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Oracle EPB: Streamlining Budgeting & Planning Processes for Blue Coat Systems

Learn how Blue Coat Systems improved their budgeting and planning process by implementing Oracle EPB, a powerful and user-friendly application that integrates seamlessly with Oracle Financials.

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Oracle EPB: Streamlining Budgeting & Planning Processes for Blue Coat Systems

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  1. Blue Coat Systems, Inc.Oracle Enterprise, Planning & Budgeting (EPB)April 8, 2005Bob VerheeckeChief Financial Officer

  2. Agenda • Blue Coat Systems Overview • Current Planning Solution • The Search Process • Why Oracle EPB? • Phase I & Phase II Plans • Experience So Far

  3. About Blue Coat Systems • Founded 1996 as CacheFlow • Became Blue Coat (NASDAQ: BCSI) in 2002 • #1 Worldwide leader in proxy appliances (IDC) • Over 20,000 proxy appliances shipped worldwide to more than 3,500 customers • Existing Oracle Applications user • GL, MFG, OA, FA, AP, AR • Planning to implement HR • Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California • 350 employees; $100M annual revenue run rate • Worldwide presence

  4. Current Budgeting/Planning Solution • Prepare quarterly rolling 12 month budgets and monthly forecasts for the current quarter • Current system involved many Excel workbooks and worksheets for data collection • FP&A performs most of the work rather than functional managers who feel little ownership of their numbers • Data from Excel was loaded into MS SQL Server with OLAP extension to aggregate • Provided good slice and dice functionality but limited reporting flexibility • Was home grown and too difficult to maintain • Needed a similar solution but in a packaged and supportable application • More fully engage functional managers in the process to create ownership on their part

  5. The Search Process • September 2004 – Begin the search process to improve the budgeting and actuals review process with a cross-functional team of roughly 10 people • Oct-Dec 2004 - Explored Cognos, Hyperion, OutlookSoft and Oracle through an in depth analysis of functionalities (budgeting, planning, reporting, off-line feature, etc.) and systems requirements • December 2004 – Narrowed search down to Oracle and OutlookSoft. • January 2005 - Selected Oracle EPB and started implementation with the Oracle Consulting Group • Go live in May 2005

  6. Why EPB? • Architecture • Multi-dimensional extension of relational database • No new database technologies to support • Pre-defined data schema • Extensible to future analytic applications • Integration • A member of the Oracle Applications family • Maintenance of key elements in Oracle Financials • Leverage existing structures • Pre-built links to transfer data • Drill through to detail • Leverages Oracle workflow • Ease of Use • Minimal IT support, FP&A manages the application • Fully browser based • Many pre-defined calculations and functions, no programming

  7. Phase I • Operating expenses with our current reporting hierarchy structure • Budgets and forecasts are done in one currency (USD) • Information can be downloaded to an excel spreadsheet but any updates must be done in EPB while connected to the network • Fixed assets data is extracted from Oracle Fixed Assets module for depreciation calculations • Automation and process management of business cycles, periodic forecasts, planning activities, management reporting and analysis by designing a workflow based on the security features • Budgets are prepared at the cost center level for the relevant accounts and aggregated with approvals up the organization • Variance analyses across time, function, account and organization • Month-end, quarter-end, year-end management reporting and analysis

  8. Phase II • Revenue budgeting and forecasting • Multi-currency budgeting and forecasting • Off-line feature – the ability to upload and download budget/forecast information with Microsoft Excel and to work off-line without having to connect to the network • Employee data extracted from Oracle HR • GL link extensions and drill down capability to the transaction detail level in Oracle GL as a patch to Version 2 • Expected new EPB release in summer 2005

  9. Experience So Far • The perfect planning and budgeting application for Oracle Financials users • FP&A and IT organizations attended one week of training on the full product • Front end is better than expected; intuitive, easy to use and full of predefined features • Puts control of the whole process in the hands of FP&A. IT has very little to do after the initial setup • We are working with an early release product and there have been issues, not unexpected • Oracle development and consulting have been extremely responsive in addressing issues • Still expect implementation time to be much less than any other potential solution

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