EPM Conversations Episode 27 — A Conversation With Matt Bradley, Oracle Senior Vice President, Development

Matt Bradley, SVP of Development at Oracle will likely be well known to listeners; he’s a familiar face to customers and partners and can often be found talking about Oracle’s EPM strategy at conferences and other events.

Matt has worked for Oracle not just once but twice, led a healthcare decision support company way back when we still called it decision support, and joined Hyperion as the development for Planning on Valentine’s Day 2000. Listeners old experienced enough to remember the very first release of Hyperion Planning can thank Matt.

We talk about the future of on-premises Oracle EPM and Oracle’s policy of offering a rolling ten-year runway to customers who haven’t yet decided to move to Cloud for some or all of their business processes, how many customers remain in that position (via a gentle dig at a notable competitor’s market penetration), and about why that might be. Speed to a revised plan is becoming more and more crucial and we Matt shares his thoughts about how this can be supported via ML, IPM and Gen AI features. These features are a definitive break from the EPM past which have enthused the development team. We also learn about where that team sits in the world, how developers are selected and how the EPM development group works together with other Oracle teams.

Matt also talks about his customers, describing just how much (or little) of a customer’s activity can seen by Oracle – they can measure the adoption of new functionality, for example – and the way that newer entrants to the workforce have brought with them higher expectations of user experience that match what they see in non-enterprise application software.

Finally we talk about life outside of work. Raised in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland and educated in Belfast, Matt and his family now reside in Dublin (but the Californian one). Matt is married to his high school sweetheart whom he met while performing in a stage production of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – which, respectfully, your hosts would not have guessed given a dozen attempts. Matt shares his tastes in literature, film and his admiration for (arguably) Northern Ireland’s greatest footballer of all time.

Spend an hour with Matt (and us) by listening to the entire episode.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations Episode 26 – A Conversation With Gabby Rubin, Group Vice President, Product Management, Oracle Analytics, Part 2

Oh How The Tables Are Turned

I trust you’ve listened to Part the First of the interview with Gabby.  This episode is better.  Why?  Simply because Gabby starts interviewing us and we get a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side of the metaphorical table.

I’m not going to reveal any more than that – it’s simply too good and if you don’t end up laughing at Gabby’s interrogation techniques and our squeamish answers, well, you simply don’t have a good sense of humor.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations Episode 25 – A Conversation With Gabby Rubin, Group Vice President, Product Management, Oracle Analytics, Part 1

What’s past is prologue

I (and the rest of your EPM Conversations hosts) first knew Gabby from his time in Essbase product management, a role he has long left. Celvin and I (50% of your host population) have been out of the Oracle space since 2017 so it’s difficult to remind ourselves that nothing stands still, and certainly not a dynamic personality like Gabby. Forgive us two if some of our questions dwell overmuch on the past, where Natalie’s and Tim’s are focused on today.

However, Gabby’s past story is one worth exploring as it informs the present – from the military to multiple startups to Big Red. Throughout it, he’s his inimitable self, bringing humor (yeah, this is the plug for the first episode, but wait till the second episode – it’s…incredible, and it doesn’t make sense unless this episode is heard first) and a playful wit to the performance management space.

Just some of the highlights

HyperRoll and its first home in Oracle Express, ASO, the lawsuit, HyperRoll’s purchase by Oracle. just what exactly is Hybrid Essbase (the number of hours we’ve debated just what is happening under the covers), Essbase’s place today and tomorrow, working at small and large firms alike, helping out idiots who write multiple books on Essbase, and philosophy. That’s an awful lot to cover in an hour, hence this episode as part one of two.

Join us, won’t you?

A Portrait in Leadership: Women in EPM with Minie Parikh

Yr. Obt. Svt. finds broad cultural movements to be interesting both conceptually (what are they, why do they exist, how did they start, and the rest of the who, when, and where list) and in practice because of their broad outcomes and impact on individuals.

My inveterate curiosity aside, women in STEM (STEAM) has been a current in social and professional change for roughly the past decade. Various organizations and companies, e.g., ODTUG, PwC, OneStream, Oracle, and many others, have been active advocates of this program

In many (most, really) respects, EPM Conversations is a series of, um, conversations with the leading lights in our Performance Management (and others) community and we have been blessed with a truly eclectic and interesting set of guests.

EPM Conversations has a started a new series in that vein – Portraits in Leadership: Women in EPM. Our first guest is Minie Parikh.

She is a true renaissance woman: driven, smart, far sighted, artistic, perceptive, altruistic, warm, positive, and more and oh yeah, right in the thick of EPM with her firm, EPMI.

Minie’s story is inspiring: a first generation American who rejected her expected professional path and instead became a Big4 consultant, cofounded a boutique consultancy (EPMI), is a guest on this podcast (ahem, that’s only kind of a joke, one that is quite firmly tongue in cheek, but it is quite hard to pique our collective interest and oh by the way, she too has a podcast), while leading through active participation and by example in WIT. If that isn’t leadership, I don’t know what is.

And lest you become overwhelmed by all of this, there is of course that human story, and it’s kind of out there.

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like an SmartView query

With the most profuse apologies possible to Old Blue Eyes and Sammy Khan, love and marriage and Excel and Smartview and Essbase rarely, and I do mean just about never except maybe this one and only time, come together and yet in Minie’s case, it most absolutely did because she met her husband, Nihar Parikh in a bar where they bonded over their mutual love of SmartView. It is totally geeky cool and very sweet. Never say there’s nothing new under the Sun.

The first of many

Fingers crossed, our new series finds favor with you, Gentle Listener. One of the great things about this podcast is the ability to quickly jump from one theme to another. As this section header notes, Minie is not the last.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations Episode 19 – A Culture Clash Conversation Or Our Kith and Kin Across The Sea Explicit

It’s a Book, It’s a Podcast Episode, It’s Kismet

A bunch of geeks (native born, immigrants; Americans all) interviewing an Australian and a New Zealander/Australian/American (it’s complicated) set Yr. Obt. Svt. to immediately think of the title of this podcast (eh, I need to get more than one hobby), who then looked up the phrase and found that…it’s a travelogue of a New Zealander’s view of the USA, circa 1888.  Seriously, what are the chances that the Mind of Cameron (often non compos mentis, invariably kind of wacky) and reality and a not half bad title smack up against each other?  This podcast episode was destiny realized.

The point behind this (I have finally managed to get round to that) is that the ties between the Antipodes and the Americas are long standing.  This may make our Cousins wince in recognition, but in my travels to their lands, I’ve been markedly struck by the similarities.  Yes, of course different origins (although related), and different emphasis in politics and society, but not unrecognizably; culturally in outlook and aspirations, we are awfully alike.  Okay,  I think so, but do they?


What then is the value of a Culture Clash episode where people-who-are-practically-Americans (ahem) are interviewed by-people-who-are-practically-Aussies-and-Kiwis?  I have noted that those who are closest and yet different are often the best observers, for they are alike enough to understand nuance but separate enough to not be blinded by a common mindset.

Richard (the man of a million or so legitimate passports) and Pete (just the one country, but Godzone)  have lived/worked in the States.  Just what are their perceptions?  What are two very different (from the US-of-A) EPM markets like?

I should note that Pete got me the 2017 Best Kscope Essbase co-speaker award that I have always, always, always wanted.  My oh my, did I want that, did I ever think I deserved it – yes, cruel ego as it was always unfulfilled – and I never did get it till Pete and I did a presentation on Hybrid Essbase.  I will note that Pete has won multiple best speaker awards at Kscope, so I have a sneaking suspicion our joint award is 20% Cameron, 80% Pete but no matter, a win is a win.  I should also note that Kscope 2017 was my last Oracle conference as a speaker, so it made the reward all the sweeter.

Richard graciously was my host at Flinders Uni way back in (I think) 2012 as part of an ODTUG conference tour of the Antipodes and facilitated (orchestrated?) an ODI/Essbase presentation at NZOUG.  My primary memory of that trip (I was in a constant state of jet lag) was dinner with Richard and a bunch of attendees and being stared at as a Real Life American geek, not commonly seen in the wild, sitting there eating his plate of spag bol, feeling more self-conscious than usual were that possible.  Oh well, I like to provide entertainment to all, no matter the cost. 

Having the two of them on the show was and is a special treat.

Not For The Faint of Heart

For those of delicate disposition, easily offended by adult words, mortally insulted by honest, open, and frank conversation, I fear you must put on your big boy/girl pants and buckle up.  We Americans, cultural descendants of the Puritans, beseeched our guests to tone down the language lest you, Gentle Listener, get a case of the vapors.  They mostly complied, but You Have Been Warned.  That takes care of the North Americans; the rest of the world won’t care.

Sensitivities aside, as always our guests are witty, insightful, and extremely interesting.

EPM Conversations — Episode 13, A Conversation with Elizabeth Ferrell, Accountant (ex), Advocate (of so many things), and Aviatrix

Natalie Delemar and I – as with so many others in the performance management space – first met Elizabeth Ferrell at a conference, in this case ODTUG’s Kscope.

Elizabeth’s path to her current job, focus, and professional interests evinces the typical path from school, to finance, not-at-all-usual hobby, and now to our beloved performance management community.

But to characterize Elizabeth as typical is to do her an injustice or perhaps just inaccuracy on Yr. Obt. Svt.’s part. As evidence of that (beyond of course this EPM Conversation episode) is to have a read of Elizabeth’s thoughtful article on the state of your – ours – work satisfaction and what we do with that.

Her episode is just as thoughtful.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations — Episode 12, A Conversation With Kumar Ramaiyer, Workday Adaptive Planning Business Unit Vice President

As Everyone Knows, But Hardly Anyone Actually Does

One of my fondest recollections of Kscope (umm, one year or another, they all blend together after a while) is sitting in on Kumar’s introduction of Exalytics (remember that Wave Of The Future?).  As Kumar dived deeper and deeper into the hardware behind Essbase-on-Exalytics, he prefaced each increasingly (exponentially?) complex computer engineering concept and detail with, “As everyone knows…”.  If only.  I sure didn’t.

Key to Kumar’s personality is this liberality of intellectual comradeship:  he thinks that surely whatever a given  insanely complex topic might be is easily understood by the average geek.   This (possibly insanely optimistic) generosity of intellectual spirit informs this podcast as Kumar takes us (and you, Gentle Listener) through his journey from theoretician to developer to advocate to Vice President of Engineering  while working at Informix, Oracle, and now Workday.

Cubes, Cubes, Cubes

Beyond the interesting personal history (and you have to catch Kumar’s glory days in the NCAA and yes, really; we in the performance management space are polymaths), he gives one of the most passionate, cogent, and comprehensive arguments of the cube as the ideal for planning and budgeting.  I’ve worked with non-cube forecasting tools and while they certainly have their uses, calculations that are trivial in a cube can be hard graft otherwise.  Listen to Kumar and be convinced.

Hear the conversation

We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and also – and rather more importantly – allows listeners just like you to more easily find EPM Conversations.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations — Episode 11, A Conversation With Peter Fugere, OneStream Software’s Chief Strategic Services Officer

Riding a rocket to the heavens

OneStream’s rise has been meteoric:  from a startup in a very small office in the not-particularly-well-known-tech-incubator Rochester, Michigan, to international powerhouse in the performance management space in less than a decade. 

Peter Fugere has been there from almost the very beginning and has an insider’s perspective on what makes OneStream tick, the product’s genesis, current initiatives (Peter is involved in more than one), and its exciting future.  From consolidations to planning to relational to analytics to machine learning to the certification program to the recently announced OneCommunity to OneStream Press, it’s all there in just an hour.  Rocket ship as sobriquet is scarcely sufficient and this episode reflects that break neck speed and excitement.

Hear the conversation

We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and also – and rather more importantly – allows listeners just like you to more easily find EPM Conversations.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations — Episode 9, A Conversation with Matthias Heilos, CEO of Finance Technology Innovations

Data, data everywhere, and none of it in the right place or in the right format

Performance cannot be managed (see what I did there?) without data. And yet data –because it is in the wrong format, because it is in the wrong place, because it is poorly defined, because we don’t have the ability or the resources or the time to transform it into what our systems need – is ever a challenge. Data is, quite simply put, hard. FinTech Innovations aims to alleviate that challenge and make data easy.

See a problem, fix a problem

The performance management world is small (which suggests that alas this podcast’s audience will necessarily follow suit unless we figure out how to break out – we’re working on it): I’ve known Matthias for at least a decade although when I first met him he was (I think – it was a while ago) an independent consultant.

How did Matthias go from that most independent (and arguably isolated) place to software entrepreneur? What made him leave HFM and FDMEE (apologies to all of you bass players out there – just listen and you’ll understand) behind and focus solely on the manifold problems that are data? Why would someone leave the relatively stable world of consulting for risky entrepreneurship? You, Loyal Listener, have but to listen to know.

How did he solve it? With ICE Cloud.

Before/after/during the podcast, have a look at ICE Cloud. Whether you’re a customer of Oracle, OneStream, AnaPlan, Blackline, Workivia, or one of the other players in the performance management space or if your firm uses Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, or NetSuite, ICE Cloud can talk to all of them and in the cloud. ICE Cloud is a complete end-to-end data integration tool, almost completely graphical. It’s pretty astounding and lets functional (aka normal not supergeeks although they too can profit from the tool) people own data.

Schedule a demo, learn more about the product, understand the platform, and even get a free PoC. It’s all but a click away. I encourage you to explore ICE Cloud.

And oh yeah, one other other thing

I continue to be fascinated by the music/math/logic connection. Think of the people you know in this field that practice music. It’s everywhere and Matthias is no exception although most of us haven’t made to a show like Das Supertalent. You’ll have to listen till the end of the show to hear him in action. He is quite good.

Hear the conversation

We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and also – and rather more importantly – allows listeners just like you to more easily find EPM Conversations.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversation – A Conversation With Abhi Nerurkar, Co-Founder of EPMware

One out of three ain’t bad

We were lucky enough to land Abhi Nerurkar, one of the three co-founders of EPMware, a software company specializing in Master Data Management (MDM) and Workflow, for our very first vendor conversation.

A note: we didn’t speak with Abhi’s partners, Tony Kiratsous and Deven Shah, as we’re simply not set up/not experienced enough to manage a six way conversation. We have to work on that but I hope that Deven and Tony understand/are deeply appreciative of not being bored to death/annoyed beyond endurance by the chaos I fear such a large group would produce.

Just what don’t you know about software development? Well, if you’re like us: everything.

We – you, me, Tim, Celvin, The Man in the Moon (probably not) == we all use software as part of our job, else why listen to this podcast? But do we know anything about writing, managing, and selling-software on a commercial basis? Unless you work for a vendor and are at the coal face at that, I can answer this one for you: no, not at all. It’s fascinating. Listen for the term “wireframe” and be as astonished as Abhi was when he first came across the term. It isn’t what you think.

More than just software: people

A market opportunity, a gamble, and a result: empty words without the human context behind it. I don’t think any of us (Celvin, Tim, or Yr. Obt. Svt.) have the guts (well, at least I don’t) to make that leap. Abhi and his partners did. It’s a fascinating and informative conversation.

Join us, won’t you?

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