Yak about Apps...

Welcome to my first Blog. Through this communciation, I hope to keep my readers up to date about the latest Oracle application product releases i?? whether it is E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne or World.  I will also discuss our latest application technologies that can not only help Oracle users prepare for Fusion but also I will highlight application technologies that will help Oracle users gain better value from the Oracle Applications they have already invested in and hopefully, are using today

I will try to talk about customer successes, that is always the hardest thing to get approvals for, and anything else that I find interesting i?? maybe -- like our user group communities and the benefits they offer their network of subscribers.

Just so you all know, I am also the Editor-in-Chief for Oraclei??s Application Podcast series, AppCasts, so if you haveni??t tuned in to listen via www.oracle.com/appcasts , iTunes or other RSS feeds, you should.

Leti??s get started with my first topici??Drum Roll Please

TOPIC: Application Integration Architecture

A few weeks ago I attended Oraclei??s User Group Conference, Collaborate 07, in Las Vegas, and I attended the keynote session where Charles Phillips announced a new offering, focused on helping customersi?? seemlessly integrate their applications using best practices to support mission-critical business processes within an organization (wow! that is a mouthful!). Oraclei??s Application Integration Architecture provides pre-built, open standards-based, sustainable integrations that will tie applications together and generate value for customers while still being supported and maintained by Oracle within our roadmap and evolution plan.

Top 10 benefits to AIA:

 1. Open standards means partners can integrate to our broad portfolio of applications more easily using AIA.

 2. Provides Choice, faster development and implementation times as well as supports Oraclei??s Applications Unlimited commitment.

 3. Offers customers integration options that supports Oracle plans to bring all of its acquisitions together.

 4. Makes best of breed functionality, practical again by enabling disparate systems to behave as a suite.

 5. Powered by Fusion Middleware

 6. Leverages the same technology that will be used in Fusion Applcations, thus providing a pathway to Fusion.

 7. Gives customers value today through the use of SOA and a flexible infrastructure.

 8. Minimizes risks and lowers the cost of companies doing integrations themselves.

 9. Provides a Superior Ownership Experience for customers.

10. Rich in Industry best practices for Telco, FSI, Retail, etc.

Product integration has traditionally been very time consuming, costly, and requires configuration with each product upgrade.  With Oraclei??s Application Integration Architecture, customers get greater business agility because they are enabled to quickly modify those business processes that span multiple applications.

For more information about AIA, check out Jose Lazarei??s AppCast:

The Value of Oracle's Application Integration Architecture (AIA) to IT Managers

Or go to http://www.oracle.com/applications/oracle-application-integration-architecture.html

What does this mean to Oracle customers? I spoke with several at Collaborate and they are very excited but I quickly documented a customeri??s comments I had the other day:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are very excited about Oraclei??s Application Integration Architecture. This offering will save us the cost of integrating all of our applications ourselves. 

As it happens, we have a lot of Oracle Applications already at KPN.  And they all need to work together seamlessly.  If we have to build our own integration amongst all of our applications, this would be a serious cost for us as well as bring additional risks, because upfront you doni??t know if all that integration is going to work.  So there are some major benefits for us to use Oraclei??s Application Integration Architecture.

Ernst Lamein

Manager IT Architecture CRM at KPN

Telco market leader in the Netherlands

While at Collaborate 07 in Las Vegas last month, I happen to attend an incredible session led by my colleage, Nadia Bendjedou, about i??What Customers Can Do Today to Prepare for Fusion Applicationsi??. For those of you who didni??t get to attend this or haveni??t had a chance to participate in one of her many Webcasts and or Podcasts, I thought I would highlight some of her best practices i?? Top 10 things to do to prepare for Fusion Applications.

1. Consider Upgrading to the Latest Release of your Applications.

For example, Oracle E-Business Suite - 11i10 or R12, PeopleSoft Enterprise - 8.8, 8.9 or 9.0, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne - 8.11 or 8.12, Siebel - 7.8, 8.0 applications

2. Rethink your Customization Strategy

a) Is what I put in place still valid and worth keeping?
b) If they are still required, should customers evaluate if there
   are better ways of doing/developing these customizations?
c) Should I think about engineering for the future with products
   that will survive the upgrade to Fusion? What are those
   products?
d) What are the benefits of implementing Fusion technology?

3. Put together a Project Plan to migrate to Fusion

a) Are there areas where you will need to upgrade first?
b) Do I need to evaluate the drivers (business as well as IT)
    to upgrade to Fusion Applications?
c) Is there a pilot project for upgrading to Fusion, based on
    geography, departmental/functional silos or other reasons?

4. Take advantage of Oraclei??s Fusion Architecture and Fusion Middleware

a) How can I evaluate the benefits of Oracle Fusion
    Architecture?
b) Does it solve business problems such as security and
    compliance, integrating new business flows at lower cost
    and or is it just about cleaning and consolidating the  
    critical data?
c) You can actually use the Fusion Technology today. Go to 
    www.oracle.com/fusion for more details.

5.  Consider Master Data Management

a) Master Data Management (MDM), is a data hub tool that
    enables you to synchronize critical data such as
    customers, suppliers and products - in a single, accurate,
    consistent view of the companyi??s data, whether from
    packaged, legacy or custom applications.
b) You should consider consolidating and cleaning your
    critical  data about customers, suppliers and products
    before going to Fusion.

6. Move to SOA-based Integration

a) Find out from Oracle what they are doing to make their
    suite (EBS, PSFT, SEBL and JDE) of applications 
    SOA-enabled?  Are they providing new capabilities in each
    product to help them play in a SOA world?
b) Check out Oracle Fusion Middleware i?? it is a complete
    product line - much more than just the application server.  It
    includes a process orchestration modeling tool BPEL PM,
    business activity monitoring (BAM), as well as an
    enterprise services bus (ESB).  All these tools are known
    as the SOA   suite and can be used by ALL Oracle
    customers today (EBS, PSFT, SEBL, JDE as well as other
    point solutions such as Oracle Retail, G-Log etc... ).
c) Consider leveraging Oraclei??s Application Integration
    Architecture (AIA), which develops a number of Process
    Industry Packs to integrate various applications products,
    namely SEBL, EBS, G-Log, PSFT etci??. these can be
    tailored by customers to fit their applications infrastructure.

7. Extend your Business Intelligence Portfolio

a) Adopt Oraclei??s enterprise reporting, publishing & business
    intelligence tool (comes with each of our Applications). All
    applications have been certified with Fusion BI known as
    Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition or OBI EE,
    which includes XML Publisher (also known as BI Publisher)
b) Start converting your reports to XMLP.Your users will love it! c) Leverage OBI EE as well as XMLP to improve and enhance 
    your enterprise reporting & analytics today. You will be a
    head of the game - these are part of the Fusion Technology.

8. Secure your Global Enterprise by Consolidating

a) Review your custom and legacy applications.  You may be 
    at risk not only to data fragmentations but also to security
    fragmentation which could increase your security
    vulnerability and security risks. 
b) Start consolidating security functions by centralizing
    access control (by implementing LDAP and SSO), ensuring
    data privacy and enabling compliance for the entire
    enterprise.
c) Externalize security functions from the applications (where
    it was built by the traditional applications) to a centralized
    and professionally managed security infrastructure).
d) Get ahead of the curve by using Oraclei??s Fusion Security
    (known as the Oracle Identity Management), knowing it is
    the security infrastructure for Fusion Applications.

9. Consider Grid Computing

a) Think i??Gridi?? at all levels before going to Fusion. Especially
    in a SOA-world where services are independent, well-
    defined encapsulations of software functionality that can be
    invoked over a network using heterogeneous platforms and
    execution environments. 
         i. Grid computing is about resource allocation,
            information sharing & high availability at lower cost. 
         ii. Resource allocation ensures that all who need or 
             request resources are getting what they need, that 
             resources are not standing idle while requests are 
             going unserviced. 
         iii. Information sharing makes sure that the users and
             applications need is always available. 
         iv. High availability features guarantee all the data and
             computation is always there, just like a utility 
             company always provides electric power.

10. Centralize your Lifecycle Management

a) Minimize hardware, software and system management
    costs by moving to Oraclei??s Grid Control, also known as
    the Oracle Enterprise Manager - that is the centralized
    management tools that help you manage your applications,
    database, middleware, operating system, storage and the
    network i?? all from one console.
         i. Oracle Enterprise Manager works with most of 
            Oraclei??s applications, using the Applications
            Management Packs. These packs reduce efforts to
            manage multiple environments, allow faster discovery
            and diagnosis of incidents and provide rapid
            provisioning and scaling.
b) What is great about the console is that it is the very same
    console that will also manage the Fusion Applications.
c) Start with Grid Control today. You will be able to plug in
    your first Fusion pilot along side your EBS, PSFT or SEBL
    applications as if it were just another application in your
    enterprise.
d) Grid Control will be the hub of Oracle Applications Lifecycle
    Management.

Well, those are my notes. I hope this helps you. To see Nadiai??s slides from her session, go to:

http://www.oracle.com/partners/home/personalized/global/fusion-application/apac-fusion-apps-champs-cal-pres-070125.pdf

What does this mean to Oracle customers? I was corresponding with a customer the other day via email and he said:

"I'm excited by the steps Oracle is taking to prepare their customers for the future of Oracle Applications.  Oracle is providing customers with numerous choices for moving forward through Fusion Middleware, Applications Integration Architecture, and the upcoming Fusion Applications.  At the same time, Oracle is providing a means for customers to move forward at their own pace by protecting current application investments through the Applications Unlimited and Lifetime Support programs."

Floyd Teter
System Engineer for Institutional Business Systems
Jet Propulsion Lab

Did you know there is a new BPOer in town? Well, not so new but Oracle did just formalize their Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) program and has officially named it i??BPO Powered by Oraclei??.  It is a i??sell throughi?? partner program that's goal is to place Oracle applications, technology and services such as On Demand, i??under the hoodi?? of BPO provider service offerings. By partnering with leading BPO providers, Oracle gives customers more choice when it comes to leveraging Oracle software. Just to confirmi??Oracle does not want to be a BPO provider.

So, here are the top 10 things I have learned about BPO Powered by Oracle:

1) Why is Oracle doing this NOW?

The BPO market is growing twice as fast as the enterprise applications market. There is a growing demand for BPO services. BPO providers are facing a challenge of growing their business aggressively while retaining margins and mitigating the risk of service delivery failure. Legacy platforms of the established providers do not work well in the BPO world.  New BPO entrants need robust and scalable platforms to grow fast.

2) Has Oracle had any notable BPO successes to date?

Yes.  For example, of the top thirty 2005 HR & Payroll outsourcing deals, Oracle applications were under the covers in half of them. In addition to HRO, Oracle has also had success in Procurement Outsourcing with large enterprises across the Financial Services, Hospitality, and Consumer Products industries.

3) How do Oracle customers benefit from BPO Powered by Oracle?

For customers, BPO Powered by Oracle represents a new choice for how to leverage their application and technology investment, ensuring process continuity while lowering the risk of business process transition.  In addition to on-premise and hosted instances, customers can now choose to go BPO and leverage a service provideri??s best practices in managing non-core, back office processes.

4) How do Partners benefit from BPO Powered by Oracle?

In delivering a service, time-to-revenue is in direct relation to time-to-deployment - which in turn is linked to the service delivery platform.  Oraclei??s best-in-class applications and technology insures that partners will not only be able to bring customers on line faster, but that partners will be able to upgrade customers seamlessly to new releases when they become available.  Relative to other ERP platforms, Oracle has an outstanding record for getting customers and partners up to current releases.

5) What processes are likely candidates to be outsourced?

Payroll, benefits administration, call centers, and accounts payable are commonly outsourced today.  Some of the more aggressive companies are also outsourcing indirect spend though procurement BPO and/or accounts payable and receivables via FAO.

6) What BPO service providers have signed up as partners?

Because the official program is new, Oracle is in negotiations with several tier one providers as well as many tier two providers.  In the coming months -  stay tuned - provider agreements are being finalized.

7) How does the Oracle On Demand offering fit into the BPO program?

Oraclei??s On Demand offering compliments BPO Powered by Oracle.  For those service providers who doni??t have core competencies in running datacenters or the associated IT infrastructure, On Demand makes perfect sense. It allows service providers to focus on what they do best i?? deliver differentiating services.  Who understands how to manage Oracle applications better than Oracle after all? 

8) What is unique about BPO Powered by Oracle?

A formal BPO program makes it easier to do business with Oracle. While perpetual licensing is still an option, BPO Powered by Oracle allows BPO providers access to subscription-based pricing, which addresses a key expectation i?? that our licensing model match the way they price services.  This is as important as the quality and the functional richness of our products. 

9) Any final advice to existing Oracle customers?

First, understand that integration between the retained processes and the outsourced processes is a key driver to reducing TCO.  If youi??ve already made an investment in Oracle, look for a BPO provider that has done the same. Second, end-user training and change management will be significantly lower in cases where both the retained processes and outsourced processes are run on the same platform.

10) How can I find out more?

Readers can go to www.oracle.com/bpo

Partners should go to the Oracle Partner Network (OPN) for detailed information on how to take advantage of BPO Powered by Oracle.

Or, check out this AppCast (application podcast) about the unique attributes of Oracle's BPO strategy. The Benefits of BPO Powered by Oracle