ADFD adopts Oracle solution

The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) is set to empower its management and drive workforce efficiency backed by Oracle’s soluiton.

As well as being the first implementation of its kind in the region, the Oracle’s Human Resources Management System (HRMS) solution was implemented in a record 30 days.

The fund’s main activity is to provide economic assistance in the form of confessional loans, grants or contributions to projects capitals.

With more than 240 projects in 55 countries, the fund owns equities in more than 11 organisations in Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, and Bangladesh.

"ADFD, which provides conventional development aid to Arab, African, and Asian countries, has provided over $5.7 billion in aid to over 240 projects,” said Ahmed Sari Al Mazrouei, general manager, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.

“We make a real contribution to the development of infrastructure in some of the world's poorest nations. With our global workforce, it is imperative that we have a reliable and robust human resources management system in place to support all our endeavors. By implementing the Oracle solution, we were able to strengthen the fund inside out & align workforce with the strategic objectives.”

The components of Oracle’s HRMS include Oracle Payroll, Oracle HR Self Service, and Oracle BI Enterprise Publisher (Fusion). By installing Oracle HRMS, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has increased its operational efficiency.

“The fact that this implementation was complete in a record 30 days will drive ADFD to align its workforce with its business objectives, control and lower employee and administration related costs, manage workforce risk and manage its globally integrated workforce. The systems will also empower managers through its decentralised decision making, and automate all HR and Payroll processes leading to a paper-less organization, ” said Hussam Dajani, senior vice president, Oracle Middle East and Africa.

Oracle’s implementation partner Appslink provided turnkey solutions from consultation to delivery and implementation. “We adapted the system to integrate with Oracle Financials and billing applications with zero customization,” said Mohamed Mowafaq, consulting manager for AppsLink. The web-based Oracle HR Self Service will boost productivity and allow users faster online access to HR data and update their own profiles, thereby lowering costs and increasing reliability of records. This web-based solution is less costly to maintain and suffers fewer breakdowns. With better access to information ADFD will make better use of its workforce and find new opportunities to manage operations more effectively.”

With Oracle HRMS, the fund can now rapidly collect and analyse detailed information about its business and assess the capabilities to improve services by placing the right people with the right skills.

The fund will also be able to trim down costs associated with employee absence, and turnover. Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher will enable ADFD to produce a wide array of documents and reports such as financial statements, high-fidelity reports, invoices, labels, and more, using a variety of familiar applications for layout such as Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word.

Author: Abu Dhabi

Read more ...

Sympathy for the Oracle

I used to envy Larry Ellison. But then I had lunch with one of his senior minions, and now I feel a little sympathy. Just a little. :-)

It was actually very educational, because it reinforced for me the power of an open-source sales model, and how it could help Oracle. Oracle kicks tail with sub-$1 billion companies, selling a feature/function value model often winning these deals from SAP. But in the biggest companies, Oracle often loses, and not because it's technology is worse.

No, according to this Oracle executive, it's because SAP builds relationships with executive management at target customers and these CxOs decide for SAP, even when it's the wrong technical decision. Time after time, he talks with the IT executive responsible for the decision after Oracle has lost the sale, and finds out that he was selling to the wrong person.

But surely Oracle could outdo SAP on the executive meet-ups?

Oddly, no, he suggested, because SAP's management exudes thought leadership, whereas Oracle's is more about execution. The prospects want to connect with these SAP executives. As a result, SAP's sales model starts with its thought leadership and ends with a product sale (whereas Oracle takes the inverse approach).

I have no way of knowing how true this is but, if true, an open-source model offers a ray of hope (though surely not the only one, or even the easiest one). Why? Because open source makes it easier to win the bottom-up war. Once one gets to the stage of Red Hat, perhaps it helps to win the top-down war, too (albeit slightly different? Alan Cox exuding technical leadership to the IT staff rather than the CFO/CIO).
Oracle already makes most of its profit on maintenance revenues and, as my friend reminded me, breaks even or loses money quite often on these initial big license sales (because upwards of 100 people can get involved in closing a $1 million deal with a multibillion dollar prospect). So, a low-cost sales model that gets it in the door and sets it up for downstream maintenance revenues sounds ideal.

Is open source a panacea? Of course not. But it sure sounded like a good idea in light of how Oracle prefers to sell and the costs associated with that preference. If only Oracle could adopt the model before it starts getting bumped and scraped by open-source applications and databases. It's nowhere near hurting today, but it could start putting a serious dent on SAP and Microsoft by going on the offensive with open source.

And then we'd no longer need to sing (from The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil")...

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long years
Stole many a man's soul and faith...
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste.

No, we'd have real sympathy.

Author: Matt Asay

Read more ...

Oracle Officials Pleased With Siebel CRM Progress

Oracle officials have announced they are pleased with Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand and Oracle On Demand customer traction, announcing that in the last quarter alone Oracle established or expanded its relationship with more than 200 new global customers, including ADP, Central Plastics, Fidelity Registered Investment Advisor Group, GE Commercial Finance and Translational Genomics Research Institute.

With 14 releases of Siebel CRM On-Demand in less than four years, Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14 is now generally available. This new version unites CRM functionality with the latest in Web 2.0 technologies, company officials say, and includes "significant enhancements across its sales, marketing, services, analytics, built-in call center, and industry edition capabilities."

Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14 will also include "next-generation usability and customization capabilities, and strong integration capabilities that allow customers and partners to quickly and easily establish deep integration with other applications," company officials promise.

Additionally, with the Siebel CRM On Demand Integration Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite, customers gain pre-built integration between their subscription CRM applications and the back office suite.

Early this month Oracle announced that Jenny Craig, the weight management company, had expanded its relationship with Oracle to standardize on Oracle's Siebel CRM to help increase business growth, improve overall efficiencies, gain a 360 degree client view across all sales channels and trim the fat from its operating expenses.

Using Siebel CRM, Jenny Craig will be able to automate business processes for sales, inventory, reporting, and scheduling, company officials say.

Jenny Craig, based in Carlsbad, California, has about 650 centers in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico. "We recognize knowledge and insight as the currency of influence among our clients," said Shoukry Tiab, Vice President of Information Services and CIO at Jenny Craig. "We chose Oracle's Siebel CRM for its flexibility and scalability. We will have visibility to forecast growth and revenue based on client preferences and seasonal campaigns."

Jenny Craig also runs Oracle Database 10g, an Oracle-based data warehouse, Oracle Partner Portal, Siebel SmartScript and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications.

Author: David Sims

Read more ...