Applications Journey to the Cloud - 8th March 2017

This was an event so long in the making. I did blog in the run up about why we needed this event. It was meant to happen last July but just before the event a different kind of cloud failed us. Flash rain storms caused chaos in London and flooded the venue, we had to postpone.

However in those 8 months the increasing interest in moving from Oracle on-premise Applications to their SaaS offerings has gained momentum and the event was over subscribed.

I got to open the event, and was very proud of what we have put together. Andy Campbell shared some insights into Cloud Life especially in the UK, in his opening keynote and then we moved into the parallel sessions. The idea was that we covered the 3 pillars of CX, HCM & ERP plus some of the tech that supports that.

The importance of this event was about the 'How' do you move? I had two presentations, one on PaaS4SaaS extending the applications, and then about how to approach the project. This was really interesting as it was based on a presentation I gave to ONS when they were looking for an implementation partner for their journey. Then later in the day, their project manager Sarah Green spoke about their project and how they are now live on both HCM and Finance. In fact the presentation is based on an interview I did with Sarah which is in the new Oracle Scene.

Several customers shared their stories and partners explained the different phases and what new skills would be learnt. All sessions were busy and everyone seemed to be getting a lot from the day.

The people in organisations who support the on premise today, want to know what this journey involves and what it means to their role in the future. We are now in a time of many people making that move, not just a few but many. The trick now is what do we in UKOUG do to deliver what they, the people who have moved, need to get the most out of their investment?

The day ended with a great panel session, but I had left by then, I had a plane to catch.....