In our very first blog post about Community Development, we described Oracle’s Journey of Innovation and the seven steps to bringing a modern and innovative permitting and licensing product to market (you can read it here). One of the most crucial steps in this process was our investment in people and their vast experience, including working for community development organizations in the public sector, architecture and engineering firms, technology vendors, and strategic advisory firms. The scope and depth of this experience informs our product design and features, and our implementation team’s ability to optimize and enhance our customer’s capabilities with our Permitting and Licensing cloud software.
With that experience in-mind, our upcoming blog posts will include several expert interviews with folks across the various teams supporting the Permitting and Licensing product. In doing so we’ll highlight their experience and how that translates into benefits and value to our customers.
Expert Overview
As a Senior Director of the Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) implementation team, Ean is involved in scoping and selling projects, staffing implementations, and serving as the Oracle executive sponsor on customer engagements. His experience working with Permitting and Licensing software spans the past 22+ years, and prior to joining Oracle he worked at Accela, Hansen Information Technologies (now Infor), and the City of Roseville, CA. When he’s not at work, Ean can be found exploring his new surroundings in the state of Idaho.
Q: How did your previous experience prepare you for the work you do today?
A: Starting as a trainer, moving into technical consulting, functional consulting, project management and project oversight/director roles, all in the public sector was the best route for me to get where I am at today. I have always needed to understand what other folks on the team are doing, what their issues and challenges are, how they are successful. I intentionally sought out to get as wide a range of experience as possible in terms of software implementation. Add to this I have spent the last 10 years focusing highly on Consulting Sales and Practice development, and growth, for various software implementers, partners, and software vendors, I have been fortunate enough to really see all sides of running an Implementation practice. My two years at the City of Roseville was also extremely beneficial to better understand how public agencies operate, procure and manage vendor relationships. I rely on, and draw down on this experience every day at Oracle and fortunately, work with many great folks with their own experiences that help me continue to grow.
Q: What made you decide to join the Oracle team?
A: After working for two software companies, a City, and an implementation partner I desperately wanted to be a part of something new, exciting, and disruptive in the Permitting and Licensing space. Dealing with old technologies that have been rebranded and cobbled together with emerging technologies was not providing the level of service that the Public Sector deserves. Oracle offered me the ability to not only assemble an amazing team of industry professionals, but to get involved in a ground up solution that is delivered with all the components an agency needs, under one platform and modern purpose built cloud technology. In addition, the other solutions built on the same technology such as ERP, HCM and CRM created a unique opportunity to actually provide Enterprise Software to government agencies. Who could pass up that opportunity?
Q: How does OCS’s approach to implementations differ from our competition?
A: This is hands down my favorite question. It excites me to discuss how we approach implementations with our customers more than anything, as we have really changed the game here. At Oracle, our approach is all about teaming with the customer for mutual benefit. Their success is our success and vice versa. With teamwork being the key, we understand that we need to build trust with our customers in order for them to be ready to team with us. We do that through two primary methods; first and foremost, our team’s extensive experience in the Permitting and Licensing space with over hundreds of State, City and County governments across the US and Canada. We bring consultants that have implemented five of the major competitor’s products, worked for our customers, and have worked for our partners. All of this experience has assembled here at Oracle because they want to change the game in the space and are tired of the status quo.
The second way we build trust is through small, incremental wins on our implementations. Our methodology is designed to get solutions in our customers hands as soon as possible – get their hands on the software and gather feedback as soon as possible. That combined with a high focus on getting high volume, simple processes live in production as soon as possible, provides a rapid return on investment for our customers and meaningful feedback that enables us to adjust the approach to best fit the agency.
It is common for our competitors in this space to offer either restrictive pre-packaged solutions or generic solutions that require extensive custom scripting in order to meet customer requirements. Oracle’s Permitting and Licensing solution is a native cloud solution that is purpose-built per offering whether we are delivering Permitting, Code Enforcement, Planning, or Licensing. Our unique ability to offer extensive configurability coupled with our built-in solution specific functionality allows us to deliver a more complete user experience without the need for extensive custom scripting. We also offer the ability to leverage Groovy scripting in the event we need to address a unique customer requirement.
Q: And to end our conversation on a fun note: what are you most looking forward to experiencing in your new home state of Idaho?
A: When I decided to leave California I wanted to move someplace that provides easy access to the activities I enjoy such as exploring new places, hiking, skiing, fishing, playing with my dogs, and camping. Idaho gives me that in spades and I can’t wait to take in all of the natural beauty of the state while becoming a contributing member of this amazing community!
Learn More
Modern cloud technology solutions can help public-sector organizations overcome many of the challenges they face. By migrating to the cloud with Oracle Permitting and Licensing, organizations can embrace innovation and push the limits of what their employees and constituents have come to expect from their government. Oracle is excited to be able to partner with government organizations on their journey to the cloud, and you can discover more Permitting and Licensing product here.