Still catching up after Ascend and Kscope, but one thing that stayed with me from both events: Fusion adoption is increasingly shaped by the technology ecosystem around it.
At Ascend, I was speaking in the Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) stream, which I blogged about last week. There was a lot of Human Capital Management (HCM) content for Fusion, but not as much across the entire suite as I had hoped. Possibly because Fusion is my area expertise, I didn't attend many Fusion sessions. Instead, I talked to lots of users, which often teaches me far more.
Those conversations, along with the sessions I did attend, reinforced something I see with customers all the time. We talk about Fusion being sold to the business rather than IT, but that doesn't mean the IT team has no role during the implementation. It's incredibly important that they understand the integration, the data migration, the way Fusion works with the rest of their estate, and how data is being used before and after the application processes. SaaS may require less intervention once implemented, but technology is still very important to this community.
I was on the panel for the AI Special Interest Group meeting at Ascend, and it was good to see organizations dipping their toes into AI Agents and embracing at least some of the Generative AI delivered in Fusion. At Kscope, the new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) tracks also showed how much interest there is from Fusion users in the technology that underpins, extends and connects their applications.
I also had the chance to talk about AI in Fusion with Connor MacDonald in an Uber, which he shared online.
Here are the themes that stood out for me at both conferences, and the areas I think Fusion customers should be paying attention to.
I am really interested in the technology that underpins our applications, and I believe that the technical people in organizations that run Fusion have the same thirst for knowledge.
For those reasons, I have been a longtime supporter of ODTUG. I have been on the board for four years now and campaigned for an OCI community because I believe that is where that technology lives. I was so happy when ODTUG launched OCI last year. At Kscope this year we had our first OCI tracks.
I was very impressed by the number of technical people who were Fusion users. Some were our traditional Oracle APEX or Visual Builder developers extending Fusion. Some came from our Analytics community and are using Fusion Data Intelligence (FDI), while others were Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) practitioners, running it with Fusion. Some were new people who came for the OCI angle, and there were also EBS admins assessing what a move to Fusion technically involved.
That mix reinforced for me that Fusion customers want to understand the technology around the applications, not just the applications themselves.
Feedback we got was that people wanted more FDI content. We had several amazing sessions that explained how AI works and how it is exposed in Oracle: in OCI, in the applications, in EPM, in Analytics and in integrations. The presentations really appealed to me as a Fusion practitioner who loves the technology.
What I learnt from the sessions I attended, and in conversations, match what I see with our customers.
For a while, most financial users of Fusion have purchased the EPM modules at the same time, and there is talk that that link between them will become even tighter. That makes sense to me, because the value of Fusion is not only in the transactions. It is also in the planning, reporting and insight that help organizations use their data well.
One presentation I attended talked about implementing FDI at the same time as Fusion and not as a later phase. Especially when an organization is using Finance and Supply Chain, the value of having analytics from day one drives even better adoption.
For customers, this is an important point. If analytics, planning and reporting are treated as something to add later, it can delay the point at which customers really see the value of Fusion. Planning for FDI, EPM and analytics earlier helps organizations think about the insight they want from the start, and how Fusion can support the decisions they need to make.
One session addressed that AI is everywhere in Fusion, and partners are delivering agents at pace. But how do organizations know where to start?
At Inoapps, we are working with our customers to help them choose the delivered AI Agents that are relevant for them, whether from Oracle’s portfolio or from the marketplace of partner agents. Then the question becomes which ones they need to alter, and which ones they may need to build themselves.
The advice I always give, echoed by every speaker at Kscope, is to start small. Don't try and produce a massive list to tackle. Look at the agents that make sense for your organization, your processes, and the areas where they can deliver real value.
This is also why the wider technology conversation matters. AI is not separate from Fusion, OCI, analytics or integration. It sits across all of them, and customers will need to understand both the business opportunity and the technical foundations that make it work.
As the board liaison for the OCI Community I also held a town hall jointly with Abi Giles-Haigh who is responsible for the AI Community. We looked at some common threads, starting with skills and the need to stay current.
This matters because, as we see, the technology around Fusion is moving quickly. OCI, AI, analytics, integrations and EPM aren’t separate conversations for many customers anymore. They are part of how they extend Fusion, use their data and understand what else they can do with it.
A significant number of our audience were using, or thinking of using, Fusion. For me, this validates having the OCI Community, and I look forward to growing that in the future under the leadership of Roger Cressey.
For me, what both events showed is that Fusion customers are thinking much more widely than the applications themselves. The conversations around OCI, AI, analytics, integrations are all connected and part of how organizations use Fusion, extend it, and understand their data.
This is what makes these events so valuable. It’s where we get to hear what customers are asking about, where they need more knowledge, and how the communities are helping them make sense of what’s coming next.
Ready to get more from Fusion? Talk to Inoapps about the Oracle ecosystem around your applications, from OCI and AI to analytics, integrations and EPM.
Debra originally published this in her blog: Debra's Thoughts on Oracle.