Oracle Apps Marketing for Upgrade projects - A small tip

It has been my observation that a lot of time and effort goes waste knocking the wrong door for Oracle Apps project. Then the question arises, how to know which door to knock. Obviously, one should not waste precious resources uselessly pursuing organizations that are running on a fully supported version of Oracle Apps like R12, 11.5.10, 11.5.9, unless the organization comes to you with a view to upgrade to R12 or 11.5.10. Please refer chart below to find the support time lines for different releases of Oracle E- Business suite and plan accordingly which organizations to target and whom to avoid.

List of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces

Recently i came acrosss a very good site that provides a complete list of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces. This site provides the standard APIs for all the Apps modules like Payables, Receivables, GL, iExpense, HR Suite, Projects Suite, Property Manager, SCM, Advanced Planning, etc.

http://irep11i10.oracle.com

Companies providing Oracle Apps and Oracle BI Consultancy services in India

Many a time, i have been asked by freinds who are seeking a job change, and sometimes by clients enquiring about organizations that provide consultancy service in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI in India. Though there are many small and big organizations working on Oracle Apps, but only a few top software companies provide the complete range of consultancy services in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI.

I shall try and list some of the organizations here (in no particular order) who are into Oracle BI and Apps in a big way, and would welcome readers to share their information regarding other organizations they are aware of who provide Oracle Apps consultancy and i missed out here.

1. Tata Consultancy Services
2. Infosys Technologies
3. Wipro Technologies
4. Satyam Computer Services
5. Accenture
6. IBM
7. Cognizant Technology Solutions
8. Deloitte
9. Oracle Corporation

There are other organizations in India who also provide Oracle Apps and oracle BI services apart from the ones mentioned above, though their scale of operations in India is not as large as the organizations mentioned above. Some of them include, HCL Tecnologies, Sierra Atlantic, Patni Computers, Intelligroup, Polaris Software Lab, Zensar Technologies, GenPact, Birlasoft, Cap Gemini, iGate, etc. Though most of the organizations in India provide basic consultancy services in Oracle Apps, not many of them provide services in Oracle Business Intelligence. Also, some of these organizations predominantly work in some core areas of Oracle Apps like Oracle Process Manufacturing, Oracle CRM, Oracle HCM, Oracle SCM, etc. Many of the MNC's like Deloitte, Cap Gemini, Unisys, Bearing Point are yet to ramp up their India operations upto the levels of TCS, Infosys, Accenture and IBM . In all probability, most of the big MNC's will further consolidate their India operations and outsource substantial part of their development and support work back to India. So, it seems exciting times are ahead of Oracle Apps consultants in India.

Oracle Apps Implementation Methodologies

Unlike product / application development projects, packaged ERP implementations are quite different as we are primarily trying to map the package to the existing business process. Although, there might be a need to create new RICE components (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions and Extensions) which will need additional coding.

Oracle follows and advises their clients to use Applications Implementation Methodology (AIM). However many implementation organizations tend to follow their own methodoloies, which are similar to AIM at a top level but when it comes to actual granular detail they differ a lot. Especially the documenting part differs widely from organisation to organisation. Sometimes, even user organizations have their own implementation methodologies. So, things become interesting and at times frustrating when actually one sits down to do a comparative analysis of the various implementation methodologies and finalise upon the deliverables at different stages.

There are quite a few good blogs on AIM in Richard Byrom's website. One can also download AIM software from the following link below, but do ensure that you do not run it on IE6.0. This however runs fine on Firefox:

http://download-east.oracle.com/partners/265498.EXE

Clients insisting on using Standard Oracle features

I was mildly surprised when a top fortune client of ours insisted that we study their existing financial system and come out with a solution which is possible using standard Oracle Apps Financial module features. The fact that the organisation is ready to alter their existing financial process if necessary is very encouraging. I feel this trend amongst large organisations not to deviate too much from standard features available in Oracle Apps is catching up. Personally I think, if the organisation is asking for too many customisations, then there is a problem with the business process that they are following. However, not all organisations are ready to accept that the business process they are currently following is inefficient and fraught with inherent problems. Hopefully we would be able to provide a great solution though within the stringent time lines :)

Oracle announces Future BI strategy

On 22nd March, Oracle announced their BI strategy, which has left more people confused about their BI strategy.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite will now consists of the following key products:

1) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE), and
2) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE)

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE) consists of Siebel Analytics, Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, and some future products like Oracle Mobile Analytics and Briefing Books.

More details can be got from the following Oracle site:
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/enterprise-edition.html

Now, Oracle was already developing the next generation Analytic tool called Enterprise Planning and Budgeting which was supposed to be a replacement of Oracle Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer. But, with the aquisition of Siebel, I feel Oracle did not want to waste Siebel Analytics which is a gem of a product. Although it has left many wondering which is going to be the product which Oracle will ultimately push for. For the time being it seems Siebel Analytics is a better prospect than EPB. Another product which looks promising is Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, this product as of now looks superior to Oracle Portal, as one can manipulate reports and perform analysis within the dashboard itself.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE) consists of Oracle BI Discoverer, Oracle BI Spreadsheet Add-in, Oracle BI Warehouse Builder, Oracle BI Beans and Oracle Reports. The Standard Edition Suite seems to consist of Oracle's existing Business Intelligence 10g products. For customers wishing to go in for a BI solution on their existing Oracle database, Standard Edition (SE) suite seems to be a better bet as of now. However, Siebel Analytic of Enterprise Edition (EE) suite can also be used, as it can handle relational, Oracle Olap, MDX data source and Siebel Analytic server data. I feel the catch will be in the pricing strategy that Oracle will adopt for both the product suites.

The webcasts can be heard from the following site:

oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/bi_webcast.html

1)Oracle Vision and Strategy (26 min.) by Charles Phillips, President, Oracle

2)The Business Intelligence Landscape (11 min.) by Henry D. Morris, Group Vice President and General Manager, Integration, Development and Application Strategies, IDC

3)Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools (63 min.) by Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, Oracle

4)BI Across the Enterprise (48 min.) by Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President, Oracle

I feel businesses are by and large conservative in nature when it comes to IT spending, so Oracle has to put in a lot of effort in marketing the new Enterprise Edition (EE) suite, while they already have a good customer base of customers using Discoverer, OWB, BI Beans and Oracle Reports. So, oracle will continue to support and develop their existing BI products along with the new products it has acquired from Siebel. Though, this will create a bit of confusion and self-cannibalization among Oracle's own product lines, but i think there is no way out as Oracle cannot kill any of their existing BI products or stop developing and supporting the recently acquired ones either. So in all interesting times for Oracle BI consultants and for customers who now have a wide variety of Oracle BI produts at their disposal to select and work upon.

US Army website on ERP implementation considerations

I came across reference of this site in www.oracleappsblog.com which has wealth of information on ERP implemntation considerations. It also gives good comparison between different ERP, CRM, BI products and also Key Implementaion considerations like, Transformation Management, Governance, etc.
http://www.army.mil/aeioo/erp/index.htm

Are Oracle Apps departments over staffed in Indian IT companies?

Going by my first-hand experience in some of the top Indian IT companies, and information from friends in other Indian IT companies, I can safely conclude that the number of resources in Apps department in most of these companies is too huge. The ratio of number of consultant to the number of projects that these companies have is typically very high. One can argue that it is important for companies to have sufficient bench strength so that whenever a new requirement comes, they can ramp up. I definitely agree to this logic, but I feel the bench sizes are way too large, which is absolute unnecessary. I have seen enough people in bench wasting their careers for month’s altogether doing nothing.

Another fact is people on bench cannot expect to have a good appraisal, as they are not billed by the company. As a result they become frustrated and either start creating HR problems or actively start looking for other avenues. In either case, it’s a loss to the organization.

So, the question arises, who is responsible for this messy situation? Typically, each IT department has a Resource Manager, who by sheer hard-work has reached this enviable position. Now, this person requests HR to recruit a certain number of professionals based of projections, forecasts, diameter of project pipe (as most projects are in pipeline) and many other extraneous reasons. Once the consultants are taken on-board, then, starts the quest for fitting in the person into a project. The Sales and Marketing person, the Key Account Manager, the Relationship Manager, the Business Development manager are then given the impossible task of creating “non-existent” work for the client, for which there would be a requirement of additional resources. After long and interesting sessions of PowerPoint presentations and sessions of “IT and Business Gyan”, does the client relent and agree to take on board additional resources. By this time the consultant would have happily spent half a year on bench adding no value to the organization.