In addition, over the past few years, there has been limited innovation and declining support for these legacy products.  And now, with the end of support having passed on 12/31/21 for older versions of these products – we have reached a decision point for Hyperion customers.  The proverbial “fork in the road.”Which path will you choose? Let’s look at the options available.

Path #1 – Upgrade to Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.2

The first option for customers facing the end of support for Hyperion 11.1.2.4 or older versions is to upgrade to Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.2. Oracle has communicated that customers upgrading to this version of the Hyperion applications will be supported through 2031. However, very little innovation is expected on these products, and Oracle has already communicated that some modules were deprecated and are no longer supported.

Path #2 – Convert to Oracle EPM Cloud

The second option is to convert to Oracle EPM Cloud versions of the on-premise Hyperion applications. The main advantages here are that moving to the cloud removes the infrastructure and IT support requirements, and upgrades to new releases are easier. However, this path basically amounts to a re-implementation of the applications, which are still fragmented, with multiple points of maintenance and data integration. And in some cases, the EPM Cloud applications offer more limited functionality than was provided in the on-premise Hyperion applications. Does anyone really want to go backward in functionality?

Path #3 – Convert to Another Solution

The third option is to convert to another solution – such as OneStream. While there will certainly be some time, effort, and costs required here – over 400 former Oracle Hyperion customers have converted to OneStream and have never looked back. Why? Because OneStream is a unified platform that replaces multiple Hyperion applications – so it’s easier to use and maintain and reduces total cost of ownership. And OneStream is “function-forward,” meaning customers get more advanced capabilities than they had before.

The Power of an Intelligent Finance Platform

Figure 1 – OneStream’s Unified, Intelligent Finance Platform

With over 900 organizations and more than 160,000 users globally, OneStream has been recognized as a market leader by IT industry analyst firms such as Gartner, IDC, Dresner Advisory Services, Nucleus Research, and others and has received the Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice recognition in both Cloud Financial Close and Cloud FP&A solutions.

Our customers are using OneStream for planning, financial close & consolidation, reporting, analytics, account reconciliations, and more. In fact, 70% of our customers replaced multiple legacy applications such as Oracle Hyperion, SAP BPC, and IBM Cognos.

These organizations are achieving many benefits, including the following:

1. Reduced Technical Debt – Lower cost of ownership by eliminating multiple legacy applications and manual processes.
2. Increased Efficiency – average improvements of 39% in financial close and consolidation, 74% in reporting, and 32% in planning and budgeting – freeing up FTEs to focus on more value-added tasks.
3. Improved Effectiveness – The impact on the business of making faster, more informed decisions.

Learn More

With the end-of-life looming, it’s a critical decision point for Hyperion EPM customers.  What is the future of Hyperion?  For customers who elect to upgrade to Oracle Hyperion 11.2 the future means you can get support, but limited innovation, which means limited ability to digitally transform your Finance operations.  Migrating to Oracle EPM Cloud is an option, but buyer beware, you’ll face a lot of the same challenges that you face in managing and maintaining multiple Hyperion on-premise applications.

Check out our white paper titled “Why Now is the Time to Convert From Oracle Hyperion Applications” to learn why over 400 organizations have chosen to convert from Oracle Hyperion to OneStream’s unified CPM software platform. And contact OneStream if you would like a conversion assessment, where our team of experts will help you perform an ROI analysis of converting from Oracle Hyperion to OneStream.

Download the White Paper