Oracle’s analyst event was held in Redwood Shores, CA, April 24-25, 2024

At Oracle’s Analyst Event this past week, they presented a series of product updates and strategic initiatives planned. Here’s a more detailed look at the key themes discussed, which included a continued focus in healthcare, progress with Generative & Classic AI, broader adoption of the Redwood design system, and significant updates in Oracle’s Human Capital Management suite.

1. Healthcare

Oracle continues to deepen its commitment in the healthcare sector, an initiative that has gained momentum after its acquisition of Cerner in 2021 and their zeal to improve outcomes in healthcare. (While it was not explicitly discussed at the event, Oracle announced their global headquarters move to Nashville, TN this week as well.)

Oracle’s vision is clear: to create a seamless ecosystem where clinical, patient and administrative systems are deeply integrated.

Healthcare organizations face significant challenges including workforce recruitment, burnout, complex staffing requirements, and extensive administrative burdens, which impact their operational efficiency and patient care. Specifically for HR, Oracle has tailored their HCM and Workforce Management solutions not only for healthcare customers who use Cerner, but EPIC as well. This week they unveiled new features in Oracle Recruiting, Workforce Scheduling, and Grow (Learning Management, Content and Skills Modules), which support efficient talent recruitment and retention, skill development (aligned with patient care), and optimized resource management.

2. AI: Classic & Generative

Oracle detailed its advancements in both classic (AI which detects patterns and anomalies) and generative (AI creation of narratives and summaries) AI models. Oracle’s approach is to be “AI-first”, both in the market (ahead of the competition) as well as in the way their platform is built. They have released / delivered 50+ new AI capabilities (25 or so in HR).

50+ generative AI features are available for customers on Redwood. Approx. 25 in HR.

In terms of HCM, the use cases demo’ed were around job description creation, email templates for job candidates, survey question creation and performance management feedback. Oracle’s GenAI prompts within the product are ‘engineered’ (e.g. locked-down so users can’t enter their own prompts), thus helping to provide guardrails and increase safety.

Example of GenAI for Peer Recognition. Prompts are ‘locked-down’ as guardrails and users must approve generated text.

3. Redwood: Design and Development

Redwood, Oracle’s design and development system, marks a significant stride in user experience. Redwood aims to provide a more intuitive, cohesive design language that spans across Oracle’s entire product suite and was announced last year.

Redwood improves both the design look and performance of the system.

In HCM, 50% of customers have transitioned to Redwood. Almost 100% have moved some pages over. By end of 2025 – 100% will be on Redwood. All new customers (with deployments starting in H2, 2023) are already on Redwood. Note: In order for customers to use the new GenerativeAI capabilities, they must be on Redwood (which is a catalyst to migrating faster.)

4. HCM Suite Updates

Oracle ME is all about Employee Experience and “journeys” which are less about transactions and more about personalized flows.

>Talent Acquisition (Oracle Recruiting Cloud aka OCR and OCR “Boost” which includes scheduling, campaigns, etc.)

Oracle is making strategic enhancements to its Talent Acquisition module, focusing on improving candidate experience and optimizing recruitment processes. New AI-driven tools are being introduced to streamline sourcing and selection, thereby reducing time-to-hire and improving the quality of hires.

>Learning

In the Learning module, Oracle is capitalizing on AI to personalize learning experiences and improve outcomes. New features aim to provide more tailored learning paths and proactive career development suggestions, supporting continuous learning and adaptation in the workplace.

>Payroll (localized in 14 countries)

Updates to the Payroll system emphasize compliance and flexibility. Oracle is enhancing its capabilities to handle third-party payroll processing within the app as well.

Payroll updates – Oracle localization in 14 countries and management of 3rd party payroll systems within the application.

>Workforce Scheduling (particularly for Healthcare)

For Workforce Scheduling, Oracle is introducing more robust tools to handle the complexities of modern workforce management. The focus is on flexibility and predictive analytics, enabling organizations to efficiently manage their resources while anticipating and adapting to changes in demand.

Wrapup

Oracle has updated its suite with a range of enhancements and the introduction of Redwood represents a significant development in Oracle’s design and user experience approach, with over half of existing customers already transitioning to this new system. The list of large, global customers who utilize the full suite (HCM plus ERP) is growing and new possibilities in design and extensions are promising. At Raven Intelligence, we will continue to monitor the implementation effort (and partner quality) and Voice of Customer around these new products which will provide a complete view of the impact of these tools.