CheckPoint Consulting Blog

Since 2008, the U.S. economic position has somewhat stabilized. Many companies trimmed costs in the years following the financial crisis, but still seek solutions for producing organic growth. We are all either growing, stabilizing or merging. With that in mind, we can ask ourselves what can we build, develop or investigate today to help guide our EPM and IT strategies into 2020 and beyond.

The focus of this blog (#4 in the series) is how to leverage the investment your company has made in establishing a Cloud EPM Vision and Executing successfully on the project. It is in this final phase of the Cloud EPM project implementation that we define our 'success'. Is this project a one-time triumphant event or will we create a Legacy of ongoing improvements and optimal return on our investments?

In this post we’re moving on from our discussion about establishing a Vision for Cloud EPM projects to the activities necessary during the project implementation.

My blog post last week shared that successful Cloud EPM projects have a common thread, a 'plan' that spans activities before, during and after the project’s lifecycle. Today I’ll focus on the specifics that need to occur before kicking off a Cloud EPM project.

In my previous blog post, I talked about the critical importance of the executive sponsor when implementing a Cloud EPM project. Over the next few posts, I’ll expand the focus of this discussion to cover best practices to leverage throughout not only the lifecycle of a Cloud EPM Implementation, but also the environmental factors that are important before, during and after the project. Implementing new technology can be full of pitfalls, both technical and organizational. This can especially be true for Oracle Cloud EPM projects. Oracle Cloud EPM projects will require the functional departments to give up some control to the IT group and perhaps need to integrate their processes with other departments. In the twenty-five plus years and dozens of implementations that I have been involved with I have identified many crucial success factors. Additionally, my colleagues at CheckPoint have collectively delivered well over a thousand projects. I will describe best practices for engaging all areas within a company to deliver a successful Oracle Cloud EPM project. 

Today’s global business environment is more challenging than ever. Trends such as the accelerated pace of change, disruptive innovations across multiple fields and emerging competitors require leaders to respond in strategic and original manner. In IT, doing business as usual will not provide the required nimbleness to face these challenges. Cloud technology such as Oracle’s EPM has significantly altered the entire IT landscape. With the vital role of IT, cloud computing is fundamentally changing the way that companies operate. Executive level sponsorship is considered to be the most intricate and vital role in disrupting IT-norms within the enterprise. As companies contemplate cloud strategies aligned with delivering growth and performance objectives, executive sponsors have countless concerns to carry out before, during and after cloud projects.

Every HFM implementation can and should deliver powerful results. However, each implementation is unique and a little tricky. Each phase reveals important ingredients that will ensure your implementation's true potential to meet and exceed successful results. No step is greater than the first step in determining overall success. As you embark on the journey, I encourage you to hold a series of discovery meetings as the first step.