BluMarble was incorportated in 2020 as a BC Limited company.  Our headquarters located in Vancouver, British Columbia and we have offices in Toronto and Edmonton.  Our subsidiary corporation, BluMarble Mexico, is located in Mexico City.

Our management and employees have a long history with Oracle EPM/Hyperion, Managed Services, and with clients in Canada. Establishing BluMarble was driven by our collective experiences working with leading Silicon Valley software companies, Canadian and US boutique implementation firms, and Global System Integrators.  This diverse background has enabled us to cultivate a company rich in Oracle EPM experience and expertise. It fosters a culture rooted in teamwork and consistently delivers exceptional results to our customers.

BluMarble attracts top-tier talent, ensuring that our projects benefit from the skills and knowledge of the industry’s  best solution architects and implementation specialists.  Our success is directly linked to the exceptional talent we deploy on each project. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards in every engagement.  Our response focuses on how we can apply our Oracle EPM expertise to help you in the area of Enterprise Applications. 

In creating BluMarble, we assessed our varied experiences in working for Silicon Valley software companies, Canadian and US boutique implementation firms, and Big 4 consultancies, and created a company whose culture values “team”, the delivery of exceptional services to our customers, and the development of our people.  BluMarble is a firm where the best talent wants to work.  The success of any project is highly correlated with that talent, the solution architect, domain expertise and team assigned to the project.

BluMarble is a boutique Advisory, Implementation Services, and Managed Service firm.  Our focus is Oracle EPM and its product stack, and we partner with a number of other specialty firms and independent consultants to add ERP and other technologies to our skill set.   We have a track record of successful projects and satisfied customers, and have developed an EPM specific methodologhy that provides us and our customers a roadmap to success.  For Canadian companies, we bill in Canadian dollars and have highly skilled Canadian resources that we deploy on projects

BluMarble resources have implemented dozens of Oracle EPM based systems across many industries. During the course of these many diverse projects, we have come to understand what does, and what doesn’t work in implementing EPM.  From this experience, we have developed a proven methodology for implementing EPM systems. Its our expectation that when an organization select BluMarble as their implementation partner, we employ our methodology for each engagement. Our specialized EPM methodology provides our clients with a project roadmap that sets clear expectations for all stakeholders and members of the project team. Our methodology includes the introduction of best practices throughout the project. We will encourage our clients to adopt these best practices where applicable.

Our objective for every Oracle EPM implementation is to ensure that the client is prepared to take on ownership of their new system and for the client to develop a high degree of self sufficiency in operating their new system. Not only does our methodology provide a roadmap for implementation success, but it also enables the on-going transfer of knowledge that we believe is key to client success.  For this to happen, we will require the commitment of HIAA resources in various capacities throughout the project and request executive support in the allocation and deployment of these resources.

BluMarble prices its Advisory and Implementation Services based on a time and materials basis.  In this way, our clients can understand how the cost of the project is directly related to the functionality required, and the time that it takes to deliver that functionality. We also include a contingency in our estimate as unexpected issues can arise during the course of the project. 

For Managed Services, we price our offering on a fixed price basis, based on the expected workload expected over time.  Managed Services contracts are for 3-5 years and can include application support, infrastructure support, or both.

BluMarble’s mission is to become the finest, most trusted Oracle EPM services firm in Canada. 

Our values:

• Operate ethically
• Do it right – for us and for the customer
• Develop the right culture
• Hire the right people
• Grow our people
• Choose our clients as carefully as they choose us

Our culture:

• A company where people are valued
• We communicate openly and with authenticity
• We have high expectations for ourselves and others
• We are a learning organization
• We deliver exceptional services to our customers

In the spirit of learning and sharing best practices, there are lessons learned that we are pleased to share These are key factors that we have identified in ensuring the long-term success of our clients.

Contracting:

When projects fail, the cause can typically be traced back to faulty contracting. During contracting, both the client and vendor’s expectations are negotiated and then set, commitments are made, and the project team is formed. Our methodology incorporates best practices for the implementation of Oracle/Hyperion EPM systems. It ensures that we contract the work correctly so that all parties understand the process we will be following, and that the proper expectations are set for both the Client and for BluMarble.  Fixed implementation bids are a lose/lose proposition.

Client commitment to making Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) sufficiently available:

Client SMEs are critical to the success of the project.  They have the process and organizational expertise to clearly communicate and explain requirements to the implementation team. They need to make judgement calls during the course of the project. They will participate in vetting the design of the system to ensure that reporting and analytic needs are met. And it is critically important that they understand how the applications were constructed (and participate in their construction) so that the client can take ownership of the applications and be self-sufficient in working with, and making changes, to the applications. SMEs are assigned tasks, as appropriate, during each project to ensure knowledge transfer and a sense of ownership of the system.  A common mistake that organizations make is training only one person as administrator.  Should that person leave the organization, all knowledge and experience in administrating the application leaves as well.

Scope – ability to stay focused and within the defined scope of the contracted deliverables:

A poorly defined scope will eventually lead to what is known as “scope creep”, the changing or redefining of scope during a project that results in project overruns and late delivery. Carefully working through requirements, and then documenting and vetting those requirements with key members of the client team is crucial prior to implementation. Should requirements morph as the project progresses, following a solid change request procedure, which includes an impact analysis, is key.  BluMarble will review this change request process with the client so that it is clearly understood.

Consensus – ability to get everyone on the same page and make decisions quickly and effectively:

Any time a new project team is formed, there are new relationship dynamics that are created within that team. It can be a challenge to manage these new relationships and gain alignment in roles and responsibilities. As part of our methodology, we clearly define roles, responsibilities, and process so that all members of the team, as well as management, understand what is expected of them.  This includes the decision-making process, and who from the client / BluMarble will be responsible for making judgement calls during the course of the project.

Access to information – working with IT for access to metadata and data and cleanliness of data:

A new system will be dependent on both metadata and data from source transaction systems (eg. Oracle ERP etc). Should the data being sourced from these systems be found to be unreliable and require cleansing or significant transformation, there can be a major impact in the implementation schedule in order to compensate for bad metadata / data.

Documentation:

Project documentation must be developed in parallel with the implementation. Too often documentation is left to the end and is hurriedly thrown together by the remaining vendor resource (typically a junior who hasn’t been part of the design or much of the configuration). This approach to documentation would not serve the long-term best interests of the client.

Select a vendor that you can trust and commit to that vendor: 

In selecting BluMarble as your trusted vendor, we will be invested in your success. This means you will be our priority; our best resources will be allocated to you, you will enjoy exceptional rates, and our success we be tied to your success. We have experience with organizations who issued RFPs for every EPM application they developed. The result was that each successful bid was lowest cost, so the vendor was not motivated by a long-term client relationship (rather – get the project done as quickly as possible based on the stated specs and leave).  Each application was developed by a different architect and the overall architecture was disjointed and difficult to maintain. Engaging multiple vendors typically means that no one vendor is invested in your long-term success.