Unlocking Growth with Oracle EBS: 10 Questions to Guide Your Modernization Journey to the Cloud

In the Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) world, customers are at a pivotal point in their modernization journey. The question is no longer if they should migrate to the cloud, but how to approach this transformation as a strategic initiative to unlock value, efficiency, and innovation. 

A successful migration strategy goes far beyond scaling operations, controlling costs, and managing outdated infrastructure. It demands a focus on core areas that drive organizational value: your people, customers, technologies, and innovations. This includes addressing critical aspects like customizations, complex business processes, data and application integration, zero-trust security, and enabling technologies such as AI and automation. 

However, navigating these complexities can be daunting, resulting in setbacks if not approached with strategic planning and execution. According to Gartner, poor planning is a leading cause of disappointing cloud migrations. While organizations often migrate to the cloud for cost savings, unforeseen expenses and challenges frequently hinder their success. 

A cohesive transformation strategy is essential, but how can organizations achieve their goals while avoiding costly pitfalls? 

This blog explores how to rethink your Oracle EBS transformation strategy to achieve your desired outcomes in a more manageable way, including how an Oracle-on-Oracle approach combining Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) tailored for Oracle EBS applications and critical business functions can ensure strong performance and value. 

Additionally, we provide 10 essential questions to ask when planning your migration—ensuring your strategy aligns with your goals, budget, and long-term vision. 

The Modernization Imperative 

Oracle EBS applications remain critical systems of record for businesses across industries, supporting essential functions like HR, manufacturing, finance, customer success, supply chain, and procurement. At the end of the day, all business process functions need to run through and/or integrate with a properly designed Oracle EBS implementation. And as such, decision-makers are asking tough questions: 

• Can we operate these systems in a better, faster, and more cost-effective way? 
• How can we reduce costs while improving performance and user experience? 
• What’s the most strategic path to modernization, ensuring long-term scalability?

Many organizations find themselves at a crossroads as their data centers approach hardware-end-of-life situations requiring capital investment decisions. Cloud infrastructure offers tangible benefits—cost optimization, economies of scale, and modernization opportunities—that are now essential for survival in an increasingly competitive landscape. Top benefits include:

• Cost efficiency and savings – Cloud migration cuts hardware, storage, and maintenance costs, with OCI’s economies of scale offering strong financial incentives to modernize. 
• Modernization and scalability – OCI enhances performance, streamlines workflows, and future-proofs ERP systems, ensuring scalability to adapt to evolving needs. 
• Real-time insights – Modernizing Oracle EBS delivers real-time data access, empowering users with actionable insights to boost efficiency and drive timely, informed strategies. 
• AI-driven innovation – Oracle is rapidly advancing to deliver on an integrated, flexible AI strategy built into its application and database layers with the release of Natural Language Query (NLQ), AI Select, and the roadmap for its latest long-term database release, 23ai. Additionally, harnessing OCI’s AI capabilities with Autonomous Database, NLQ, and APEX allows businesses to automate repetitive tasks, enabling business users to uncover predictive insights in minutes, and optimize processes for smarter, more agile operations.  

Mounting Challenges for Oracle Users 

The push to modernize is not only being driven by the promise of the cloud, but also by the increasing frustration and inefficiencies experienced daily by business users. Legacy systems, which once served as reliable platforms and tools, now hinder innovation and fail to meet modern business needs. The following outlines the impact on key areas of the business:   

Line-of-business (LOB) stakeholders across the full EBS spectrum of modules, and functional heads, are frustrated by slow, unreliable systems that hinder productivity and create bottlenecks in workflows like payroll processing, inventory management, and customer service. Outdated interfaces and lack of mobile accessibility limit flexibility, while inefficient data access impacts decision-making. A move to OCI can significantly ease their pain with:  

• Improved workflows with better application performance and fewer disruptions. 
• Real-time data insights for smarter, faster decision-making. 
• Streamlined processes through automation, freeing up time for strategic tasks. 
• Enhanced user experience via modern interfaces and mobile accessibility. 

IT teams face growing challenges in maintaining legacy systems, such as high maintenance costs, patching, testing, supporting end users, and managing customizations. Outdated systems pose security and compliance risks while resource constraints make it harder to innovate. They need modern capabilities that will deliver:   

• Reduced complexity with automation and proactive monitoring. 
• Enhanced security and compliance measures to mitigate risks. 
• Scalable infrastructure that adapts to changing business needs. 
• Access to full-stack expertise to alleviate operational burdens. 

Finance teams, who aren’t technologists, face growing challenges with legacy systems and tool fatigue, which leads to inaccurate financial reporting, delays in month-end/quarter-end/year-end book closing, lack of real-time insights, and difficulty controlling spend related to Oracle EBS. These limitations prevent them from demonstrating ROI, predicting costs, and identifying inefficiencies in operations. They need modern capabilities that will deliver: 

• Clear visibility into IT spending and operational costs. 
• Real-time data and accurate reporting for informed decision-making. 
• Tangible financial benefits and cost savings from cloud migration. 
• Optimized cloud spending and effective license management. 

Native–cloud features contained within OCI, combined with Oracle EBS advancements, enable seamless access to real-time data, empowering decision-makers and line-of-business users with actionable insights. Improved data visibility enhances operational efficiency and supports timely, informed business strategies. 

Your Guide to the Cloud: Navigating Migration Paths to OCI 

When it comes to migrating Oracle EBS to OCI, there are three primary migration strategies, each offering unique benefits. Choosing the right path depends on your organization’s modernization goals, budget, and readiness to embrace change. And understanding what path may be right for you can be supported by a partner with experience migrating complex EBS environments to the cloud.  

1. Lift and Shift – This approach involves migrating Oracle EBS applications “as is” to the cloud. It is ideal for organizations seeking immediate cost savings and operational efficiency without significant changes to their existing architecture. While this strategy offers quick wins, it may limit the ability to fully leverage OCI’s advanced features. A typical lift and shift involves:  

• Moving Oracle EBS workloads to OCI with minimal modifications. 
• Rapid migration to gain immediate savings on hardware and operational costs. 
• A straightforward process that reduces downtime but may not unlock modernization benefits

2. Move and Improve – Move and improve goes beyond migration by enhancing applications during the process. This strategy enables businesses to optimize workflows, improve the user experience, and future-proof their ERP systems. While it requires a higher upfront investment, it delivers exponential returns in performance, scalability, and efficiency. Specific paths to Oracle environments include: 

• Re-platforming: Modifying applications slightly to take advantage of OCI-native features. 

• Application refactoring: Re-architecting applications to fully leverage advanced OCI services like AI-driven analytics, automation, and scalability. 

3. Hybrid Approach – For organizations needing a gradual transition or facing compliance, latency, or regulatory barriers, the hybrid approach offers a balanced solution. It combines on-premises infrastructure with OCI cloud capabilities for both immediate and long-term benefits. Features of the hybrid approach include: 

• Migrating less complex workloads to OCI for scalability and cost savings. 
• Retaining sensitive applications within on-prem environments while gradually planning the migration. 
• Leveraging OCI’s capabilities over time to minimize disruptions while building a scalable cloud foundation. 

Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Migrating Oracle EBS to OCI 

When planning your path to the cloud, consider these key questions to ensure your migration strategy aligns with your business goals:

1. What are your primary business drivers for modernization?
Consider this: what business outcomes could be accelerated with a more modern Oracle EBS implementation? Identifying these opportunities will help you align your modernization efforts with your broader transformation roadmap. By focusing on outcomes, you can prioritize initiatives that deliver the greatest impact, ensuring your strategy drives tangible value across the organization.

2. What workloads should be prioritized for migration and how to manage risk?
Start by conducting a thorough impact analysis to understand how each workload aligns with your business strategy. Use this analysis to identify high-impact opportunities and create a well-structured migration roadmap. By prioritizing workloads that deliver the greatest value while mitigating potential risks, you can ensure a smoother transition and maximize the benefits of your modernization efforts.

3. Do you know how to best leverage Oracle licensing for a streamlined cloud migration?
It’s no secret that Oracle has complex licensing rules for their application, middleware and database options. Navigating these licensing structures when moving to the cloud can be intricate, but an Oracle-on-Oracle approach can be a winning strategy that offers the best price performance and accelerates time to value. Some licensed products can be converted into Oracle cloud consumption. This domain requires Oracle license management expertise combined with deep cloud migration expertise.

4. How should you approach customizations before migrating Oracle EBS to the cloud? 
When was the last time you had a CEMLI analysis? Evaluating your customizations, extensions, modifications, localizations, and integrations (CEMLIs) is crucial before planning any Oracle EBS upgrade or migration. Regular CEMLI analysis helps identify outdated or redundant customizations, ensuring compatibility with new systems and reducing unnecessary complexity. By addressing this early, you can streamline your upgrade strategy, optimize costs, and align your system with future business needs.

5. Do you have a clear budget for migration and modernization?
Guesswork won’t suffice when navigating the complexity of data and systems—without a defined budget, businesses face risks like overspending, delays, and missed objectives. A strong business case provides clarity on costs, savings, and ROI, aligning financial planning with priorities while securing stakeholder buy-in. Working with an experienced Oracle migration partner can enhance this process by bringing expertise in cost optimization, licensing, risk mitigation, and best practices, helping you justify expenses and address stakeholder concerns around costs, business disruptions, and operational risks.

6. What type of expertise does your team have to support and execute a migration or modernization initiative like this?
With technology evolving rapidly, keeping pace requires more than assuming your teams will adapt on their own. It’s essential to assess your team’s skills and identify gaps in areas like cloud architecture, data migration, and system integration. Investing in training or partnering with external experts ensures your organization has the technical capabilities to execute successfully while minimizing risks and delays

7. How can you ensure the migration will address the needs of line-of-business users?
Consider how your initiative can accelerate productivity for business users by introducing faster, more intuitive tools and removing inefficiencies caused by outdated systems. Focusing on the desired outcomes is key to guiding your technology choices and migration strategy. For example, accessing advanced analytics and AI capabilities may require leveraging Oracle cloud-native features, which will shape your migration approach—whether it’s a straightforward lift and shift or a more transformative move and improve with re-platforming. These decisions are critical, as they directly impact the long-term success and value of your modernization effort.

8. What is the potential of modernization to future-proof your ERP and drive growth?
This is a crucial question to ask, as migrations are often driven by immediate needs like cost reduction or data center exits, which can overshadow the true benefits of modernization. Taking the time to evaluate and understand the broader potential is essential. Imagine the impact of enabling business users to interact with your Oracle EBS and other data sources through natural language processing for data insights and faster decision-making without a burdened development process. Having these forward-thinking discussions ensures the migration delivers meaningful, long-term value for the business.

9. How will you measure success post-migration?
Cloud migrations can often be over-inflated with business KPIs that become disconnected from reality or place too much emphasis on a single metric such as cost-savings. The way to think about a successful Oracle EBS cloud migration and modernization is to drive emphasis on KPIs that map to success stages and critical business functions. For instance, metrics around faster development of new business applications, new hire cycle times, reduced business process and supply chain cycle times, e-procurement efficiencies, and optimized supply chain accuracy provide key insights on success, demonstrating important milestones and impacts on the business throughout the transformation journey.

10. What are your upgrade options for Oracle EBS? 
The simple answer to this one is that it depends. Oracle EBS upgrade paths often have multiple stages and iterations that can seem daunting depending on your current version.  This can set decision-makers back trying to understand the impact to the business, particularly given that key insights and skills may not exist or are limited within their organization to build the right strategy. This is why it’s so important to invest time upfront to assess your needs prior to the migration and develop a business plan that ensures stakeholder buy-in. This will put you in the position to appropriately assess and support the right upgrade path.  

Start Your Oracle Cloud Journey with the Right Partner 

When considering such a complex transformational endeavor for your Oracle EBS implementation, the best path forward is leveraging the experience and knowledge that a well-credentialed Oracle partner can bring to help develop your upgrade strategy in conjunction with your migration strategy. Syntax, with over 30 years of expertise in Oracle applications and technologies, offers a full suite of Professional and Managed Services powered by focused Accelerator Services to activate your transformation strategy and achieve your desired outcomes. 

Ready to get started?  

Take the first step with Syntax’s Cloud Migration Assessment Tool. This self-assessment helps evaluate your readiness, explore migration strategies, and uncover the benefits of cloud modernization.