Anyone who has attended Oracle's sales session on planning and budgeting cloud service (PBCS) in last two years would have heard the statement, "PBCS is selling like hot cakes" from the sales representative. Well... yes, it was and has continued to have a successful journey. Its higher adoption has sown the seeds for new hyperion cloud offerings in 2016, one of which is financial close and consolidation service (FCCS).
FCCS is not HFM on cloud
Initially, many people thought that the offering was hyperion financial management (HFM) on cloud. Let's put a setting stone and clear the air that FCCS is not HFM on cloud. It is an Oracle cloud offering to support financial consolidation and close process with a completely different database strategy as compared to HFM. Yes, you guessed it right, FCCS is not on relational database but on the same database platform as PBCS. It has 11 preconfigured dimensions and two custom dimensions. It provides a cloud-based offering for consolidation and close reporting with highly standardized out-of-the-box features built on years of experience and best practices that Oracle has learnt with its premier tool, HFM. Above all, it requires less or minimal administration and is very cost-effective as compared to on premise HFM, but still it may have to be prepared for a bumpy ride and user adoption as compared to PBCS. Let's see why!!
Constraints to adopt FCCS: Look and feel is different
In interactions with few of our clients who already use HFM and are planning to upgrade or use other Hyperion modules but exploring a specialized consolidation tool, we observed hesitancy to adopt FCCS. One of the key reasons was that CFO office was still reluctant to move actuals to cloud. Some of the clients who were inclined to FCCS moved away when they spoke to or sought opinion from Hyperion managers / directors of other clients. The fact that the look and feel is different as compared to HFM and database is not relational, Essbase could be another factor though to be fair to Oracle, they are trying to have same database strategy for both FCCS and PBCS offerings. But, we all know that usually the close and consolidation group and financial planning and analysis (FP&A) group have a different point of view.
Less flexibility with chart of accounts also may be a deterrent. Users need to be aware that having standard hierarchies or high level account members in key dimensions like entities and accounts allow for standardized reporting, calculations, and inbuilt financial intelligence which ultimately help in faster implementations. Oracle understands that PBCS was a different ball game when compared to FCCS as it was primarily for plan data. Clients can try PBCS for different lines of business or design in a way not to have actuals data in PBCS and hence, they are ready to play the waiting game.
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