Archive for the ‘General’ Category
The Goal Getters will be present at this years Oracle Open World!Implementing Hyperion Financial Management in 90 Days
Can it be done; absolutely! However, to meet this timeline you won’t get ‘everything under the sun’ and you’ll have to strong change control to stick with the plan. I know what you’re thinking, “sounds too good to be true”. Right? Maybe not. Think about building a house in 90 days. Can it be done? Yep, I’ve done it (minus the foundation).
But it required a pretty specific plan and we had to stick to the plan even though we knew we wouldn’t be looking at the end product in 90 days. In it’s basic form we had i. a plan with critical milestones and ii. what I’m calling “building blocks” (i.e., framing, plumbing, electrical etc). We had to make sure that each of the building blocks was fully defined ahead of time (i.e., framed walls went here and not over there) and mapped out on the timeline to fit it in the 90 day window. Since I was the one managing the workplan I actually ended up switching the tasks around and going against the traditional order followed in construction.
Does it make sense to outsource the management of my Hyperion applications?
Application Management Outsourcing (AMO) refers to the ongoing maintenance, management, and support of an application software portfolio by an external company. It’s a hot topic these days with shrinking IT budgets. But how do you know if outsourcing the administration is right for you and your company?
First you have to identify the applications that are suitable for developing and maintaining remotely. Not all situations will fit this criterion due to security and procedures around administering certain applications and/or environments. I’d say 95% of the time this is not an issue however; I’ve been at some financial services clients where AMO was not an option.
Second, you need to know the company you outsource too. More importantly they need to know you and know your business. Outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or, saving money is in my opinion short sighted and misses the concept of outsourcing all together. Most Hyperion Financial Management applications are considered mission critical due to the impact they can have on the close cycle of a company and therefore, share price. Do you really want to hand that responsibility over to ‘cousin Vinny’ because he’s 10% less than a more reputable firm?
