The future of the HFM administrator

When I started in the EPM/CPM business early 2007, Hyperion System 9 was just released. During those days I was involved in many projects where customers migrated from HFM 4 or earlier to System 9. And there were lots of new implementations. The HFM market was still growing.

The world today is different in many ways. HFM is still widely used but what is the future for HFM, and the HFM administrator? Let’s look at a few perspectives.

You are the HFM administrator

You probably have 10+ years of experience managing HFM and are a key person in the corporate Finance team. Without you, your company will have a serious challenge. You might be the only one with in depth knowledge of the HFM system. You are probably born as Generation X. You might be a baby boomer or Generation Y but It’s very unlikely that you are part of Generation Z.

The number of available HFM specialists is declining rapidly. Existing HFM specialists are retraining themselves into EPM Cloud, OneStream or other alternatives. Many have already done this in the past years. The younger generation is not interested in HFM. HFM will probably still be used for many years but this will be declining more and more every year.

If you are an HFM specialist and not a few years away from your pension you should consider learning new skills and products. The favourite amongst many is OneStream.

You are responsible for the HFM systems and team in your company

You are probably planning an upgrade or considering to move to EPM Cloud or a different platform. If you don’t have a plan yet you will face big challenges ahead. If you are planning to do an upgrade now, you are only ‘buying time’ for the big decision you have to make at a later stage. Don’t wait too long for making future plans. The future will be present sooner than you sometimes expect. Don’t only plan for the systems and applications but also for the skills and talent management within your team.

You are a Consulting firm specialised in EPM/CPM

You have probably already retrained your HFM specialists into Oracle EPM Cloud or OneStream. Key decision you have to make (or already did) is which road you are going to follow. There is a clear trend in the market. Within the multi-vendor firms, the OneStream practice is growing the most. Also the OneStream-only firms are growing while we see less Oracle-only firms in the market.

TVR21

TVR21 is an independent EPM/CPM Advisory company. We help corporates across EMEA with EPM/CPM Advisory Services, Vendor- and Product Selections, Project Management and Quality Assurance.