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This is part 2 of 3 blog series comparing PCMCS - Profitability and Cost Management Cloud service Application; and HPCM - Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management on premise.

In the last blog I had written about what is Oracle Profitability application and the areas in which it can help an Organization. Also the modules that are part of HPCM but are not present in PCMCS. So in spite of having only Management Ledger module functionality why PCMCS is still the way to go.

For one, all future roadmaps from Oracle talks about development in cloud modules. The last big feature development in HPCM on premise was in year 2014. The focus from Oracle is to enhance features in Oracle EPM Cloud and associated modules. Be it in terms of tighter integrations from data perspective with Oracle source systems or metadata integration with DRM in cloud.

Apart from thrust from Oracle to move customers towards PCMCS, there are many other reasons that makes PCMCS a better bet than HPCM, such as data management, automations, Dashboards etc. In this part of blog series let's look at below 4 areas in detail:

1.     Data Management / Integrations

2.     License Cost

3.     Future ROADMAP

4.     Available Automations

Data Management:

To connect and load data from source, PCMCS uses data management interface (limited FDMEE). FDMEE is an ETL tool wrapper used specifically for many of the EPM Products. In HPCM the customer would need to procure an ETL tool license in addition to HPCM license whereas PCMCS license cost includes Data Management within same cost. Data load, error reporting, load rule scheduling and its automations can all be managed efficiently using Data management window. Yes it's still file based load without any direct adaptors with premise source systems, but the fact that build and maintenance of data interfaces is from a single user interface makes it a good solution. Few reasons why it works for customer are:

1. License cost of an ETL/ELT: Data management is included in PCMCS license cost, so customer need not buy an on premise ETL tool to connect to various source systems.

2. Build and maintenance of data interfaces is from single user interface: data management interface is accessible via same PCMCS workspace. So for any mapping change, profile update admin need not access and connect to another ETL UI.

3. Ease of maintenance: once users are trained on data management, they could edit and maintain interface with ease. The users are not required to upgrade/maintain/secure a separate ETL source.

4. Out of box features of FDMEE such as error reporting, workbench for reconciliation are all available within data management.

License Cost:

License cost for HPCM is calculated based on Per Million Revenue of an Organization. PCMCS calculation follows per user based licensing. As HPCM / PCMCS is an allocation tool to be used by specific Finance users who are typically not very high in number. So for an Organization with very high revenue the License cost of HPCM could become a deterrent but PCMCS could easily fit within the budget of all Medium and high revenue Organizations.

Future Roadmap:

Automation:

Any automation of jobs in PCMCS is made simple due to availability of EPM Automate utility. It is one unique and good feature available with Cloud EPM, which enables automation of several regular tasks in PCMCS including but not limited to following:

• Backup of metadata, data and application etc.

• Refresh and Deploy of application

• Generating archival files, storing them in server location and deleting files older than specified date

• Manage POV in PCMCS (copy, delete etc.)

• Executing data management rules

• Uploading and deleing files into/from service instances etc.

   

  So in a Nutshell if we have to compare the effort and Cost difference for a HPCM or PCMCS implementation there would be an extra effort of 8 to 12 Weeks for HPCM implementation: