First, let’s set the stage.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Oracle EBS v12.1 (E-Business Suite) is no longer covered under Premier Support. Regular support for v12.1 ended in December 2021 and market-driven support will be ending in December 2023.
Being out of regular support is costly and it opens you up to significant risk. But I’m not here to lecture you about best practices.
We often meet with clients who have made the decision not to upgrade their EBS. In some instances, this is a temporary decision as they simply don’t have the budget or in-house expertise to complete the upgrade right now. Others have no intentions of upgrading. This may be because they’re running other legacy tools that are incompatible with newer versions of EBS. Alternatively, they’re planning to leave EBS but aren’t yet ready to make the move. No matter your situation, if you’re reading this blog, then you probably have a reason for opting not to upgrade.
However, risk mitigation remains important.
We always suggest my clients address their high-maintenance or high-risk modules as soon as possible. One of the biggest risk centers is HRMS; because of ongoing changes to tax codes and other regulations, HRMS (Human Resources Management Software) needs constant patching. As a solution, we recommend these clients migrate their HRMS module into a stand-alone SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) tool ensuring access to future patches.
For most of our clients, a full EBS upgrade can take a small team of 6-24 months to complete. By comparison, an HRMS migration can take 1 person 3-9 months. However, since there is significant variation in the level of effort and cost of a project depending on the unique details, an exact cost comparison can be difficult at this level of abstraction.
Although this isn’t a long-term solution, addressing your high-risk modules will help you manage your exposure to risk. Additionally, it’s a fraction of the cost compared to a full update or compared to the potential ramifications of running an unsupported HRMS.
At Eclipsys, we have some of the top EBS experts in the country, and no matter your situation, we want to ensure you have a stable solution and are exposed to as little risk as possible.
