Advice and Information for Finance Professionals
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Finance Topics & Trends
September 19, 2016
Celebrating the Future of Finance, One Change Agent at a Time
Actors have the Oscars, writers the Pulitzer Prize, and statesmen the Nobel Peace Prize. But when it comes to finance professionals, oftentimes the only award they get for a job well done is a pat on the back, a gift card... and more work.
We at Oracle know the value that finance brings to the organization; after all, we’ve spent almost the last four decades delivering solutions that automate routine tasks so that you can focus your time on providing financial and business guidance to the C-suite. Now we want to celebrate your accomplishments with a brand new category of awards honoring finance visionaries using Oracle Cloud solutions to transform finance for the 21st century: the Oracle Change Agents of Finance Awards.
Oracle’s Change Agents awards celebrate individuals or teams who have leveraged Oracle Cloud for Finance—including Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud—to solve business problems, drive growth, and spur innovation in areas such as reporting, procurement, project management, financial planning and analysis, and finance talent. We’ve created 10 categories of awards to make sure that every finance function has its day in the sun—and 15 minutes of fame onstage at the 2017 Modern Finance Experience in Boston, Massachusetts, where the winners will be honored by Oracle CEO and head of finance Safra Catz.
Over the next three days, I’ll be providing the back story on each award and what it takes to win. Your action item? Nominate yourself or someone you know deserving of recognition in one or more categories, then get ready to vote on all 10 categories for the best submission in each category. In this article, we’ll explore the first three awards:
- Fast Finance Award
- The Oracle Billion Dollar Story Honorary Award
- The Top Talent Award
The Fast Finance Award
You don’t have to be a street racer to apply for the Fast Finance Award, which celebrates individuals or project teams overseeing the fastest, highest-impact implementation of Oracle Cloud for Finance applications. These awards will recognize cloud ninjas who implement new ERP or EPM systems in weeks, not months, and can demonstrate maximum project ROI in terms of implementation success, user acceptance, and business impact.
The Fast Finance Award submissions will be judged on the following criteria:
- Implementation speed and quality, including quality of the implementation project plan; system design, including adoption of best-practice business processes; successful execution of implementation timeline (hint: think weeks, not months); data migration strategy; and user engagement and adoption
- Implementation business impact, such as how the new system is enabling the organization to grow, absorb a new acquisition, roll out a new subsidiary or business unit, evolve the business model, and/or generally succeed in today’s fast-paced economic environment
The Top Talent Award
When it comes to attracting, retaining and grooming top talent, are you a hard act to follow? The Top Talent Award honors superstars in organizations where HR and finance teams work closely together to attract, retain, and promote your top finance talent, using some combination of Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud. Some suggested areas for consideration include:
- Those who employ Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud to gain a unified view into the workforce, improving security and governance, workflows, and reporting and analysis
- Instances where finance and HR partner to develop a robust finance talent pipeline and retain top talent
- Case studies of when finance uses Oracle HCM Cloud to onboard new finance professionals and train them
The Oracle Billion Dollar Story Honorary Award
In 1999, Oracle founder and then-CEO Larry Ellison announced to financial analysts that Oracle could save $1 billion annually by adopting its own Internet-enabled business applications.
One year later, Ellison backed up the claim with some hard numbers. Not only had Oracle saved more than a billion dollars, but in adopting its own applications had improved its operating margins by 11.7 points. Thus began the legend of the “Oracle Billion Dollar Story,” and the beginning of a spectacular growth trajectory for the company.
This award honors those CFOs and other finance leaders who have used the Oracle Cloud for Finance applications to create their own “billion dollar” story. Don’t worry if you’re not on track to save a billion dollars today; we know you’ll get there eventually because you’ve put the right infrastructure in place to scale. For now, Oracle Billion-Dollar Story Honorary Award nominations must meet the following criteria:
- You’ve simplified your environment by standardizing—or moving to standardize—on a single instance of Oracle ERP Cloud
- You’ve centralized processes when it makes sense, to strengthen control and eliminate duplication
- You’ve streamlined and automated as many processes as possible, embracing touchless transactions
- You can demonstrate quantitative savings through your IT transformation (maybe not a billion dollars, but you get the picture)
Calling all Change Agents!
If you think that you, your team, or even someone you know is transforming the finance function in one of these areas, we want to hear from you! Here’s how to get started:
- If you plan to attend Oracle OpenWorld, visit us at ERP Central at Moscone West for more details on how to nominate yourself or someone you know. Kiosks will be available to submit nominations onsite.
- Submit your nomination online, and check back frequently to review peer submissions across all ten categories. As we get closer to the Modern Finance Experience in Boston, April 11-13, 2017, you will want to cast your vote for your favorite submissions across all ten categories.
Winners will be honored by Oracle CEO and head of finance Safra Catz and her finance executive team at the 2017 Modern Finance Experience. The submissions with the most compelling stories and the most votes across the Oracle global finance user community will win (only one vote per person, per category is allowed), so sharpen your pencils and get ready to vote!
In Part 2 of this series, I’ll review the next three awards categories:
- The Modern Close Award
- The Crystal Ball Award
- Roll With It Award
