The top 15 considerations an organisation should consider when choosing an EPM modelling platform: #2 Cloud Provider
James Wakefield
Managing Director of DataPlan8 and EPM expert delivering across Pigment, Anaplan, TM1 for your FP&A outcomes
Modelling EPM platform’s started out as on premise solutions but in the last 10 years there has been massive advancements in EPM solutions being available on the cloud. In fact, cloud is almost the default today when buying an EPM platform.
There are still a number of industry verticals that still prefer to buy on premise EPM solution. Government departments are an example who might want to install EPM in their own data centres and maintain control over any upgrades. I have seen times also when organisations have found cost savings in moving back to on-premise instead of cloud, but cloud is by far the most popular deployment I see today.
The big three cloud vendors are Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google GCP. Within your organisation your IT department will already have a preference for one of these and likely already have deployments of business intelligence capability in that cloud. The services that each of these cloud providers offer are very similar but none of them offer an EPM solution that is built by that cloud provider. It seems odd that such a major market industry of EPM does not have an Amazon, Microsoft or Google offering that capability. I think that is due mostly to that fact that Microsoft would like everyone to plan in Excel and Google would want everyone to plan in Google sheets but both suffer from a lack of audibility, version control, scalability and workflow.
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Any EPM deployment is at some stage in its maturity going to consider doing HR planning. Its such a big cost to organisations that its vital to have a good plan around what those costs and what they may be in the future. Here in Australia we are seeing increase in superannuation % rates that companies need to pay employees that become a key assumption in multi year planning. So if HR planning is a key part of your modelling then its important to consider any restrictions to uploading Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to a cloud provider and the region where they host their data.
Each cloud provider of AWS/Azure/GCP provide market places where vendors can sell their products that are hosted in that cloud. An organisation that uses a large amount of resources of that cloud provider will have commitment levels of spend that gives that organisation a better deal. So when considering an EPM solution you might find that your IT department already has a strong preference for it to be available on a specific cloud provider.
If you are considering which modelling EPM vendor then you will need to consider what cloud platform they deploy on and will that be a consideration and potential advantage for your organisation.
Recruitment Consultant - Recruiting FP&A, Finance Transformation & Accounting Automation professionals across the US
11 个月Great insight James, important consideration for companies looking to select an EPM vendor.
Head of FP&A Technology - Macquarie Group
1 年James, another insightful analysis. The ability for an organization to select its preferred cloud vendor depends on the flexibility provided by the preferred EPM vendor. Not all EPM vendors offer such flexibility. Moreover, when entering into SaaS agreements with EPM providers, even if the EPM application runs on the same cloud platform as that with which the company holds an ELA, utilization of cloud resources orchestrated by the EPM vendor may not necessarily contribute to the spend commitments stipulated in agreements between the company and the cloud service provider. An additional triparty agreement maybe needed. Some companies also preemptively include terms with their cloud vendor that enable them to consider the utilization of cloud resources of 3rd party applications if the 3rd party application is hosted on the same cloud platform. Another practice we see is that application providers deploying apps on cloud vendors' marketplaces and companies with preexisting agreements with the cloud vendor can access the applications at a reduced cost. Further, as companies mature their internal cloud skills to meet growing organizational needs, EPM vendors need to provide for architectures that span cloud services of several vendors.