Oracle has been positioned as a Leader by Gartner’s 2020 “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions” report for the fourth year in a row. Of the 12 companies evaluated, Oracle was classified in the leading category for ability to execute and completeness of vision for its EPM Cloud services.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant financial planning software categorizes vendors into four key divisions – leaders, challengers, niche players, and visionaries, on the basis of their completeness of vision and the ability to execute it. For example, Board International, an on-premise and cloud solutions vendor, was categorised as a niche player. While Board has a substantial roster of on-premise customers, it lags behind the competition in cloud market presence, customer support and deployment. IBM, a similar vendor offering on-premise and cloud services, has been positioned in the challengers quadrant. While IBM has global customers and a roadmap for implementing AI, it lags behind in the market leaders in market presence, solution flexibility, and especially in its customer experience.

Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management or Oracle EPM Cloud is an integrated suite that supports planning, profitability, financial close and reporting processes. As a planning solution, it supports traditional financial planning and operational planning for sales, HR, IT and supply chain for a globally diversified customer base of large and midsize organizations.

Gartner lists Oracle’s customer base growth, customer feedback, and interoperability of solutions as its greatest strengths. Gartner writes, “Oracle’s customer base has continued to grow rapidly by attracting both new customers and those migrating from its on-premises Hyperion solution. Oracle has many large customers, a global reach, a large implementation partner ecosystem and a large service organization, along with broad business domain and industry coverage”.

Moreover, since Gartner’s previous Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions report, “Oracle has received significantly improved customer feedback in nearly all of the categories measured, with scores for application governance, overall product capabilities and AI capabilities in the upper or top quartiles. Especially noteworthy is the improvement in its scores for system performance and overall sales experience”.

Elaborating on the interoperability of solutions, the Gartner report says, “the Oracle EPM planning solution integrates tightly with both Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and NetSuite ERP. Underlying master data elements are shared by the ERP and FP&A components (as well as other EPM components)”, thus serving as a “lens into core finance transactions” for customers operating Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP or NetSuite.

Speaking of Oracle EPM and its adaptability to financial and planning solutions, Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM has successfully helped to combat current ongoing uncertainties affecting businesses globally, especially in financial planning and analysis. The pandemic has forced stakeholders and board members to place their bets on finance teams with the ability to make informed decisions to improve business resilience. Oracle Cloud EPM can visualise several what-if scenarios and assess an optimum response for each one while also running simulations to model and manage associated risks.

The Gartner report predicts that by 2024, 70 percent of all new financial planning and analysis projects will become extended planning and analysis (xP&A) projects, extending their scope beyond the finance domain into other areas of enterprise planning and analysis.

Oracle’s ability to support and connect planning across the organization is a competitive differentiator. Especially now, when it is no longer enough to plan well solely in finance and then go on to make separate plans for other departments, such as operations, sales, or HR. To outperform the competition, firms need to connect and align their planning processes and decisions across the board.

To streamline the planning process in sales, human resources, marketing, IT and supply chain management, Oracle offers custom-built solutions to target specific problems. Oracle Cloud EPM consolidates multiple EPM capabilities into a single suite: financial and operational planning, profitability and cost management, account reconciliation, consolidation and close, tax reporting, narrative reporting, and enterprise master data management (EDM).

According to Gartner, as early as 2024, the majority of new artificial intelligence projects in the finance domain will be deployed using out-of-the-box functionality. Therefore, Oracle has bolstered its capabilities with machine learning to automate routine tasks and provide more predictive, intelligent planning and insights. The aim is to spend less time on data collection and more time on developing business strategy.

“We’re proud that Gartner has once again named Oracle a Magic Quadrant Leader in the Cloud EPM market,” said Hari Sankar, Oracle’s group vice president of product management. “At Oracle, we are dedicated to giving our customers the most complete, innovative and flexible performance management solutions so that we can help them navigate a rapidly changing economic environment and chart a course back to growth. We believe this report acknowledges our customer-first mindset and validates our commitment to continuous innovation.” This has garnered Oracle consistent industry recognition for its financial and performance management applications.

In addition to being named a Leader in this report, Oracle was recently recognized as a Leader in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Core Financial Management Suites for Midsize, Large and Global Enterprises for the fourth consecutive year. Oracle was also named the only Leader in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises for the second year.

Learn how Aspire Systems can help your organization navigate the new normal with our Oracle Fusion offerings.

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