Peoplesoft like any other ERP implementation involves huge and concerted effort and intricate planning from Project initiation to Go Live. Implementation in Less time translates to Less Cost for the customer. This assumes more significance in these times of recession where customers are seeking for more value for money and quick returns on investment.
Continue reading "How Quick can Oracle’s PeopleSoft be Implemented" »
Standardization helps large ERP implementations to streamline their business processes and data which helps achieve operations efficiency by reducing the solution variability and achieving data consistency. On the long run this will help reduce the implementation / maintenance time and cost, especially in large organizations where the solution is rolled out to multiple locations and Companies.
Package Points is the buzzword in Oracle Practice now at Infosys Technologies Ltd for sizing an implementation project for the reasons which I am putting forward based on my experience in involving in sizing many development and package implementation projects.
From 2001, the shadow of WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) and RoHS Directive (Restriction on Hazardous Substances) had begun looming over the world electronics manufacturing industry. By 2007, most EU Member States had implemented WEEE and the deadline for RoHS was achieved in July 2006. Other countries are now building their environment compliance approaches similar to the EU directives, e.g. some states in the USA, Korea, etc have put in place their own regulations. China, Chile, Brazil and Columbia also now have some environment management Directives in place. Japanese laws had been in place even earlier and many Japanese companies are well ahead in implementing cleaner technologies and in greening their supply chain. While the larger companies in most countries have started their compliance measures, most small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) including those in Korea and Taiwan have fallen behind.
To remain competitive in today's environment, manufacturing companies are looking at boosting their supply chain performance. One of the key levers for improving supply chain is 'cost reduction' at various stages of the entire chain.
Continue reading "Using Operational Levers To Boost Supply Chain Performance" »
Standardization helps businesses develop the ability to "consistently" deliver high quality products and services its customers. It drives manufacturing excellence by raising the efficiencies of operations by reducing process variability, adopting optimal procedures to complete work and then adapting those procedures as effective practice within the organization.
While most organizations understand the importance of process standardizations, there could be confusion with respect to the approach that should be followed. Businesses looking at standardizing its operations can look at the following approaches -
In the first part of the blog, we looked at 7 key factors that an implementing organization should consider before deciding to go ahead with its ERP implementation project.
http://infosysblogs.com/oracle/2008/10/key_factors_for_success_of_erp.html#more
In this blog, we will analyze 3 additional factors that are also vital for success.
Continue reading "Key Factors for Success of ERP Implementations - Part 2" »
ERP Implementations are generally time consuming and expensive - more so if the implementation involves multiple geographies with different languages, different business processes, legal requirements and accounting norms. Companies typically go for ERP implementations with the aim of integrating disparate systems spread across different business functions so that the top management can get an integrated view of the operations of the organization. Optimal usage of an ERP system also leads to reduction in operational costs and supports strategic planning.
Continue reading "Key Factors for Success of ERP Implementations" »
ERP implementations are a special breed of projects. They are often characterized by aggressive timelines, high budgets and involvement of diverse teams. This emphasizes the need to have a reliable tool to measure the performance of ERP implementations throughout the execution phases.
Continue reading "Earned Value Management for ERP Implementations" »
We often see ERP Implementations failing because of lack of user acceptance for the new system. The user community is not convinced about the utility of the ERP System simply because they feel that they take a long time to execute the transactions in the new system.
Is there a solution to this? How do we make sure that from day one users start advocating about the new system. The answer to this question starts from the time the future state design of business processes is started. First question that any implementer should ask is" Is this the most efficient and lean way to deploy this process". "Are we deploying the correct tools and techniques offered by the package to design the future state business process?"
There is often a dilemma in the customer’s mind,whether to go for Localization or do a Customization. Here are some of the pros and cons of these two options:
Localization comes pre-built with the product and does not need to be developed. While it can be assumed to have already been tested, effort needs to be estimated for the further rounds of testing.
This is beacuse,Localizations are add-on features which might not have been time-tested to the extent the base application features are.Also,Regional requirements change, all the implications of which might not have been addressed in the Localization in a timely manner. There can always be a lead time between a new requirement and its solution through Localization.
Continue reading "Localization vis-a-vis Customization: Which way to go?" »
If we look at the world's 2 leading large ERP packaged suites, they are huge applications that offer tremendous flexibility to handle just about all possible kinds of manufacturing systems and business processes spread across all kinds of industries. Can these ERP systems be readily adapted by small & medium-sized companies and how do large ERPs really differ from those that are used by the SMB segment?
Continue reading "ERP Systems for Small & Mid-Sized Companies" »
In the first part of the blog we looked at the rise of packaged BI http://infosysblogs.com/oracle/2008/08/age_of_packaged_bi_and_analyti.html
In this blog we analyze when and how should organizations evaluate packaged BI
Organizations today, are under pressure to improve efficiency and margins. Analytics has become an indispensible part of their existence. Large organizations face a challenge owing to constraints of increasing visibility across value chain in terms of analytics, BI in multiple silos, and heterogeneous systems from the legacy era.
Continue reading "Age of packaged BI and analytics – Should you embark on this journey? Part 2" »
When there is a need to bring about large scale HRIT portfolio transformation (post merger, for example) it is important to use this opportunity to maximize the business value , while minimizing the TCO and risk of transition.
Infosys has a comprehensive framework, approach and accelerators to look at this transformation scenario in a global delivery model
Continue reading "Large scale HRIT Portfolio Transformation" »
Organizations who want to strengthen their ability to attract and retain employees at all levels to meet the needs of Organic and Inorganic Growth, need to have an Integrated approach to Talent Management. This would not only offer sustainable competitive advantage, but also operational benefits like reduced time to productivity, developing targeted capabilities, and Talent mobility across the organization. Integrated Talent Management is a lot more than yet another HR process. It is a mindset that goes beyond the rhetoric towards a holistic and integrated approach. Based on our experience, we’ve identified three critical elements to achieve Integrated Talent Management: Strategy Integration, Process Integration, and Technology Integration.
Last week when I was in Kansas City presenting a paper at the 2008 APICS International Conference, I had an interesting observation. There was a tremendous emphasis on Sustainability. We talk about Lean Supply Chain but companies were one step ahead discussing Green Supply Chain. Initially I had dismissed it as another fad but I was amazed at the commitment more so in the High Tech Domain.
"Business case? What business case? This is a "strategic" investment"....ever heard that one?
Can any executive team pull that off in today's economy? Something tells me that those days are O-V-E-R.
"That which gets measured gets done"....so here's the secret: build a Value Story, define the core metrics, and measure, track, and transform using the Oracle OBIEE solution.
That's a mouthful. Let's talk about it live at Oracle OpenWorld. Ask for me at the Infy booth.
See you in SF -
Chris
You only need to open one consulting proposal to see the classic (trite?) framework of "people/process/technology" being touted as the exhaustive framework that should drive your transformation. It's that easy (yeah right). Is it a coincidence that those 3 words correspond to the stock-in-trade consulting presentation package (.ppt)?....thats for another post.
Where is Value? Where is Capability? What about Accountability? Exactly how does this all happen without a well-aligned roadmap?
Our IMPACTtm frameworkhas been developed to address these areas. It also speaks to integrating the EXTENDED enterprise (where to work), new capabilities (what to work on) and managing the overall tranformation (how to do it).
Reach out to our Infosys team at Oracle Open World and ask for me - I will be happy to give you a personal guided tour to a whole new way of transforming your business in an Oracle-enabled environment.
Till next time,
Chris
Across Industries, specifically utilities and process industries, because of their capital intensive environments, typically spend a substantial amount on indirect procurement, especially services. Typically services account for more than 60% of the indirect spend for companies in these industries yet this area has remained unexplored for either automation or transformation efforts.
The Services Supply Chain comprises of unique and complex activities. This is then the reason why streamlining the process coupled with adequate systems support can lead to a large savings in this area. But how do we really go about it? Our experience tells us that this is definitely possible and is a huge opportunity for savings. Oracle Advanced Procurement Suite with its Services Procurement processes help organizations in streamlining processes in achieving these savings.
Continue reading "Managing Indirect Spend? Slash costs and Save upto 20% of indirect cost" »
Forecasting has been rated as one of the top supply chain issues in the globalized world. Organizations are striving to predict customer demand as accurately as possible. Accurate forecasting kick-starts demand and supply chain planning. A large number of products-geography-customer combinations require system enabled forecasting capabilities. A holistic forecasting system brings in Statistical Rigour and Modeling, Dashboards and Simulation capabilities and automatically tunes its models to suit changing business requirements. Sharing here excerpts from one of our working paper – the criteria in choosing the holistic forecasting system.
1. Ability to Model Demand:
Ability of a forecasting system to generate forecast at the most granular level across Time, Geography, Product and Customer dimensions, with the highest accuracy. This will also decide how effectively the system has been able to model the business requirements.
2. Statistical Rigour:
Forecasting systems need to have exhaustive library of statistical models - starting from simplest to most complex. This can help in choosing the best forecasting model which truly represents demand, yet manages model complexity. For example, there are cases where a simple “Moving Average" model may be adequate, whereas there might be cases that demand more sophisticated models (such as “ARIMA"). Moreover, there might be occasions where a combined model is chosen with a weighted average of different models. As a result, the system should not only provide the means through which different models may be easily applied but also facilitate the collaboration between these models for a true representation of demand.
3. Accuracy and Forecast Generation Time:
The preliminary requirement of any forecasting system to generate accurate forecast may not be enough. For example, an organization requiring daily forecasts for the planning purpose may not be able to use the forecasting system if it takes 10 hours to generate forecasts, regardless of its accuracy. Timely availability of forecast is as important as the accuracy it provides.
4. Interpretability:
Statistical error measures (e.g. MAPE, MSE) are popular yet widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. Quite often, end-users are not equipped to interpret the forecasting accuracy through such error measures. Forecasting system should enable business users with dashboard capabilities that communicate such measures in visually interpretable mediums.
5. Accommodate external issues:
Selecting the best forecasting model may not be enough. In majority of the cases, accuracy could benefit from the consideration of external components. These components could entail information such as the dates of forthcoming national holidays and the occurrence of exceptional events such as marketing campaigns. Hence an automated system should be able to understand such components and should be able to seamlessly combine them with basic forecasting techniques.
6. Automatic self-tuning:
An automated collaboration of the various components generates an additional consideration. When various models are combined, collaborative operation and self tuning becomes a major issue. The challenge arises from the relationships among the models. Although manual operation is a solution, it is associated with two major problems. Firstly, efficiency is reduced due to the required time and secondly, selection of models may be compromised in order to choose simpler alternatives. Hence an automated process for self-tuning would increase the flexibility and efficiency of the system.
Excerpt from the working paper – Shah M., Owusu G., Shoban B., Balkundi N., “Improving Forecasting Accuracy of Traditional Demand Planning System” (2008)
In today’s extremely competitive world any business needs a robust yet adaptable IT infrastructure. The growing information needs make it imperative to replace the old systems with new Enterprise Applications. And even Enterprise applications need to upgrade from time to time. Your organization ends up spending a large amount of IT budgets in managing integrations with each new release and upgrade. You must protect the investments in existing applications and leverage the returns from existing systems. Only then your organization can improve the responsiveness of its changing business needs.
Continue reading "Six questions to analyze if your company is ready for SOA" »
Proliferating customer touch points has increased complexities in understanding the customer relationship. Increased globalization of businesses and its customers / consumers has put stress on ensuring apt customer experience. Businesses are facing new customer acquistion very difficult, specially in matured markets - turning their focus to sustain existing customer base and increase potential.
Continue reading "How to make more money with customer information" »
Where is my Order????? When will it get shipped???? Another delay, yet again!!!! These are some of the very common and frequently asked questions by the Customers.
The challenging business needs, difficult to hold enough inventory, increase in cost of manufacturing and more so frequent re-org’s have made manufacturers to re-think about their business strategy. The business drivers are changing and increasing at a fast pace and Enterprises using ERP’s expect the product vendors to be more than up to speed to offer capabilities in the standard product and also provide an Integration strategy to offer seamless out-of-box integrations.These capabilities are targeted towards Increase in Agent Productivity, Significant reduction in cycle time, Automating Business flows, Orchestrating Business flows spread across disparate applications and Enabling Shared service operations etc.
Oracle has a taken a step forward to meet the above objectives and much more than that. The latest release of Oracle EBS (eBusiness Suite), which is popularly known as R12, is a significant step to meet the complex and demanding business objectives. The features like Multi Org Access Control (MOAC) allow agents to access data spread across Operating units from a single responsibility. The enhancements done as part of EBS R12 in Order Management, Advanced Pricing, iStore help in increase of Agent productivity and shorten the Order cycles.
Come and join the journey if you wanna know on how to expedite and streamline your prolonged Order cycles…….
This session will elucidate how Oracle R12 features can be leveraged to enable shared service operations with features like MOAC. It will elaborate the New R12 features in the areas of Order Management, Advance Pricing and iStore with suitable examples. The session will explain on how the new features like Price book will join the core stream and make it more transparent to the customers. This session will also talk about how the new R12 features and Fusion middleware product BPEL came together and delivered a composite Application model for a big Hi-Tech giant.
Oracle's latest version of its E-Business Suite (EBS) is a significant release. Current users need to determine if and when this upgrade will be appropriate, if they have not already done so. New users of Oracle applications need to ensure that Release 12 is the appropriate release to implement. – Gartner
The journey begins in the biggest Oracle Technology symposium – Oracle Open World, 21st-25th Sep 2008……
Session ID: S300276
Session Title: Shorten Your Order Cycles with New Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Features: Wanna Know How?
Track: Oracle E-Business Suite
Continue reading "Thinking of Acquisition? Keep ERP as one of the decision parameters" »
Historians used two approaches to apply the past to the future: reasoning by analogy and projection of trends. The 1970’s saw the emergence of ERP systems in the form of Inventory Control Packages and Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II). Then came the integration of Finance, which was followed by the integration of various functional areas like Customer relationship, HR etc.
The evolution of Business Intelligence traces a trajectory similar to this. From a time of specialized tools and long multi-year customized solutions, we are seeing a convergence of enterprise applications, Data warehouse tools and analytic solutions. This is reinforced even further by the takeover and consolidation of BI vendors leaving few large players with capabilities across the value chain.
‘No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.’ ~H.E. Luccock
Continue reading "Age of packaged BI and analytics – Should you embark on this journey? Part1" »
Today, ERP is used more to drive business improvements & operational efficiencies and hence, any delays or budget over-runs could impact the business. However, most independent surveys and studies indicate that about 55 percent of ERP Implementation projects incur budget overruns. According to Standish Group, a research firm, the average IT project runs over budget by about 43 percent. Among the litany of reasons quoted (such as excessive focus on technology at the expense of business processes, communication shortfalls, project management and operational issues) estimation & bad planning rank high in the list.
Continue reading "Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points" »
Continue reading "Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade" »
Service Oriented Architecture is a win-win solution for organizations today that have an utmost need for modernizing their legacy IT assets to sustain in a competitive world. At the same time the indispensible legacy gamut of applications needs to be retained.
Continue reading "Oracle SOA– (S)calable, (O)pen and (A)daptable" »
If there is one thing which we can call as the livewire of the High Tech Sector is Labels. The entire high tech industry moves on labels. In Standard ERP Packages there are certain limitations in terms of volume of labels, performance and quality of bar code labels. As a result, typically companies have looked at other middleware options as a plug and play with the ERP Packages. Latest offerings from the ERP vendors seem to address this problem removing the need for middleware.
Continue reading "High Tech Sector’s Label Printing Needs: Are we there?" »
We have always known a Middleware as a software program that integrates two or more disparate applications. Anyone having first encounters with Oracle Fusion Middleware (OFM) will tend to reckon it as a collection of middleware products. The fact is it is not just a middleware; it is much more than that.
Continue reading "Fusion Middleware – Not Just a Middleware" »
An economic downturn affects everyone, some more than others. The overall effect tends to lower consumer confidence and this has a direct impact on consumer spending. Or does it?
Continue reading "Retailing in a Down Economy, any different from a Boom?" »
Continue reading "Having Confusion around Fusion!!!!!!!!!!!" »
Often I come across the discussion on whether a company or a unit should go for Value based segmentation or a Need based segmentation. Customer A,B,C are most worthwhile to me and XYZ are low value customers and therefore let me find ways to service low value customers at a lower cost, through self service channels, reduced customization, etc. or target most profitable customers within each segment for initiatives to increase retention & wallet-share
Continue reading "Segmentation: Value based or Need based?" »
The last month and a half has been exciting! The ardent cricket fan in me has been treated to some rapid fire cricket through the Indian Premier League 20:20 extravaganza. Round about the same time, my project team also started rapid application development using SCRUM, a methodology I would call the 20:20 version of the waterfall model of software development. Interestingly, the word SCRUM also has its origins from the sport of rugby where a “scrum” is a group of people responsible for picking up the ball and moving it forward.
