Financial departments understand the importance of numbers, and especially the numbers behind financial decisions. The need for accurate data across financial applications has led many to adopt enterprise planning management (EPM) software like Oracle’s Hyperion to support their planning, budget, and forecasting analyses and decision making.

As part of understanding those numbers, finance departments see the arguments for moving to cloud computing. Reducing expenses and turning them from capital costs into operational costs have significant benefits for budgets and financial management.

So should finance departments contribute to those benefits by moving their Hyperion financial planning to the cloud? Oracle offers the SaaS version of Hyperion as Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS), along with migration support that helps customers make the transition.

Advantages of Cloud-based Hyperion

For companies that are just getting started with enterprise planning and enterprise performance management software, the cloud may enable companies to jumpstart their effort. With no hardware or software purchase needed, utilization of the software can start almost immediately.

Companies that already have an on-premises deployment can use the cloud to expand usage beyond the finance department to operational planning teams. Because the cloud version can be accessed from anywhere, this means your entire organization can always make decisions supported by the data.

Using the cloud version of Hyperion eliminates the need for routine maintenance activities. Upgrades and backups are scheduled for you; disaster recovery capability is provided automatically.

Disadvantages of Cloud-based Hyperion

For many organizations, the biggest disadvantage of PBCS is that it requires putting their financial data in the cloud. While the truth is that almost all major breaches have occurred in local data centers and cloud environments often provide better security controls than on-premise infrastructure, there’s a inherent lack of comfort with having such sensitive information outside of the corporate environment.

Companies that use multiple EPM products or have complex integrations between Hyperion and other corporate systems may find it preferable to host their deployments locally. Making sure systems are interoperable may require managing and coordinating patches and upgrades, which is difficult when using the cloud where those are outside your control. There may also be a need to move large amounts of data between PBCS and other corporate financial systems, which can add time lags and risk to processes, as well as potentially overload networks.

Administer Hyperion in Any Environment

Whether you run locally or in the cloud, effective administration of Hyperion is a major factor influencing the success of the deployment and usage of the application. Experienced admins aren’t easy to find; the best admins, who bring a combination of technical and application expertise, are especially difficult to find.

The team at Prescient Solutions includes Hyperion Certified Administrators who can help you set up your environment and keep it running smoothly, enabling your financial team to focus on important business analyses rather than struggling with the application. More than that, our team can work with you to help you decide whether the cloud or local deployment model suits your needs, and then support you in implementing or transitioning to the configuration that works best for your business. Contact us for a free assessment to discover how Prescient Solutions can help you get the most out of your Hyperion enterprise performance management software.