Oracle Makes It Easier to Purchase & Resell Oracle SMB Software

Oracle Broadens Access and Simplifies Buying Process With “ORACLE 1-CLICK ORDERING” For SMB Technology Products
Reduces Average Order Booking Cycle, Increases Profitability for Smaller Transactions and Streamlines SMB Packaging

SINGAPORE, — To address the growing demand for Oracle technology products by small and medium businesses, Oracle today unveiled a streamlined “ORACLE 1-CLICK ORDERING” process, that will assist partners and customers to more easily resell and purchase Oracle small and medium business (SMB) software. With this announcement, Oracle is broadening access to its SMB Technology products to thousands of new resellers and customers.

To support this effort, a new SMB Technology Program Office has been established to drive new programs with the goal to increase access of Oracle SMB Technology products for customers and partners and lower transactions costs. With a customer base of more than 180,000 small and medium businesses, Oracle is responding to requests from its channel partners to offer streamlined programs for distributors that help serve small and medium businesses.

Streamlined Order Fulfillment Process & SMB Packaging
With this announcement, Oracle is unveiling a new streamlined process – ORACLE 1-CLICK ORDERING – that significantly reduces the time required to book and fulfill an order for Oracle SMB Technology products – currently defined as Oracle® Database 10g Standard Edition and Standard Edition One; Oracle Application Server Java Edition, Standard Edition and Standard Edition One; and Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition and Standard Edition One. By identifying that an order is for SMB Technology products, a new process is initiated that triggers an order entry number and URL to be sent back to the purchaser, who then can choose an online or a physical order fulfillment.If electronic fulfillment is elected, the purchaser can download the software, type in an order entry number and receive the product after clicking through simplified terms and conditions. If physical fulfillment is chosen, the purchaser will receive an Oracle SMB Media kit comprising a DVD that includes Oracle Database 10g or Oracle Application Server with binaries for the Windows operating system and one for the Linux operating system, enabling customer choice. Also in the box will be Oracle’s Terms & Conditions, which will be agreed to with the opening of the package.

“We are reaching out to the “S” portion of SMBs with programs and processes that match their needs. To that end, we have significantly streamlined our order and fulfillment processes and are removing barriers to entry for our partners and customers,” said Judson Althoff, vice president of Global Platform & Distribution Sales and Head of the the Oracle Technology SMB Program Office. “With these new enhancements, we’re broadening access to a new base of SMB resellers and customers that buy and resell our SMB technology products. We’re making Oracle as easy a choice for resellers as Microsoft on the low end, and provide more flexibility on the high end, resulting in better solutions for our customers and more opportunities for our partners.”

“These types of programs put Oracle in a customer segment where it didn’t have a presence before,” said Michael Fauscette, vice president, Software Applications Research at IDC. “This new program demonstrates a level of commitment to SMBs for its technology products and shows that Oracle is serious about growing its business with SMB customers. One of the keys to increasing Oracle’s sales to SMB customers is optimizing how vendors get their products to SMBs – with this new approach Oracle shows that it's serious about selling to SMB customers and that it understands what SMB resellers and customers need.”

Partners Around the Globe Agree
This new order fulfillment process not only shortens the fulfillment cycle time from a few weeks to less than a day, but increases profitability for partners by eliminating the administrative back-and-forth formerly needed to sign extended contracts and shepherd the fulfillment process itself.

“Arrow ECS’ partners will benefit greatly from an enhanced ordering process that simplifies terms and conditions for small dollar deals,” said Matt Reaves, vice president of North American enterprise software for Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions’ global software business unit.

“Unlike other Enterprise companies targeting these customers, Oracle has tailored its strategy and product set to address the specific needs of SMB customers. In doing so, they have removed many of the obstacles that typically prevent small companies from partnering with larger organizations. This unprecedented and refreshing flexibility will open Oracle up to mass market opportunities that their Enterprise rivals will still be dreaming of for years to come,” said Jared Cary, vendor relations director, Northamber UK, Ltd.

More information can be found at www.oracle.com.

Author: Justin Ong

Read more ...

Analysts Question Oracle's 'Surround SAP' Strategy

Powering the stellar fourth quarter numbers Oracle announced yesterday—total revenues up 17 percent to 5.8 billion, beating the Street estimate of $5.6 billion—is an acquisition strategy that seems, on the surface at least, to be growing revenue and successfully making inroads into SAP's customer base.

During the earnings call yesterday, Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison outlined his company's "Surround SAP" strategy, which has seen Oracle acquire about 30 companies in the last three years, including PeopleSoft in 2005. That buy saw Oracle become the second largest application provider, bested only by SAP, which they vowed to best with third-party applications and middleware sales.

But several financial analysts question Oracle's strategy to grow its applications business minus input from acquisitions. And while the company's fourth quarter revenues appear to be proving out Ellison's tactics, a closer examination points to a slightly different story.

"Application license sales fell short of both our and consensus expectations," wrote Bernstein Research analyst Charles Di Bona in a June 27 research note. "Application license revenue of $726 million was a hair below our $727 million estimate and below consensus of $736 million. "We continue to have concerns about the organic growth rates of Oracle's core business absent ongoing acquisitions and about Oracle's necessary reliance on acquisitions to meet its stated EPS [earnings per share] goals, even as we are increasingly comfortable with management's ability to integrate the operations of such acquisitions," wrote Di Bona.

Di Bona notes that while application revenue grew 13.3 percent, the rate drops significantly to 5.5 percent if benefits from currency exchange rates and $26 million in revenue from Hyperion, which Oracle acquired in April, are removed from consideration. He suggests that Oracle's true growth rate in its applications business hovers somewhere less than 5.2 per-cent year-over-year.

Oracle is selling more applications by acquiring best-of-breed vendors, Di Bona said, but the company doesn't include the costs associated with those acquisitions in its earnings calculations.

Surround SAP

Ellison assured investors and analysts participating in the earnings call that the company will continue with its acquisition strategy—effectively beefing up its "Surround SAP" strategy with vertically aligned applications company purchases. The goal really is to surround SAP's existing customers with add-on applications that Oracle has acquired—transportation management, product lifecycle management or sales force management, for example —to get a foothold in SAP shops and sell more apps along with the middleware necessary to glue them all together.

Ellison and Phillips conceded that SAP customers would not in fact rip and replace their existing ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementations ("that would be unreasonable," Ellison said). Rather their thinking is that SAP customers are enticed to develop a two-vendor strategy.

"Customers are going to a two-vendor strategy and relying on Oracle, not SAP, to make all the pieces work together," said Ellison. "That's absolutely key to us, to our middleware strategy. We're seeing [SAP customers] chose our middleware versus [SAP's middleware platform] NetWeaver to link all the pieces together. We form very good relationships and now are able to sell new applications to customers that wouldn't talk to us about new apps."

Phillips concurred, saying that its plan to surround SAP is working "beautifully," but is still nascent. "Early on there was still a little nervousness when we first started buying [companies]," he said. "It's in our interest to coexist [with SAP]. It's not realistic if you spent a billion dollars to put [ERP] in, to rip it out." SAP, meanwhile, takes the stance that Oracle is not being true to its word with actual application sales growth rates. Steve Bauer, SAP's vice president of global communications, said an in-house apples-to-apples comparison between Oracle, Hyperion and Stellent, Oracle's real application performance is closer to -2 percent year-over-year.

"In spite of its recent claims of growth, the size of Oracle's applications business is still below the size of what it was in 2004, when Oracle and its acquired companies operated as stand-alone entities," said Bauer. "From a share perspective it will take Oracle 12+ quarters at current rates to return to 2004 consolidated market share."

If the modest numbers that Oracle posted in application sales in the North American region are any indication, next-quarter sales may be more tempered than Oracle would like to admit.

"While nearly all the numbers are very strong the year-to-year growth rate for Oracle applications and new licenses declined to 13 percent in calendar 2Q '07 from 57 percent in 1Q '07," wrote TBR analyst Stuart Williams in a June 27 research note.

"Applications revenue increased a modest 5.1 percent year-to-year in the Americas in 2Q '07, down from 68.9 percent in the pervious quarter. This is the lowest year-to-year growth rate for Oracle applications new license revenue since [the quarter] following the PeopleSoft acquisition."

Oracle reported overall license revenue of $2.5 billion, up 17 percent year-over-year, beating the street's expectations of 5 to 15 percent year-over-year growth.

During the fourth quarter conference call Ellison blamed flat sales in North America on a tough comparison to the same year ago quarter, where Oracle reported blow out results.

UBS analyst Heather Bellini said in a research note that Oracle's new application sales fell short of her expectations for 14 percent growth. She is looking for more numbers from Oracle's acquisitions to get a better sense of how quickly Oracle is gaining market share on SAP.

"We continue to believe that Oracle can sustain organic application license revenue in the low-to-mid double digit range over the next few years as we view the company's decision to offer unlimited support on its acquired products and its vertical focus as offering a point of differentiation and helping unfreeze customer's wallets," wrote Bellini, who pointed out that SAP's 2005 organic growth rate "dwarfed" Oracle's.

Bellini expects the gap to normalize in the latter half of the year, with Oracle starting to outpace SAP in the third quarter.

Of course SAP said Oracle's efforts are for naught. SAP's Bauer said Oracle has not been successful in gaining market share or customers from SAP, and Oracle's middleware doesn't integrate all its disparate applications. "It only connects them," he said.

Bauer said that SAP has more than 13,000 customers using NetWeaver and that the platform has a distinct advantage over Oracle's Fusion Middleware: the ability to integrate business processes.

"SAP has been delivering integrated SOA-based applications services across its ERP suite and composite xApps for several years," Bauer said.

Author: Renee Boucher Ferguson

Read more ...

Oracle results - above market expectations

After the close of markets yesterday Oracle announced the results of its fiscal year 2007, which ended on May 31st. Q4 GAAP revenues rose 20% to $5.8 billion, quarterly GAAP net income was up 23% to $1.6 billion, GAAP new license revenues were up 17% to $2.5 billion and EPS was up 27% to $0.31 basic per share. For fiscal 2007 as a whole GAAP revenues rose 25% t $18 billion, GAAP net income was up 26% to $4.3 billion, GAAP new licence revenues were up 20% to $5.9 billion, and EPS rose 27% to 0.83 basic per share. Cash flow from operation, crucial to sustain and continue the aggressive acquisition strategy, expanded by $1 billion to $5.5 billion.

These are impressive figures and ones that will be forensically analysed by the competition, trying to factor out acquisition led growth from organic growth and to calculate the implications for individual products in individual countries. Oracle is now such a large organisation, with so many product lines and has made so many acquisitions that this exercise is becoming harder and harder each quarter, generating progressively less insight. The prime obfuscating factor in any such analysis is revenue recognition - Oracle is more conservative in terms of revenue recognition that many of the companies that it acquires. Analysis of the Oracle results is most effective when the macro-level analysis of the numbers is blended with detail knowledge at the deal specific level, below the information publicly provided by Oracle.

The colour to the numbers was given by Charles Philips. There were three areas that were headlined. First, was the continued strength of the Oracle technology business, including the traditional database technology. That strength is driven by steady database growth, uptake of "Options" on the database product and continued acceleration of revenues from Fusion middleware - with the latter two being the prime revenue accelerators. In terms of geographic colour EMEA was strongest at 18% year-on-year growth, followed by the Americas and APAC at 15% and 13% respectively. Second, were the applications growth figures with the Americas, EMEA and APAC growing at 26%, 42% and 36% respectively. The vertical applications are undoubtedly an element of that growth, with EMEA now showing the growth spurt that the Americas experienced earlier - extending the channel and sales operations for industry vertical products is inherently more difficult in a geographically and culturally fragmented market such as EMEA. The vertical applications have also been used to effect a subtle change of positioning in the battle against SAP - moving their strategy gently from a head-to-head tussle towards trying to envelop and subsequently replace them. We expect more focus on this enveloping strategy in 2008. Third, was the mention of the growing importance of CRM On Demand for Oracle. Charles Phillips made special mention of the disadvantages of a multi-tenant architecture when dealing with sensitive customer data in the financial services or public services markets - a clear prod in the ribs for Salesforce.com and, potentially, an early signal that Oracle will begin to address this market more aggressively.

Below the headlines there are always one or two seemingly low key announcements on the results conference call that are actually quite significant. This time was no exception. The technology re-marketer programme mentioned, almost in passing, by Charles Phillips is a signal of a much harder push into the SMB market, attempting to remove friction from the channel and increase channel velocity. Oracle has traditionally been difficult to do business with for small companies and the re-sellers that serve them. As a result the SMB revenues, although not unimportant at current levels, are a fraction of the potential in that market. Expect 2008 to see Oracle push into the Microsoft strongholds during 2008. It's a continuation of the SMB technology battle between Microsoft and Oracle that Ovum first focused on in 2005 - with 2008 signalling increased fervour to the battle.

Oracle is definitely still on the acquisition trail, with the executive team confirming that they expect the 2008 M&A momentum to be as strong as it was in 2007. On that basis we should anticipate a double digit number of acquisitions in the year ahead. There are two prime candidates where these acquisitions will come from. First, is further specialist applications in its target vertical markets, with utilities and energy being a prime candidate. Second, continued infill acquisitions in middleware technology, to further build out its rapidly growing middleware market and continue the strong competition against the likes of IBM.

However, there are also likely to be twists and turns in the acquisition strategy. Oracle will surely expand the number of vertical markets that it focuses on and set out a new acquisition trail in those markets; potentially targeting markets considered to be SAP dominated. The market must also face up to the possibility of a totally left-field acquisition, taking Oracle into new markets entirely. Oracle has floated the idea of it attaining annual revenues of $50 billion. This will potentially require more than continued organic growth and numerous sub-$1 billion acquisitions. The acquisition of PeopleSoft signalled a change of strategic gear for Oracle and a push for major growth. 2008 or 2009 could well signal another change of gear for Oracle.

Author: David Mitchell

Read more ...

Oracle and LODESTAR

On April 24, 2007, Oracle announced our agreement to acquire LODESTAR Corporation ("LODESTAR"), a leading provider of meter data management and competitive energy operation solutions. We expect the transaction to close in May 2007, subject to certain closing conditions. Until such time, each company will continue to operate independently.

LODESTAR delivers best-in-class meter data management, commercial and industrial (C&I) billing, load research, load forecasting and pricing, load profiling, and settlement and transaction management solutions to the utilities industry. The strengths of LODESTAR's solutions for utilities are planned to be combined with Oracle's industry leading database, middleware, and enterprise applications, including Oracle Utilities applications acquired through SPLWorldGroup. Combined, we plan to deliver the most comprehensive suite of mission critical operational systems for all segments of the utilities industry, combining meter data management, load profiling, pricing, marketing, sales, customer care, billing, analytics and management of the networks, work force, assets, and business to business transactions. We are also committed to supporting our respective customers, which include over 2,500 utilities worldwide, and 10 of the top 10 Global electric and gas companies.

On 6/1/2007, Oracle completed the acquisition of LODESTAR Corporation.

LODESTAR Corporation encompasses over 25 years of industry experience, spanning a customer base that includes the largest electricity and gas companies around the world. Our partnerships with these companies have allowed LODESTAR to stay in the forefront of the industry with leading energy software solutions.

Recognized globally for our suite of applications, LODESTAR Customer Choice Suite (CCS) is the cornerstone of many energy companies' mission critical applications. The CCS advantage lies in the ability to provide scalability and flexibility. Most solutions to date cannot handle the complexity involved in handling energy data. Thus, resources are consumed where they could be better utilized elsewhere. Because LODESTAR has applications that require configuration only around customer specific requirements, a business reduces expenditure as well as install time.

LODESTAR understands a business' need to forge ahead competitively. This is why we are dedicated to offering the industry software solutions that easily integrate into the entire enterprise. Our applications work easily with other third party packages and can easily be changed by your internal staff or with the help of a LODESTAR implementation specialist.

Chris Hamilos, Chairman and CEO had the vision to create a component-based suite of products to address the demands imposed by the ever-changing and dynamic energy markets worldwide. The first product to manage load research was introduced by LODESTAR Corporation (as part of TASC) in 1978. Since that time we have evolved our offerings into more than 10 different products that include portfolio management, financial management, pricing, billing, contract management, transaction management and more.
We lead with boldness, passion, speed and innovation. Our focus is to continuously provide the technology that makes a difference. We offer flexibility, efficiency, knowledge and over 70 years combined experience in our management team.

Source: www.oracle.com & www.lodestarcorp.com

Read more ...

Multinational Corporation ERP Implementation – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains

If you look back to the history, you will see that ERP for large publicly traded company had to be built upon very reliable hardware (more likely non-Intel hardware: mainframe, Sun sparc, etc.), powerful database platform: Oracle, DB2, Ingress, Sybase and reliable OS: UNIX. 10 years ago Microsoft had Windows NT first tries, plus Windows 95 was kind of revolution, but not the one to stake on for corporate users. Nowadays hardware (from Intel side), Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition, WindowsXP Pro, and Microsoft SQL Server could be considered reasonably reliable plus it is certainly easier to support these products, because of the large pool of Microsoft-oriented IT professionals available Worldwide. Microsoft Business Solutions offers several lines of ERP systems: Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft Navision, Solomon, Axapta. We don’t want to state here that in the future Microsoft will be only ERP systems provider, but it certainly is and will be one of the major players on the ERP/MRP market. In this small article we’ll consider the ways to implement large corporation required features in Microsoft Great Plains.

• GL Consolidation. If you do business exclusively in the USA – you probably do not need this, however if you have to operate in the multicurrency and under multiple countries regulations – you need this feature. European ERPs of late 1990th had this GL consolidation as separate module. Microsoft Great Plains doesn’t have this feature out of the box, and you have to implement it via MS SQL Server Data Transformation package, Stored Procedure or Great Plains Dexterity customization. The alternative approach is to use Enterprise Reporting or FRx with multicurrency to provide consolidated reporting

• Internal Audit reports. Internal Auditor should be provided with reliable random selection of documents to review. Great Plains is MS SQL Server based application and if you base your Crystal Report on the stored procedure in SQL Server – you can easily get random selection
• Intercompanies Transactions. This is probably complicated with multicurrency – but Great Plains has the module to address this issue

• Customer/Vendor Consolidation. You might deal through agents on your local or regional markets and based on the results you pay the agent or subtract from it. This feature is covered in Customer/Vendor Consolidation module

• Multiple languages support. Great Plains had support to all the major languages in version 6.0. When Microsoft acquired Navision Software – it staked on Navision in continental Europe and all the emerging markets (Russia, East Europe, Brazil, China). The way you implement local language or Unicode characters support – you translate several screens for GP local users and extend Dexterity with Unicode enabling software utility.

Do your homework with regards to implementation, customization, integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call +420 724 160 427 or ask for info@espaceconsulting.eu

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

Oracle HTML DB

HTML DB uniquely converts an Oracle database into an online development service, which enables anyone with a Web browser to create reporting and data-entry applications quickly without the need for professional programming skills.

What Is Oracle HTML DB?

· It’s Browser driven.
· Provides rapid application development.
· It’s Wizard driven.
· You can quickly build web applications on the Oracle database for:
o Reporting
o Data entry
· Supported by Oracle 9.0.2.3 or later.
· Only needs Oracle HTTP Server.

Browser HTTP Server Oracle DB & HTML DB

HTML DB allows

You can create forms for:

· adding a record
· adding multiple records at a time
· updating a record
· deleting a record(s)
· viewing a record as read only

It allows you to setup triggers that execute when a particular action is committed by the user. For example, if a user clicks the delete button, some code will execute that will remove a product from the Oracle database, or write that record to another table, so that you have an audit trail.

Data is stored centrally and can be accessed by users from various locations. Users can be given privileges, where they can access only their own data. As an example following is a business scenario.

Business Scenario

Effective project management is the key to completing any project on time and within budget. Within every project there are always multiple issues that need to be tracked, prioritized, and dealt with.
For example there may be several projects that must be completed on time for Company A to be profitable. Missing deadlines for any of the projects will cause Company A to lose money. The project leads are tracking issues in several different ways. Some individuals are manually tracking issues in notebooks, others are tracking issues in text documents, and other managers are using spreadsheets.

By creating a hosted application in Oracle HTML DB, each project lead can easily record and track issues in one central location. Not only will everyone have access to just the data they need, but having the data stored in one location, will make it easier for management to determine if any critical issues are not being addressed.

Reports

Reports can be produced that allow users to filter report output. This allows the end user to set values that will be queried against to produce a report. These reports can be sorted by any heading on that report and can also be filtered down again. To produce these reports a developer needs to set the reports up and add the SQL queries or PL/SQL code to HTML DB.

Data can be imported from a spreadsheet into HTML DB and put into an Oracle database. All that is required is the database tables need to be setup first.

Reports can also be produced as pie charts, line charts, date reports (a calendar with text on specific dates where for example a support issue arose), bar charts and text output.

Author: Dal Hayer

Read more ...

ERP Software Suppliers

The ERP market has continued to grow over the last 10 years. While it was once only the domain of Fortune 1000 companies, Enterprise Resource Planning has now caught the attention of small to medium sized companies. The growth rate of Enterprise Resource Planning has reached over 30% since the end of the 1990s.

Because this tool has become so important for a large number of companies and organizations, it is important to understand the suppliers who make it available to them. The foundation for ERP technology was introduced in the early 1970s. An organization called SAP was created by engineers who had worked for IBM, and it became one of the largest ERP vendors in the world.

The software created by SAP is R/3, and it was created for the purpose of assisting companies with their logistics and accounting processes. In addition to this, SAP also offered a number of tools that dealt with human resources. Over time, SAP has extended its services to include supply chain maintenance and data warehousing solutions. The second most popular ERP software company was PeopleSoft. The area where this company became most prominent was human resources. It eventually placed an emphasis on tailoring its products to the service sector, and they wanted to help organizations deal with their costs and expenses. One reason why SAP and PeopleSoft had a great deal of success is because they extended their product line to suit the needs of a changing market.

There are a number of other suppliers that have made important contributions to the ERP industry. Some of these companies are J.D. Edwards and Oracle. Oracle has sold ERP tools since the late 1980s, and these tools were designed to work with their databases. Oracle has focused on selling their products to consumer goods firms and manufacturing companies. Because of this, they have become a formidable adversary to companies such as SAP. However, Oracle has had a number of problems over the years. Many of these problems are a result of reorganizing the structure of the company as well as the uncertainty of their newer products.

Another ERP supplier that has become quite popular is Baan. Baan is a company based in the Netherlands that sells ERP logistics tools to companies that wish to avoid doing business with SAP. They have spent a great deal of effort focusing on software suppliers that are relatively small. One of the most powerful advantages of this strategy is that a broader variety of products were introduced. The firm called J.D. Edwards is a company that has sold software for many years. However, they did not officially become a public company until the 1990s. When the launched the OneWorld ERP tool, they became a powerful force in the market, and they have earned billions of dollars in profits.

There are the four ERP vendors that have made a tremendous impact on the industry. However, it should be noted that there are a host of smaller companies. Because the largest vendors have placed an emphasis on working with Fortune 500 to Fortune 1000 companies, this has left open a market that was not tapped for many years. The smaller ERP vendors are catering their services to smaller businesses. Some of the companies which have done well in this area are Infinium Software, QAD, and PowerCerv. The software sold by these companies will require a great deal of customization if they are to be used properly.

However, they have assisted these smaller businesses by offering their products at a much lower cost. In addition to this, the software can be implemented within a short time frame.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...

Oracle Applications (Oracle E-business Suite) Customizations: What Is It?

Oracle Applications Customizations is a major issue in many companies that have implemented it. Oracle recommends every company that installs Oracle Applications to avoid any customization, but I have not seen any company that utilizes it and have not done any customization.

There are two types of Customizations: Extensions and Modifications.

• Extensions are components developed by customer, using the development features provided by Oracle within the E-business Suite. Oracle has provided guidelines and standards for creating extensions. It is extremely recommended that those are followed; it will certify that the new objects (extensions) are kept separate from standard E-business components.

• Modifications are changes done in the standard E-business suite objects or code. For example, a customer gets a database trigger from Oracle Applications database and makes some changes in the code. When customers follow this approach it is very difficult to identify the changes that have been done in the Oracle Applications, and this will affect future upgrades.

There are some common extensions on Oracle Applications Suite:

• Alert: Oracle Alerts facilitates the flow of information within a customer’s organization. Oracle workflow is used to develop new alerts.

• Database Objects: when the functionality is not available in Oracle Applications, it is possible to create a set of database objects. If the creation is necessary, it has to be done carefully, once it could impact the performance and the integrity of the system.

• File System and Custom Directory: always use the standard Oracle Flexible Architecture (OFA). This helps you to standardize installation and maintenance procedures. Create a new directory ($CUSTOM_TOP) and store all the customization in there.

• Forms: provides a way of populating custom tables. Oracle has provided a guideline for its implementation that must be followed. It has to be coded and tested properly; otherwise it can compromise the data integrity.

• Reports: Oracle provides the most usual reports and every company has to develop to their specific formats. Oracle Reports builder is the tool to be used and there are some risks in case of an upgrade, once that the schema of the objects used by Reports and Oracle eBusiness Suite can be changed in future releases.

Customization is a need at any company that has implemented Oracle Applications. Oracle is frequently advising everyone to avoid any kind customization. I agree in some part with Oracle, I would just change this advice to “Extend but not modify”.

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

The Current State of Enterprise Resource Planning

To analyze the future trends of Enterprise Resource Planning, it is first important to look at the current state of this industry. While this tool was originally used for manufacturing and human resources, it is now being used in areas such as customer services, sales automation, and supply chain maintenance. At the moment, it seems that ERP vendors are expanding the capability of their ERP products, and many of them are catering to smaller businesses instead of just Fortune 500 companies.

The advent of the Internet has played an important role in the evolution of Enterprise Resource Planning.
A number of companies are combining their supply chain maintenance functions with the internet so that suppliers can also have easy access to the information. When the supplier is given access to this crucial information, they will be able to understand the needs of their clients. They will have a good understanding of how much they should produce, and they will also become familiar with manufacturing issues. In addition to integrating the processes within a company, ERP vendors are working to merge the collaboration of suppliers, customers, and the companies that work with them. In addition to doing this on a domestic level, these vendors are working on an international level as well.

A number of experts have said that they feel the future of ERP may be in danger. There are a number of reasons why they voice these concerns. First, many ERP vendors have already catered to the needs of large companies. Most, if not all large companies are now using some type of Enterprise Resource Planning system. What this means is that the market for ERP is decreasing with Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. Even though a vendor can expect to make millions off the sale of a system, they will not make any more money beyond this, and once a company has implemented a ERP system, there is little they need from the vendor.

To solve these problems, a number of vendors are focusing on small to medium sized businesses. They are tailoring their products to these companies by reducing the size, cost, and complexity of implementing them. If an ERP vendor wants to survive in this ever changing market, there are a number of things they will need to do. They will first want to pay attention to processes that are not connected to a generic system. They will want to look at things such as customer support and the ability of their clients to make decisions. The last thing they will need to do is target their products towards smaller companies. If an ERP vendor wants to succeed, they must understand the needs of their customers. Their customer service must be superior in quality, and the prices must be decent, especially for small to medium sized businesses.

If a vendor does these things successfully, they can compete in the global market. The business world continues to change, and ERP vendors must be able to adapt to these changes if they wish to remain competitive. As we move further into the 21st century, it will become more important for organizations to integrate both their processes and information. It is critically important for manufacturers and customers to work at a higher level of understanding and coordination. In addition to this, the company must be able to effectively work with suppliers. Overall, ERP is a strategic resource that will allow companies to synchronize processes that would otherwise be disconnected.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...

Oracle E-Business Suite – Is It Really Possible To Support It Remotely?

Well, let’s begin from philosophical introduction. It is probably moving into this direction, all the recent talks about offshore development, remote support, customization project outsourcing, BPO (business processes outsourcing). And the final result will be so-called radical compromise, meaning it is not a regular compromise, but rather something we do not know about. In order to predict the future form of Oracle Applications/Fusion support we have to look at the trends.

• Market Trends. When we see that traditional manufacturing is now outsourced to China, India, Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, South East Asia – we should question if traditional ERP support will stay in the local framework and model, when consultants go onsite, sit the day with corporate IT, CEO, Controller and key AR/AP people to design the MRP model. In fact – communication channel advances allow you to be present in the conference virtually and do not feel strong disadvantages of not being able to shake opponent hands. If you are in USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand – do you really care if get phone/skype/websession support, not peer-to-peer?

• Step-by-Step. Well, we have to be conservative in order to be profitable and mutually beneficial. Let’s start from small - assume that remote support and outsourcing are for Oracle E-Business Suite Extensions & Customizations, Oracle Report Builder design & development, plus typical customer support cases, when you as a client are OK to call 800 number

• International Challenge. This is when Oracle Applications has to be supported in their localized (multicurrency, local and regional taxation and language: Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Russian). This is definitely the obstacle, however we see more examples when company has employees from Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Montreal, China sitting in the same office…

• Conclusion. Probably the most likely scenario will be the one when you will have to accept the conception of virtual reality.

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

ERP/Accounting Selection: Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, SAP – Expansion To Europe

This article is targeted at US-based mid-size and large companies, planning the expansion and opening branches in Europe. It is for IT director, who is nowadays responsible for ERP/MRP platform selection and following implementation. The format of the article doesn’t allow us to come up with detail specs comparison, we will be rather giving you highlights for further research and checklist of things that you should not miss at the consideration. We will begin with the specific of the market and then point out to the solutions available.

• Multiple Languages. Continental Europe doesn’t speak on English language natively – documentation is in German, French, Italian or whichever country you consider. It is not just a question of finding English speaking and writing accounting personnel – as you will see, reading further

• Taxation. Now it is becoming more standardized, however you should now that in Europe you have to deal with VAT (Value Added Tax), in comparison to Sales Tax in the US. VAT should be paid not only by end consumer, but also by resellers, distributors, etc. Also it is common practice when Services are taxable in European countries.

• Government Reporting. In the USA you report on the federal and state levels and usually IRS and the states don’t care about the accounting system you use. In Europe, again depending on the country and probably this tendency is more applicable when you move Eastward, the government might have more involvement in the ERP brands selection, recommending several systems as approved, certified, localized, etc.

• Accounting Procedures. In some countries (France, Russia) you may encounter with the situation, when government wants you to use recommended chart of accounts, usually generalized and geared toward manufacturing accounting, which might be a nightmare in the case if you are service-oriented business. Considering innovative nature of US businesses in expansion mode – this issue should be addressed

Now we will give you solutions highlights:

• Local ERP. The specific legislation and conditions of the country you chose for your European penetration probably produced several locally originated ERPs. As a tendency – these systems typically deal with government reporting and available in local language only. If you decide to implement such a solution, please understand the trade-ins – you can not find US/international managers who could efficiently take the control over when needed.

• Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft Business Solutions these systems for continental Europe: Navision, Axapta – Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX (Microsoft Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics GP will be pulled out from France, Germany and Holland, where it currently has some market presence). Navision & Axapta are both localized and “approved”

• SAP Business One. Assuming that you represent mid-size business – this system has all-in-one and the named user license includes all the modules (you can have CRM-only client for your sales people at ½ of the price). SAP Business One was designed with the ideas of the Multilanguage, flexible reporting and object-oriented tax engine. Plus SAP Business One has transaction integration to mySAP.

• Oracle Financials/E-Business Suite. This solution, coming from Oracle, also referred as Oracle Applications should be considered as very efficient and reliable. It is also localized and has very long market presence history in Europe. Oracle comes with J2EE/EJB/Java customization & development

• IBM Lotus Notes/Domino. It is not an ERP – it is rather the platform, Lotus is very popular in Europe and you should consider and respect it if you purchase existing company, using Lotus for document workflow

• Integration, Customization & Reporting. You should consider European branch ERP integration ability to your corporate ERP in the USA and management reporting compliance.

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

The Effect of ERP on Mid Market Companies

When Enterprise Resource Planning was first introduced, very few companies could actually afford it. In most cases, the only companies that could afford this technology were Fortune 1000 firms. However, like many forms of technology, the cost involved with ERP would eventually be reduced, allowing small to medium sized businesses to afford it.

While ERP has been around for little more than a decade, more companies are now seeing the benefits of using it. Many companies in the Middle East and Africa have failed to utilize the benefits of ERP, and the reason for this deals with procedure rather than cost. Many of these companies have used the same methods for many years, and are unwilling to switch to something new.

ERP vendors had a tendency to focus on companies that had very deep pockets. At the same time, many of these companies made the mistake of viewing ERP as simply being a new technological tool that they could use to increase their profits. They failed to look at the implementation issues surrounding this technology, and many of them lost substantial amounts of money. In some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars were lost when a company failed to properly implement an ERP system. It should be noted that many companies learned from their mistakes and those of their contemporaries, and they were effectively able to install and utilize ERP systems. While this has allowed ERP vendors to gain billions of dollars in profits, a number of issues have occured in the last few years.

First, many large companies have already implemented ERP, and this means they are not in need of another system. This means vendors must look for othe markets in order to generate revenues. The next logical market would be the small to medium sized business market. Companies which are designated as "mid market" are those that have no more than 500 workers and maintains a turnover of no more than $100 million. There are a number of things that separate these companies from their larger counterparts, and these differences extend beyond their revenues. Many mid market businesses have to deal with tough economic issues as well as fierce competition from smaller countries. Because of this, these companies will be looking to utilize every form of technology they can get their hands on.

In addition to this, mid market companies must be able to optimize their businesses. This includes things such as supply maintenance and accounting. While Fortune 1000 companies would spend millions of dollars implementing an ERP system in the 1990s, mid market business can now implement the same technology for about $100,000. This has allowed Enterprise Resource Planning to become a low cost solution for companies who are looking to utilize it. Before a mid market company decides to utilize ERP, it may be a good idea to look at their larger counterparts to learn from them. They should view their successes as well as their failures. Most importantly, they should understand how to avoid failure while simultaneously reaching for success.

The results of studies connected on companies that have utilized ERP show a number of things. It should first be noted that firms that utilized ERP technologies how surpassed their competitors by 20%. This means that Enterprise Resource Planning is a powerful technology that can give companies an edge in the marketplace.

This also demonstrates that small companies can achieve the same feats. A number of companies have failed when attempting to use ERP, and much of this rests on their own actions rather than the actions of the technology.

A company must make strategic plans before purchasing ERP systems. It is not a matter of just installing the system and letting it run. A number of things must be done to insure the system will work properly. The goal of ERP is to integrate the many processes of a company, and this technology should only be used by companies that are willing to do this. They must work closely with the vendor to ensure everything is implemented correctly. If this is not done, it will be very difficult for the company to succeed. There are a number of companies that fail for this exact reason.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...

Oracle E-Business Customization A New Paradigm For Development

If your company has Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle Financials, Oracle Applications), it probably uses Oracle Forms and Reports to customize an E-Business module. These tools are based on event programming and a huge set of facilities to make the developer’s job easier. Oracle Forms is a RAD (Rapid Application Development), and just like most RAD is based on event programming. So, you usually program having a user interface on mind, the “clicks” the user will do, and the possibilities you would like to give the users. Let us call this event programming paradigm, strong words to say the kind of principles this way of programming has.

As already mentioned before, Oracle has a huge Java strategy. Its recommendation is clear about the use of Java over new implementations. Pay attention at the last bullet we took from the Oracle Statement of Direction at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/forms/pdf/10g/ToolsSOD.pdf:

• Move from client-server to the Web
• Upgrade to the latest versions
• Interoperate with Java/J2EE
• Develop new modules using JDeveloper

If you are supposed to develop in Java, the best way is to know and use Java as an Object Oriented (OO) language. At the same statement of direction mentioned above, Oracle said they have done JDevelopers a comfortable IDE for Forms Developers. But is this enough for you?

Java is not only a language. Actually the word Java is overused. Instead to mention the thousands of others “J” acronyms is much easier to say just Java. For example, to make a simple program in Java you will use the standard J2SE which has a lot of interfaces. To make a web interface you will probably use one of these API/Frameworks: JSP, Java Servlets, Struts, JSF, or some others similar to make the same. But, anyway, they all will use Java and, as we said, Java is an OO language and you should program just like this paradigm is alike: using encapsulation, inheritance, Java Interfaces, etc.

Everybody knows OO paradigm is not new, so it is better for you. People and the market know already what to do, and the best, what to avoid. We recommend you, first of all, to recognize this is a different (not difficult!!) way of doing. If you do so, you’ll open your mind to learn, what will make things much easier for you.

Next step is to study about OO Analysis and Design, we will help you writing some articles about it. Try to know what is UML(Unified Modeling Language) and how this will help you. Realize JDeveloper has an environment to design using UML, and this is very helpful.

Well … what’s next? Probably to specialize on Web, Server, Oracle ADF, Struts, etc. It’s common to find people specialized on client or server technologies; it’s too much to be good on everything. Good luck!!!

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

The Essence of ERP

If you are interested in Enterprise Resouce Planning, it is important to understand the essence of this technology. The basic idea of ERP is that the whole is more powerful than the individual parts. In traditional computer applications, transactions are processed separately. A large number of organizations have used this system for quite some time, and there are still some who continue to use it today.

With traditional systems, eacn transaction must be handled separately, and they are connected to functions which are specific. Enterprise Resource Planning is just the opposite of this. Instead of separating transactions, they are all treated equally.

It is important to realize that most of the application programs used by companies that simply used for manipulation. They will contain data, and this data will be processed and presented in the proper form when a user requests it. One of the primary problems with this process is that is no connection between the application programs which are used by various departments. With ERP, there may be hundreds of data tables which store information for numerous transactions, but they will not be limited. They will be integrated in a way that will allow them to be handled by multiple users for different purposes, and these users don't have to be located in the same department.

There are a number of advances in technology that has contributed to the growth of ERP. Enterprise Resource Planning is directly connected to Information Technology. The improvement of IT with the decreasing cost of computers has made it possible for small businesses and organizations to begin using ERP. When Enterprise Resource Planning was first introduced, it was designed to run on powerful mainframe systems. With the introduction of PCs and client servers, along with RDBMS, Enterprise Resource Planning has been introduced into smaller markets. When ERP is used with a client server, the server will store information, and the consistency of processes will be maintained.

The issues of program logic and information processing will be split between the client and the server. A number of ERP systems will use what is called a three tier structure. It can utilize business rules that are normally not connected to the primary system, and this will ensure that the proper validation checks are used. Many of the companies that use Enterprise Resource Planning are those that carry out operations in multiple locations. To make sure these transactions are carried out properly, a number of ERP systems are being utilized. In order for ERP systems to function properly, there are a number of things they will need to feature.

The first of these is flexibility. Many companies need to change their operations and transactions on a regular basis, and the ideal ERP system must be able to adapt to these changes. Client server technology is important, because it will allow the ERP system to operate on multiple database back ends, and it will do this through a process that is called ODBC, or Open Data Base Connectivity. Another important feature of ERP systems is modularity. The term modularity is used to describe a system that is "open." The module must be capable of being detached whenever it is needed to work with other system modules. It should also be capable of supporting multple computer platforms.

Most companies will use a variety of system platforms, and they may also be in need of third party platforms. The ideal ERP system must be capable of offering this. It is also important for an ERP system to be comprehensive. It must be able to support a large number of different functions that are related to the company. In addition to this, it must be calibrated for a diverse range of companies and organizations. When one is looking at the quality of an ERP system, they must look beyond the company. Instead of limiting it to boundaries within the company, they should make sure it supports the internet and other elements within the company. It is also crucial for the organization to look at best business practices. A collection of these business process should be used on an international scale. The overall goal of a company should be to take the business processes of the physical world and apply them to computers.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...

ERP Consulting 2010: Future Business Model And Alternatives

Analyzing Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains consulting in the Clinton era, then in recession time 2000-2003 and now, at the post-recession, we would like to give certain prognoses for the next five years. This might be attributable to the whole industry: Oracle Financials, Accpac, MAS500, PeopleSoft, SAP for mid-size business and Microsoft Navision, Axapta and Solomon. We are talking about mid-size ERP systems implementation, customization, integration and support, which requires more than one independent consultant efforts – client needs Microsoft Business Solutions partner to implement the system. The most important changes in our opinion happened in the time of recession and these changes will reshape the industry in a few years. Right now we are experiencing the time of market redistribution. Let’s look at the processes:

Consulting Companies Consolidation. Great Plains Software was supporting small and tiny partners, down to one consultant – this was up to the moment when Microsoft purchased the company and formed Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, later on renamed into Microsoft Business Solutions. However the realities of recession-time cash flow forced small and mid-size Microsoft Business Solutions partner to merge with auditing firms. The opposite side of the coin is – large companies, serving mid-size and small businesses are pushing consulting and hidden implementation price up.

• Recession-time Expenses reduction CEO. Yes – corporate, mid-size and small clients launched the program of cost reduction. Recession inevitably pushed consulting rates down and the consolidation process leaded to the situation when clients could not afford the price level due to the weak budget or the believe in the price decrease.

• Consultants Layoffs. This is very prosaic process – but it is inevitable in the time of recession and lack of orders. Consultants, who were serving client in the booming time had to find another job, mostly in different industry, something like to become controllers for mid-size businesses (when former controller was laid off due to high pre-recession time salary). These historical layoffs however resulted in the nowadays shortage of experienced consultants, especially technical consultants: Great Plains Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, Integration Manager programmers and technical specs writers.

Predictions and Prognoses:

• Offshore is only part of the solution. The main reason in our opinion is reasonable conservatism from the side of potential clientele. There were so many malicious virus attacks from overseas and we do not simply trust somebody who is over there and never had a chance to shake our hands. The second reason – small to mid-size companies (who have conservative approach to trust somebody) might not have strong IT support and infrastructure to be served via remote desktop, VPN or web session.

• Established Partners with Offshore facilities. This is possible way, however we have certain skepticism here. The reason to our skepticism is – established partners have to command highest consulting rates due to high level of administrative and headquarters expenses, so the savings to the end client might not be substantial

• New Small Nationwide Partners. Due to the recession, there were cases when minor partners had to leave mid-size consulting companies and form new companies on their own, believing in their expertise and the new way of partnering with offshore programming groups. We believe that the future market will turn to these partners and new nation-wide practices.

Author: Andrew Karasev

Read more ...

Software Outsourcing India Can Bring Rapid Growth to your Company

In today’s competitive world of business, every software company wants to make an outstanding position in the software outsourcing business. Since, the aspect of outsourcing came into being, more and more companies are tending towards this. Outsourcing your work is the part of information technology and also information technology enabled services. In fact, software outsourcing India is the most desired destination of outsourcing and this is because of the quality work done by the highly skilled Indian professionals. The outsourcing has proved advantageous for most of the software companies as their business has seen a huge run-up and became profitable, so this is also one of the reasons for its ever increasing popularity and huge demand.

Studies reveal that in software outsourcing, the cost of hiring professional is about five times less than that needed in European and American countries. The software outsourcing India provides quality work in less time and also at cheaper rates. Hence, in this way you are saving the revenue of your company. There are various factors on which you can outsource your work and hire professionals. You can also hire professionals on individual basis or also from the companies who are client oriented. Most of the companies around the globe prefer software outsourcing India to be its offshore destination for its projects. The complexity of the projects is the deciding factor for which you can think who is efficient to do your work.

Software outsourcing is not only the service provided by Indian companies, apart from this they also provide different types of businesses and knowledge. The widely accepted fame is due to the enormous talent pool that India has. United States is the major client of Indian IT companies and others are UK, Germany, France and many more. Even the world’s biggest software companies like Microsoft and Oracle are outsourcing their major work from India. A study says that more than forty percent of software development services and also information technology enabled services is outsourced from India. The companies are grounded firmly on the basics of trust, teamwork and use of latest technology in providing quality service to its client. The cost savings is the main reason behind outsourcing your work and further the company can invest those saved money on the growth and expansion plans.

There are various factors to consider before you hand over your entire project to an offshore destination. You must look for the knowledge pool that the vendor has about the industry vertical on which your project depends. If the vendor is skilled then only offer the project to him. You should also look for the track record of the vendor as to know in what fields they specialize. Their specialization is also important for you to consider as it will help you to relieve on their services offered. Many software companies are working towards quality certifications that will help them to give an outstanding position among its competitors. ISO certification or SEI CMM level certification should be considered when you are looking for an offshore vendor. The outsourcing services needs a good infrastructure and sufficient back-up to over come any kind of problem. The vendor’s experience in this field matters as it shows how efficient they are to handle your work.

Author: Allies Harbor

Read more ...

Higher Education Institutions Improve Efficiency and Enhance Service with Oracle® Applications and Technology

Redwood Shores, CA 26-MAR-2007 08:08 PM

Oracle today announced that more than 17 leading U.S. colleges and universities recently purchased or implemented Oracle(r) applications and technology to help improve operational efficiency and enhance service to key constituents, including students, faculty, staff and alumni. These institutions are transforming their campuses by consolidating and protecting essential data, advancing efforts to recruit and retain students and adding timesaving self-service features.

"Oracle is committed to helping higher education institutions meet efficiency and accountability requirements, as well as constituent demands for high quality technology and superior service," said Oracle Higher Education Vice President Jim McGlothlin. "We are working with institutions of all sizes to improve the business of education."

University of Central Florida Upgrades Financials to Manage Growth

The University of Central Florida (UCF), the seventh largest university in the country, implemented Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management using Oracle infrastructure to build a more flexible financial management platform. The university, which has a complex financial system and a budget of $817.5 million for 21 campuses, worked with Oracle to implement the new financial system and become one of the first universities to devolve from the state's legacy system.

UCF used the PeopleSoft system to streamline requisition and purchase order processes, enhance purchasing card and vendor tracking information, increase reporting capabilities, reduce costs, eliminate unnecessary paper trails and minimize redundant procedures. With PeopleSoft's Web capabilities, UCF centralized system management while localizing access, allowing individual departments and employees to create online reports and freeing IT staff to focus on other activities. UCF also integrated its financial and supply chain management systems with PeopleSoft Enterprise applications for human capital management and campus solutions, further enhancing efficiency and improving constituent service.

"One of our five strategic goals, established by our president, is to become America's leading partnership organization. To that end, we are pleased to partner with Oracle by joining its Early Success Program, allowing us to accelerate our product upgrades to further improve the university's business systems," said Rebecca Vilsack, associate controller, UCF.

Kentucky Community and Technical College Systems Add Online Student Center

Kentucky Community and Technical College Systems (KCTCS), an Oracle customer for several years, recently upgraded to Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions 8.9 to gain new functionality for an online student center. With Campus Solutions, KCTCS offers students convenient, "one stop shopping" online, allowing them to log on and easily view financial aid information, check application status, pay bills, add or drop classes, update personal information and review degree progress information. Campus Solutions' Web functionality was especially valuable to KCTCS because its system includes 16 colleges and 65 campuses statewide. The system provides a common look and feel, as well as a common set of information for all users, improving collaboration.

"Oracle PeopleSoft is hands-down the leader in higher education administrative software, and we have benefited greatly from its increased automation and self-service functionality," said Paul Czarapata, chief technology officer, KCTCS. "Campus Solutions, along with our PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management and Human Capital Management applications, help us meet and quickly adapt to the changing needs of our students, faculty and staff."

University of Virginia Gains Insight into Procurement

The University of Virginia (UVa), a public university with more than 20,000 students, implemented Oracle iProcurement, Oracle Procurement and Oracle Financials, along with SciQuest Spend Director, Order Manager and Settlement Manager to develop an electronic procurement system. The university completed the implementation campus-wide in just seven months, also extending the new system to College at Wise, a campus in southwestern Virginia that previously operated on a completely paper-based system. UVa has now enabled a critical mass of suppliers that provide up-to-date catalog data and streamline order management. With an integrated supplier base, the university's goal is to maximize on-contract spending and gain real-time visibility and reporting capabilities throughout the entire order process.

"We have been able to integrate Oracle iProcurement and SciQuest to facilitate increased efficiency and enhanced insight that will save us money and allow us to operate more effectively, said Virginia Evans, assistant vice president for integrated system deployment and support, UVa.

Oracle's Higher Education Community Continues to Expand

Other U.S.-based higher education institutions that have recently selected, implemented or upgraded Oracle technology or applications include: Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.; California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, Calif.; California State University Sacramento, Sacramento, Calif.; Career Education Corporation, Hoffman Estates, Ill.; University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.; DePaul University, Chicago, Ill.; Rhema Bible College, Tulsa, Okla.; San Francisco State University, San Francisco, Calif.; San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif.; University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minn.; University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas; Virginia Community College System, Richmond, Va.; and Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at www.oracle.com.

Read more ...

The Building Blocks of ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning is commonly used to improve the integration within companies and organizations, and instead of focusing on individual parts, the operations of the company are viewed as a whole. Software infrastructure plays an important role in this process. In addition to this, software infrastructure plays an important role in the external processes of the organization.

Enterprise Resource Planning will focus on business processes, and they must be modular. In addition to this, the business processes must also be integrated. When companies deal with ERP, many of them make the mistake of focusing on the company.

Enterprise Resource Planning is a concept that extends beyond the company. An organization that wants to use it successfully must also look at the impact on the customers, partners, and suppliers. The ERP software will be responsible for dealing with a number of the company's business functions. There are five important issues that an ERP system must be capable of addressing. A business process will be responsible for dealing with multiple functions within a company. For instance, most companies have an accounting department, which they may also call the payroll. Even though individual functions will deal with business processes, the functions may not be based on a process.

The term "business process" is used to mean something that is much broader. Many people have wandered if modular applications are truly different from the stand-alone tools that exist today. Enterprise Resource Planning is much different than these tools. Because stand-alone tools are limited in their capability, companies are limited in what they can do with them. In contrast, Enterprise Resource Planning will allow a company to become more efficient because the various processes of the organization will be integrated. Without ERP, it will be very difficult to make the processes within your company seamless.

Modularity becomes an issue when a company is getting ready to purchase and utilize an ERP system. Some companies may not need to use all the applications at one time, or they may simply wish to use applications at specific times. Some ERP systems may be able to fit their applications together like Lego blocks. Some companies have analyzed the importance of having an integrated system, and many have wandered how such a system could help their companies become more productive. While stand-alone applications have their benefits, there are a number of limitations to them. A company that does not have an ERP system will spend a great deal of time repeating the same tasks over and over again.

They will place the same information in different applications, and the process can be tedious and time consuming. As you would expect, there are a number of problems with this approach. The most obvious problem is that entering the same information into a system is a waste of time. In addition to this, there is a much higher chance that the information will not be processed correctly when it is entered into the system many times over. Many companies have found that the data will not look the same on different applications once it has been entered into the system. This can cause a great deal of confusion, and this confusion will ultimately lead to a loss of productivity and profits.

Perhaps one of the biggest problems with stand-alone programs is that the information is not consistent. When employees get ready to analyze the information, they will often run into difficulties, and some will become confused. When an ERP system is used, the information and processes will be comprised in a "single version." The data only needs to be placed in the system once, and everyone who views the data will be able to see the same thing. This dramatically reduces the chances of errors and other problems. Most importantly, the data will be presented in a real time format. It is important for companies to make sure their ERP systems extend beyond their internal processes. If a company wants to succeed, they must be able to maintain their purchase of goods, and they must also be capable of maintaining strong relationships with their business partners. As you can see, these are issues that are external to the organization, and they must be taken into consideration.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...

Risks to your ERP-SAP implementation

Inadequate “as is” documentation

Consider that you are the implementation Project Manager for a consulting firm and you have a client who has selected an ERP system. The project manager and the team started gathering requirements from end users through focus groups, workshops, sessions with SMEs, etc. After obtaining all the details from end users you can easily conclude that you have all the necessary information and requirements to successfully implement the “to be” software system erroneously. During UAT (User’s Acceptance Testing) you can find out that the system does not meet all the end user’s expectations as well as the participants of UAT are unable to authorize your implemented solution previously.

Requirements not scrubbed

Instead of focusing on what the requirement should process, it should focus only on the function that the system will perform. Government organizations implementing an ERP solution document requirements are maintained frequently in web of spreadsheets that makes it difficult to: 1. Track a requirement, 2. Modify the requirement while communicating the changes to the affected parties, 3. assigning requirement ownership, 4. Create an RTM and 5. Manage the lifecycle of the requirement. The ERP implementation partner is also tasked with interpreting the requirements from spreadsheets and it discerns how these requirements will be implemented during realization and verifies that the requirements have been met during testing process. Moreover, the implementation partner of ERP for the sake of meeting deadlines rushes through the blueprint phase does not scour the requirement and makes blind attempt for executing the requirement even when the requirement is not feasible, necessary or consistent with the functionality of the ERP application.

Vendor software problems

The process of testing or maintaining the SAP software will give you errors, and so the needed enhancements, or bugs within your software cannot be addressed with your existing project team and so these errors, bugs, and needed enhancements do not instigate from having customized or implemented SAP erroneously but are rather triggered due to a deficiency with the vendor software. Impact occurred to your business could be manifested in different manners such as client/end user dissatisfaction, inability to roll out specific planned system functionality, financial losses, and unstable system based upon the severity of the problem. These vendor software problems can also get unresolved for prolonged periods. Furthermore, lack of controls, participation from the SAP client as well as audit trails can cause the software vendor problems to erroneously become closed when in fact they were never resolved.

No Scope Verification

Controversial relationships between the client and implementation partner stem from the fact that the client feels that the implemented ERP solution does not cater to their business needs depending on the documented scope, and the end users cannot perform all these tasks that were implemented within the legacy systems without difficulty. And when the client report defects, short comings and bugs against the ERP system were not a part of the scope or documented via a requirement and so the problem is compounded. When the ERP integration partner labels the end user’s reported defects and problems as enhancements mutually rather than problems with the implemented ERP solution the relationship between the implementation partner and the client takes revolve for the worse.

Author: Ron Victor

Read more ...

Understanding How ERP Vendors Operate

In order for a ERP system to succeed, it must be capable of successfully integrating manufacturing with the other processes of a company. To do this, a number of vendors are adding a wide variety of tools to their products, and example of this would be the integration of sales automation with supply chain maintenance.

This have become some of the most important areas of development. When PeopleSoft was firsts created in the late 1980s, it became a leader in ERP software that dealt with human resources. However, the company wanted to expand, and by the early 1990s, it moved into software programs that dealt with finance.

The company continued to maintain a high level of dominance in this market. In order for a vendor to become successful, they must offer tools in a number of different areas. While it is possible to specialize in certain things, tailoring your products towards multiple industries can allow you to gain a great deal of success. A number of ERP suppliers will offer their products in two basic types, and these are business solutions and industry solutions. The industry products are designed for people who are working in specific industries. An example of this could be finance, communications, education, or healthcare.

The business solutions are designed for companies that work in a wide variety of different areas. For instance, while industry solutions are specific to certain industries, business solutions will be much more diverse. They will combine a large number of different elements into a single unit. A number of ERP vendors have offered what are called "suites." These suites will often be comprised of modules that a client can purchase in groups or a single unit. Three of the most important ERP tools available today are manufacturing, human resources, and finance. There are a number of reasons why these products are so powerful.

The finance tools will allow companies to successfully maintain their financial information. An example of this data would be assets, accounts, budgets, and cash. It can assist a company in managing internal as well as external factors. A company that uses ERP financial products can save a great deal of money over the long term, and the reason for this is because the productivity of the organization will be improved. Enterprise Resource Planning is instrumental in getting rid of time consuming things such as paper management. In addition to this, the company will also be able to improve its ability to make important decisions.

If a company is to succeed in the global market of today, they must be able to properly measure their performance. While this was a great challenge in the past, Enterprise Resource Planning has made things easier. A company is now able to study their processes, earnings, and performance by merging their operational information with their financial information. Once this information is connected together, a company can become more competitive and productive. Synergy is an important part of ERP solutions. The concept of combining multiple processes into a single whole will allow the company to become successful in the long term.

In addition to finance and business processes, it is also important to look at materials maintenance. Enterprise Resource Planning will allow a company successfully automate the process of buying materials and maintaining them. There modules that will track the supplies that are purchased, and it will also make calculations about how these materials should be distributed. It is possible for a company to predict the demand of the market based on history, economic statistics, and data from their employees. They can decide when a product should be producted, and they can do this based on the raw material that is available.

Based on the information revealed in this article, it should be easy to see why ERP is such an important tool. It should also be clear what steps are necessary for a ERP vendor who wants to remain competitive in the market. Through real time planning, it is possible for a company to decrease their inventory and improve the processes of their goods and supplies. Another powerful aspect of Enterprise Resource Planning is that it will give companies a high level of accuracy. They orders and shipments will have a much higher level of precision.

Source: www.exforsys.com

Read more ...