Baker Tilly designs Oracle HCM Cloud implementation plan for federal agency

Client background

A large federal agency supporting over 400,000 employees was analyzing their technical landscape with the aspiration to consolidate as many as 150+ systems and applications to reduce costs and ongoing maintenance efforts.

The business challenge

The objective of the project was to determine the viability, scope, and implementation plan for the client to move to Oracle HCM Cloud, ultimately streamlining processes, reducing inefficiencies and eliminating significant numbers of legacy applications. The full Oracle HCM Cloud suite was in scope for Phase 1, which included an assessment of the client’s technical landscape and mapping of system capabilities to Cloud modules. The products in scope for prototype in Phase 2 included Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR, Absence, Benefits, Recruiting, Onboarding, Strategic Workforce Planning, HR HelpDesk, Learning, Talent Profile and Talent Management (Career Development, Performance Review, Goal Management).

Strategy and solution

Baker Tilly partnered with the client to develop a migration plan using a two-phased approach. During Phase 1 of the project, 150+ systems were evaluated and targeted as a probable fit to Oracle HCM Cloud functionality. The resulting output of Phase 1 included a road map for designing and prototyping key Oracle HCM Cloud capabilities in the cloud in alignment with priorities to decommission legacy systems and drive value across the various operating units. Baker Tilly also designed and configured the Talent Base, including foundational configuration and demonstration of workforce structures, personnel records and out-of-box security and admin roles.

Prior to moving into full implementation of Oracle HCM Cloud, the client wanted to see system demonstrations, prototyping their current state processes to prove out that Oracle HCM could meet their requirements. During Phase 2 of the project, Baker Tilly executed on the road map by conducting a series of prototyping sprints and developing an implementation plan for future use of all modules. Baker Tilly utilized the Phase 1 results to develop a road map of HCM modules, prioritizing those with the largest impact, to demonstrate in 6-week sprints, for a total of 10 demonstrations.

Baker Tilly worked with the business process owners and SMEs for each system mapped to the HCM modules to educate them on HCM functionality and to understand the processes, requirements and stakeholders involved with their systems to incorporate those requirements into the prototype design. Design patterns were identified to group like processes and capabilities together for each of the prototypes and an Implementation Plan was created for each prototyped module that included details and considerations for the full implementation of that module. Configured prototypes were designed to demonstrate capabilities for the client leadership team to confirm that HCM will meet their needs. Along with the system prototype, configuration workbooks documenting the prototype configuration that can be leveraged during the implementation were provided.

Baker Tilly delivered an Implementation Plan including platform, implementation and deployment recommendations. Upon completion of the project, the client leadership team agreed with Baker Tilly’s recommendations and was able to begin internal discussions around funding and contracting to move forward with the full migration to Oracle HCM Cloud. The outputs of the project set the client up to successfully achieve their goal to consolidate their legacy HR applications and improve efficiency and user experience.