Vita Sanguis Supple Vinculum - Labor Management
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Infosys’ blog on industry solutions, trends, business process transformation and global implementation in Oracle.
February 5, 2012
January 29, 2012
Empowering the Finance Function with Oracle Fusion Financials - Part 2
Guest post by
Mili Bhaskar, Consultant, Infosys
In the Part -1 of the blog, there was a brief discussion about some of the important Industry trends. This part throws light on how Oracle Fusion Financials Application can cater to the recent Industry needs.
Continue reading " Empowering the Finance Function with Oracle Fusion Financials - Part 2 " »
January 24, 2012
Thinking beyond Hyperion Essbase for planning (Part 1)
Guest post by
Hari Ram, Senior Systems Engineer, Infosys
Oracle Hyperion Essbase provides the best of multidimensional database capabilities in terms of performance and features. The Essbase lovers and existing users may believe that Essbase is sufficient enough for their planning, budgeting and forecasting requirements. Hence most planning applications still exist on Hyperion Essbase instead of Hyperion Planning - the centralized MS Excel and Web-based planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution from Oracle's Hyperion Suite of Products.
Continue reading " Thinking beyond Hyperion Essbase for planning (Part 1) " »
January 20, 2012
CRP - The Game Changer?
Guest post by
Amit Tuteja, Senior Consultant, Infosys
Most of us have been part of implementations where CRP (Conference Room Pilot) is undertaken by the client. In most cases CRP is used by the client when they are not familiar with the product and want to see if the ERP package would fulfill most of their needs before they finalize which package to be implemented. In one of the recent projects I got a chance to work on CRP exercise in Oracle Apps for a client where Oracle was already running for more than a decade. Here is a glimpse of the situation which the client faced:
- Multiple Geographies with different business model. E.g. One Geography was following distributor model. In one of Geography ATO operations formed major portion of their sales.
- Different Geographies had different Oracle version being used: One Geography had 11.5.9 version of Oracle and others had 11.5.10 version.
- Local IT teams at each Geographies led to various different customizations across Geographies: The customizations built were also of different nature based on business needs in each geography.
Client engaged Infosys to do a business process re-engineering (standardize Business processes across Geographies) exercise in the first phase and then undertake CRP (showcase the fitment in oracle) in the second phase.
January 18, 2012
Rejuvenate your CRM Function with Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (Part 2)
Guest post by
Kiran Amara, Principal Consultant, Infosys
In the Part-1 of the blog, we provided an overview of recent CRM Industry trends and in this part we will provide our Point of View regarding how Oracle Fusion CRM and its capabilities cater to the recent CRM trends.
January 14, 2012
Quisque Id Of Implementation - Curtailed UAT
Continue reading " Quisque Id Of Implementation - Curtailed UAT " »
January 12, 2012
Cloudanomics for Business Intelligence - Part 2
Guest post by
Swati Maskara, Senior Associate Consultant, Infosys
In the first part of my blog I talked about economics of using Cloud platform for performing business analytics and its obvious benefits. Through this part I want to bring forth ideas which can help a cloud BI customer as well as service provider maximize the overall benefits out of a cloud setup and reap advantages beyond the obvious ones.
The blog attempts to addresses following questions:
- How organizations can maximize value derived from a Cloud setup?
- How the Concerns around Data Security can be addressed?
Continue reading " Cloudanomics for Business Intelligence - Part 2 " »
January 10, 2012
Rejuvenate your CRM Function with Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (Part 1)
Guest post by
Pradeep V Krishnamurthy, Principal Consultant, Infosys
During the last three to five years, Oracle CRM and best of breed niche solutions have emerged and expanded to offer broad CRM or CRM related functionality, including Loyalty Management, Campaign Management, Self Services, a 360 Degree of Customer View and others. As many companies continue to expand their CRM functionality to include these trends, we are witnessing significant number of relatively new trends shaping the future of CRM as a key tool with the capability not only to increase sales revenue and significantly influence customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty, but with the potential to change the paradigm under which companies have traditionally interacted and done business with their customers.
In this part of blog, I provide an overview of recent CRM Industry Trends and in the second part, we will provide our Point of View regarding how Oracle Fusion CRM and its capabilities cater to the recent CRM trends.
Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management 11g Release 1 includes Sales, Marketing, and Customer Data Management modules. Service, Order Capture, Call Center Modules and Vertical Flavors are expected to be part of the next release.
January 4, 2012
iSetup - An Effective and Powerful Tool to Manage Setup Migrations
Guest post by
Vikas Jhamb, Lead Consultant, Infosys
Any Implementation in Oracle ERP world involves a constant effort in re-doing the setups from scratch whenever a new instance is required. Getting a new instance and bringing it to speed with the current setups just can't be avoided or wished away. It has to be done and redone with almost no scope of errors. But anything that is done manually is prone to error and if these errors slip in when we are doing the setups, these will cause a lot of grief and the project team may have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out where there has been slip between the cup and the lip.
Continue reading " iSetup - An Effective and Powerful Tool to Manage Setup Migrations " »
January 3, 2012
Can a smartphone or tablet help realize the shackle-free ERP and CRM dream?
Guest post by
Amit Zutshi, Lead Consultant, Infosys
It may sound ironic that we live in a world where on one hand the household gadgets are able to not only communicate to each other wirelessly but are also able to work with external entities (read grocery stores, hospitals, service personnel et al) to drive efficiency within the home, but at the same time the corporate systems seem to remain largely ensconced in the physical infrastructure available within the four walls of the workplace. While corporate calendar and email have been able to breach that barrier a long time back, the actual productivity improvements borne out of making the workforce truly mobile are being realized only now that serious effort is being spent to unshackle the biggest behemoth of them all - the corporate ERP.
Continue reading " Can a smartphone or tablet help realize the shackle-free ERP and CRM dream? " »
December 28, 2011
Empowering the Finance Function with Oracle Fusion Financials - Part 1
Guest post by
Mili Bhaskar, Consultant, Infosys
Continuous pressure on businesses to perform has forced enterprises to evaluate, evolve and empower their finance functions, as a result of which there is a strategic shift seen in the finance department from being a score keeper to a valued business partner. The finance function on its path to evolve has come to be integrally dependent on effective information systems and technologies.
In this part of blog, I provide an overview of the current industry trends and in the next part, I will elaborate how Oracle Fusion Financials Application aides organizations in keeping up with these changing trends.
Continue reading " Empowering the Finance Function with Oracle Fusion Financials - Part 1 " »
December 23, 2011
To Measure or Not to Measure
Guest post by
Gaurav Kumar, Principal Consultant, Infosys
Definition of success parameters at the outset of any enterprise is the first step to determine the steps that need to follow. The ability to follow through with the detailed planning basis the success parameters is at the heart of project and program planning. The effective management of any enterprise depends upon the identification and administration of these parameters. Hence the relevance and effectiveness of any KPI is how closely it is linked to the business outcome and its understandability.
December 19, 2011
Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management - Catapulting To Smart Organization (Part 2)
Guest post by
Arun Tomar, Consultant, Infosys
In the previous part of the blog, we discussed about some of the important Human Capital Management trends in the industry. This part throws light on how Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management Application can cater to the needs of these fast changing Human Resource trends in the industry.
December 12, 2011
Dear Nikki, Sorry I missed our flight...
Guest post by
Anand Balakrishnan, Principal Consultant, Infosys
Dear Nikki,
Sorry, I missed our flight. I knew you would be wondering if I made it to my section of the plane and wanted to let you know as soon as I could.
After we parted at the check-in counter and I was belting my way across the concourse I went through a full body scan that created some excitement for the good folks in the TSA, consequently I missed the shuttle transfer to the flight.
I've had myself rescheduled on the night flight to SFO, I take a connection to Seattle an hour later and a shuttle is scheduled to pick me up at SeaTac and drop me home by 8.00am.
Sit back, enjoy a complimentary beverage of your choice from the airline (the flight attendant has been informed) and head home as soon as you land without having to wait for your checked baggage.
Regards
Baggage ID - NA210802
(Green Samsonite 360O Swivel)
Continue reading " Dear Nikki, Sorry I missed our flight... " »
December 7, 2011
Is number crunching a solution to Bank's woes?
Guest post by
Vandana Baliga, Senior Associate Consultant, Infosys
From the housing bubble burst in US to Euro debt crisis and the potential threat of student loan bubble in US, Are the banks alive to the risk? There is a growing need to be sensitive to economic conditions, capture the debt dynamics and interpret the figures on the balance sheet of banks meaningfully. To address this need Financial Institutions have to foresee in to future and be pro-active.
The question looming large on the banks today is how to achieve this?
Continue reading " Is number crunching a solution to Bank's woes? " »
December 5, 2011
Enigme de la Symbiose
December 1, 2011
Quo Vadis, Business Transformation
Guest post by
Gaurav Kumar, Principal Consultant, Infosys
A key step that needs occur prior to the start of any business transformation is the definition of objectives for the same. Many a transformation enterprise has bitten the dust with conflicting objectives being pushed by key stakeholders. As a fundamental premise, we can agree that any business transformation activity must have a set of objectives that it seeks to achieve. These objectives are quantified in myriad ways to arrive at a value that is expected to be achieved through the transformation. This activity however does not provide the clarity on the individual stakeholder objectives that the transformation seeks to achieve. Neither does it provide the collective sequential set of priorities which can be used as guidance by the transformation team. For example, the transformation may be effecting improvement of a particular metric however the levers to impact may widely differ amongst the stakeholders.
November 29, 2011
Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management - Catapulting To Smart Organization (Part1)
Guest post by
Shweta Dhal, Consultant, Infosys
The Human Resources (HR) function has morphed into a more strategic function over the past decade. This transition has caused HR to take on a more inclusive role as business partners supporting the people aspects of what makes up a business. To continue this evolution, Human Capital Management (HCM) departments need effective information technology solutions supportive of optimized global HCM processes, and the decision making tools which can provide better insight to solve HCM -related business problems.
Oracle Fusion HCM gives a new dimension to the Human Resource practice globally by leveraging features of the next generation ERP like Web 2.0, open standards based solution, rich user experience etc. It incorporates the best of breed solutions, thus reinventing the Human Resource function as a whole. The current release of Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management, 11g Release1 comes with offerings which are well integrated to give customers better insight and a holistic view of the Human Resource function, effectively aiding both strategic and day-to-day Human Resource activities.
November 25, 2011
The last mile in financial reporting - The next big thing
Guest post by
Anand Balakrishnan, Principal Consultant, Infosys
ERP system have been adopted by over 90% of the global fortune 100 companies and 75% of fortune 500 corporates to handle the various facets of their operations. In the financial accounting space, while these companies have focused on the back office processing of records and generation of preliminary financials (P&L and Balance Sheets) a very small number of companies have any sort of automation in the last mile, namely generating the quarterly and annual financial statements that need to be submitted to varied set of external agencies including regulators, lenders and the street.
Continue reading " The last mile in financial reporting - The next big thing " »
November 22, 2011
Asset Management in Electricity Distribution Utility: "The Challenges of Getting Smarter"
Guest post by
Abhishek Bhargava, Senior Consultant, Infosys
In the earlier blog Asset Management in Electricity Distribution Utility: The Challenges of Getting Softer we discussed about the first wave of transformation i.e. use of IT by Power industry to become softer and leaner. Here we will talk about the journey of this industry into the second wave of transformation - a transition from IT enabled organizations to smarter organizations using smart grid.
November 19, 2011
Achieving Higher Levels Each Time - Servicing Contracts
Continue reading " Achieving Higher Levels Each Time - Servicing Contracts " »
November 18, 2011
Bridging Two Islands: A curious case of Oracle AIA
Guest post by
Vinod Kumar, Consultant, Infosys
Telecom sector has been chronically plagued by revenue leakage problems and often seen to be spending the maximum energy and budget on areas around how to not let it happen or in other words having in place an effective Revenue Assurance mechanism. Making it one of the most published area in the industry are the solutions around it yet the clients, be it the newcomers or the old-timers, are often marred by this problem. Not that there are no solution around it but it's the understanding of the solution/product offering and the judicious implementation which makes a solution stand out.
Continue reading " Bridging Two Islands: A curious case of Oracle AIA " »
November 14, 2011
Integrating social media with ERP applications
Guest post by
Amit Kumar Dey, Senior Consultant, Infosys
The importance of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube no longer need any emphasis. Perhaps the power of these tools were not known even to the perpetrators of the great Middle East revolutions until they were able to garner support of millions and mobilize the masses which resulted in the end of decades of despotic rule. Social media which acted as the stimuli and later as a catalyst for the movement was very effectively used by the revolutionaries to unify and spread their message between themselves and also to animate support from the international community.
Continue reading " Integrating social media with ERP applications " »
November 8, 2011
Symbiosis in Printing Industry - Contract To Kill
Continue reading " Symbiosis in Printing Industry - Contract To Kill " »
November 4, 2011
Why Oracle Fusion Procurement? How does it add value?
Guest post by
Suchitha Prabakaran, Consultant, Infosys
In the current global business environment, efficient Procurement techniques, methodologies and processes play a vital role in providing a competitive edge- both operationally and financially for any organization irrespective of the size, nature of business, products dealt with, area of operations etc. Corporates now have realized the importance of streamlining and strategizing procurement processes as it makes a huge difference to the revenue and profitability of the organization.
Continue reading " Why Oracle Fusion Procurement? How does it add value? " »
October 19, 2011
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): Looking beyond compliance
Guest post by
Kamaljeet Singh Bhatia, Lead Consultant, Infosys
On 26-May-2011 the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. (SEC) issued staff paper associated with 'Work plan for consideration of incorporating IFRS' in which it outlines incorporating IFRS into U.S. GAAP after a certain period of 5 to 7 years. In Japan the ministry in charge of financial affairs announced that decision regarding IFRS adoption may not be made until 2012, thereafter at least 5 years would be needed to make preparations. There seems to be no decision on mandatory IFRS adaptation timelines and so far it seems to remain indecisive until FY2012-2013. However over the period there has been a growing acceptance from a number of other countries.
Continue reading " International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): Looking beyond compliance " »
October 10, 2011
Video: Social CRM - Delivering the Next Generation Customer Experience
Guest post by
Rakesh Kumar, Industry Principal, Service Innovation Strategy, Infosys
Continue reading " Video: Social CRM - Delivering the Next Generation Customer Experience " »
October 6, 2011
Experiencing 'Mobility' at Oracle OpenWorld 2011
Guest post by
Nikhil Kumar, Industry Principal, Infosys
Yet another exciting day here at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 started off with drizzling rain and San Francisco downtown bustling traffic. The exhibition halls got opened immediately after the morning keynotes around 10 am, and attracted a lot of attention and larger footsteps from customers and partners than yesterday. We could see people rushing and hopping across sessions, venues and exhibition booths and long queues for raffles and gifts offered by partners. Some folks are also relaxing with their iPads and smartphones at lounges browsing, catching up mails and chatting. Mobility can be noticed and felt all around at OpenWorld.
Continue reading " Experiencing 'Mobility' at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 " »
Achieving excellence in BI Support
Guest post by
Neeraj Jha, Lead Consultant, Infosys
Some of the challenges that I can think of based on my experience and interaction with colleagues working in BI Support are due to -
- Business implements changes in enterprise applications and hence the source systems for BI gets modified
- Change in data archiving and purging
- End users start writing their own queries for self-use and difference in queries being written by the BI Support team
- Increment in data size
- Tuning & Performance needs due to user created queries absorbing capacity
- Correcting the data in source after seeing wrong data in warehouse through BI System
- Usage of proper Tools
- Data security needs as user base increases
- Upgrade in source system resulting change in source system database structure
- Continued challenges to build new
October 5, 2011
Impediments to supply chain integration: An SME perspective
Guest post by
Kamaljeet Singh Bhatia, Lead Consultant, Infosys
The last few decades has witnessed numerous examples of significant competitive advantages through supply chain integration. Information sharing through superior technology is making enterprises capable to innovate and integrate in the complex networked environment. However information integration in supply chains is limited to large enterprises and small to medium scale enterprises (SME's) significantly lag to leverage technology for supply chain integration.
Continue reading " Impediments to supply chain integration: An SME perspective " »
Automobile Logistics: Demand to Deliver (D2D)
Guest post by
Nipun Lakhotia, Consultant, Infosys
Automobile sector is currently experiencing a turbulent transition. Apart from product innovation, manufacturers need to align their supply chain processes to meet rapidly changing customer expectations.
Logistics plays a crucial role in automotive industry, representing about 40% of the retail price of a passenger car. Historically the automotive industry has always been focused on just-in-time manufacturing (JIT) which demands for sequenced deliveries. Inbound operational planning is expected to support advanced features like milk runs, direct delivery and cross-dock optimization with drop-trailer capabilities.
Continue reading " Automobile Logistics: Demand to Deliver (D2D) " »
October 4, 2011
Revisiting Customer Loyalty from a 'social' angle
Guest post by
Srinath Pydimarri, Senior Consultant, Infosys
I've been a loyal customer of a particular Indian bank, whom I'd call Bank XYZ for convenience sake. My perception of loyalty stems from the fact that I've been banking with them for the whole of my professional life, have taken multiple loans, setup FDs and have their credit card. I've always been prompt at paying my EMIs as well as credit card bill. In fact, some of their Customer Support executives address me as a 'privileged customer'. However, what pains me is that they haven't increased the credit limit on my credit card. It surely has left me surprised and disappointed. In fact, I keep advising my friends to take the credit card from a competing bank. Something which I tend to do using social media as well - Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly the bank still perceives me to be a 'loyal' and a ' privileged' customer. I believe this is a scenario which commonly occurs across all industries and with all types of customers (retail / business etc). 'Social' customers today are increasingly using social media to constantly share their opinions/displeasure, amongst other things, about the brands / products they use. Such a behavior is nothing unlike the Word of Mouth (WoM) that organizations have known for a long time now. The only difference is that this has become easier, more prevalent and has greater impact, thanks to the availability and extensive usage of social channels.
Continue reading " Revisiting Customer Loyalty from a 'social' angle " »
Leveraging Fusion Business Process Model Methodology in Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
Guest post by
Sandeep Suresh Deshpande, Principal Consultant, Infosys
In today's world, business is exposed to a constantly changing environment where organizations face the most challenging situations -
- Information silos across the value chain
- Parallel processing amongst distributed systems
- Mismatched products to support complex end-to-end business processes
- Complex and long-running projects
- Real-time project consolidation and budgeting
Oracle has done an extensive internal and external research, took the best practices from Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle PeopleSoft, Oracle JD Edwards, Oracle Siebel and all other acquisitions to come up with a number of industry business process areas with multiple levels of decomposition. These world class business processes can be leveraged to deliver in the complex and challenging environment.
October 3, 2011
Day 1 at OOW 2011 : The 'Green' and the 'Machines'
Guest post by
Abhishek Sabharwal, Head- Infosys Oracle Innovation Center
Finally, we are here again on the helm of one of the biggest IT events of our times, Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) 2011. As the feeling of nostalgia triggers in with everyone beating each other about the number of years they had been participating in the OOW, the registration lines grew bigger and bigger. The weather, the excitement, iphone tunes and bustling traffic remained the same at SFO but the event seems to gets bigger and better, with representations from 120 countries and close to 45000 registrants. OOW started on a Green note of using minimum paper throughout the event, so no more bulky schedule. All replaced by mobile phone apps, and real time online updates...welcome Social Media and Mobility to the OOW...
Continue reading " Day 1 at OOW 2011 : The 'Green' and the 'Machines' " »
Building the Predictive Enterprise
Guest post by
Peter Stacholy, Industry Principal, Infosys
My session at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 - "Innovation in the Staffing Industry with Oracle Real-Time Decisions", will show how to use a new Oracle Tool RTD (Real Time Decisions) to leverage the data already stored in your ERP system to transform your company into a predictive enterprise. We will be using a Staffing Company to illustrate all the points where we want to integrate existing ERP applications with RTD. We will show all of the points where RTD can 'learn' current enterprise behavior and subsequently predict future outcomes or suggest better ways to do things. We will conclude by demonstrating a current integration that we have already built out between PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office and RTD that ranks candidates for open positions using six dimensions that an ordinary search engine cannot evaluate!
September 30, 2011
Video: Mobile CRM - Delivering the Next Generation Customer Experience
Guest post by
Puneet Gupta, AVP and Head - Infosys Mobile Platforms, Infosys
Continue reading " Video: Mobile CRM - Delivering the Next Generation Customer Experience " »
September 29, 2011
Mobile CRM is not a choice, but a necessity for Enterprises
Guest post by
Shanmugam Gnanasambandam, Principal Consultant, Infosys
Today, enterprises have CRM systems/applications implemented to support their Marketing, Sales and Service functions, which have matured, over the last two decades as an On-Premise Application and also being offered now as an On Demand Application, for access through Desktops/Laptops.
The significant progress of mobile internet, which includes availability of a wide range of affordable smart phones/tablets, high speed internet connectivity on mobile devices and users becoming more and more tech savvy, has created a keen interest in the Mobile CRM space.
Continue reading " Mobile CRM is not a choice, but a necessity for Enterprises " »
September 27, 2011
Effective Sales Planning with Oracle Fusion Sales Planning Solution
Guest post by
Sushal Subashchandra Shetty, Consultant, Infosys
Are you not able to define effective territories for your sales organization?
Is your sales team swimming in the sea without targets?
Is your sales team cherry picking on prospects and you are not aware how to tackle it?
Are you losing track of your sales team's performance?
If answer to all/one of the above questions is yes, then my cent that you ought to read this further. The top problems which one of the large manufacturing company was facing were loss of productivity due to redundant and manual process, lack of consistent and efficient reporting, inaccurate commissioning.
If you are also facing the same problems as above then sales planning solution based on Oracle Fusion Applications is the one-stop solution for you.
Continue reading " Effective Sales Planning with Oracle Fusion Sales Planning Solution " »
September 26, 2011
Giving Wings to your Social CRM Dreams
Guest post by
Srinath Pydimarri, Senior Consultant, Infosys
I have been observing the Social CRM market space for the last 1 year and the first impression I get is that organizations are far more closer to the reality of Social CRM - both in terms of their interest in Social CRM and the availability of suitable Social CRM solution options. Our frequent conversations with client organizations have gradually moved from being centered around 'What is Social CRM' to discussions on how Social CRM can be applied in the organization's context. In fact, a handful of our customers are coming up with specific scenarios where they'd like to see Social CRM in play. In many of the cases, however, we observe a sense of uncertainty and a few misgivings accompanying the tangible intent in taking up Social CRM, something that is common whenever organizations are faced with the prospect of new concepts and technologies. Organizations do seem to have a difficult time deciding what their first steps in Social CRM should be. I believe they can deal with this tricky situation by taking hints from the success stories that are slowly stemming around in the Social CRM space.
Continue reading " Giving Wings to your Social CRM Dreams " »
September 20, 2011
Why Oracle ORPOS, ATG, and Siebel Need to Merge?
Granted, it is a provocative headline and I could already visualize question marks being raised on the headline itself of this blog. However, it is time we take a fresh look at good old point of sale (POS) application that has perhaps had its golden run for over 20+ years in its various incarnations by multitude of app developers.
Continue reading " Why Oracle ORPOS, ATG, and Siebel Need to Merge? " »
What to ask about the Exadata machine before the purchase decision?
Guest post by
Rohit Kaul, Senior Technology Architect, Infosys
I happened to read about a Greek philosopher in my kids school books and it reminded me of my school days where we read about methods of learning via questioning. It must have taken a great deal of courage from that man to question and challenge the existing set ups and systems. As it turns out his methodology is what comes naturally to all of us in IT (constantly questioning and brainstorming on the best solutions).
Continue reading " What to ask about the Exadata machine before the purchase decision? " »
September 16, 2011
Asset Management in Electricity Distribution Utility: "The Challenges of Getting Softer"
Guest post by
Abhishek Prasad Verma, Lead Consultant, Infosys
Power sector historically has been late in adopting IT to enable and streamline its business processes. The same is evident in its archaic operations and built in inefficiencies. However recently there has been a considerable effort by the utilities to look for all available options to improve operational efficiency in various field of operation like customer services, metering, billing etc. for improved customer services & tariff rationalization. So is the case with Asset Management System. In the first wave of transformation, the industry is looking forward to go softer and leaner i.e. it is exploring IT to replace its "Hard Book" based archaic manual systems.
September 14, 2011
Four Types of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Users
Guest post by
Steven Stein, Principal Consultant, Infosys
I am proud to discuss this year at Oracle OpenWorld something we do as consultants for large organizations. This presentation was originally given during a state government implementation. State government reporting is like doing an implementation for 50 different major companies simultaneously. They all had complex statutory obligations, different legacy tools, and different user communities. The leadership of the implementation team wanted to better understand how OBIEE would be able to schedule reports, handle security for such a massive audience, integrate with their portal and ERP system, and what were the benefits of moving off the old tools such as SQR and Crystal. As our team prepared the presentation and were doing rehearsals, we kept switching from one persona to another, saying that the administrator would do this, and then the end user would see this, and these features would be like what an operational user would see, but a manager would want to see something else. My manager said, "why don't we split up this presentation into segments by four different personas." When we did this, it changed everything and made the whole thing so much clearer.
Continue reading " Four Types of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Users " »
September 13, 2011
Value Delivered By Value Chain Planning - Subcontracting Practices
Continue reading " Value Delivered By Value Chain Planning - Subcontracting Practices " »
Transporting into a Greener Supply Chain
Guest post by
Nipun Lakhotia, Consultant, Infosys
All organisations are bugged with 'Go Green' mantra. Carbon reduction is no longer an environmental decision that is forced upon as an obligation. Emergence of carbon trading and related economic benefits has evolved carbon emission reduction as one of the strategic decision. Even customers are willing to pay premium for offerings with greener credentials.
Backbone of any green supply chain is the green transportation processes - from planning to execution. As per report by leading supply chain journal, as much as 75 per cent of a company's carbon footprint comes from transportation and logistics alone. This provides a strong business case for incorporating mechanisms that reduce carbon footprint in transportation supply chain.
Continue reading " Transporting into a Greener Supply Chain " »
September 11, 2011
Risk Management Portfolio For A CMO
September 7, 2011
BACKUP and RECOVERY in EXADATA
Guest post by
Vinayak Gangadhar Kurdekar, Technology Lead, Infosys
Businesses today need to increasingly leverage a unified platform to host all their database and applications at one place. To meet this challenge, Oracle has designed the Exadata server technology that bundles database and applications together to provide high performance, high availability, scalability and throughput. Mere implementation of the exadata server and its components is not enough. Disasters can strike at anytime. To ensure survivability and safeguard against any major disasters, effective backup and recovery solution is a must. The backup and recovery strategy needs to be not only precise but proven in all aspects. To achieve this Oracle has come out with multiple backup and recovery solutions designed in-house and third party.
- Disk based backup and recovery.
- Tape based backup and recovery.
- Backup and recovery using dataguard.
September 5, 2011
Cloudanomics for Business Intelligence
Guest post by
Swati Maskara, Senior Associate Consultant, Infosys
The Economics of Cloud Computing is by now well established with its claim to reduce cost, improve efficiency and decrease time consumption when a cloud environment is used by a business.
With respect to Business Intelligence there is a need to understand dynamics of cloud computing for performing business analytics. The article intends to do so by addressing few questions around Cloud computing:
- How Cloud qualifies as an efficient platform for performing Business analytics?
- How is Cloud model different from SaaS?
- How organizations can derive maximum value from a Cloud setup and what are the major challenges?
The article discusses these aspects in detail to bring forth the view point that Cloud model for performing BI is undoubtedly going to restructure and modernize IT within organizations.
Continue reading " Cloudanomics for Business Intelligence " »
August 28, 2011
Establishing The Centroid Of Magic Triangle - Hitting the Bull's Eye of CMO Engagement
August 24, 2011
Can Social Media be the next big lever for Business Intelligence? - Part 3
Guest post by
Karan Chadha, Associate Consultant, Infosys
In Part 1 of this blog, I had talked about the immense potential that Social Media data holds for getting transformed into business insights. In Part 2 I moved on to discuss Social Media Intelligence (SMI) tools and the key value adds that they provide to Organizations. I will now move on to the piece that is the most relevant for us; the piece about integrating SMI tools with conventional reporting tools like OBIEE and establishing an integrated reporting environment; an environment which leverages insights from structured enterprise data as well as fluid social data.
Let me touch upon two facets of what is now broadly known as Social BI:
- Transforming generic insights offered by SMI tools into actionable customer specific insights
- Richer customer insights by leveraging social data in conjunction with traditional data
Continue reading " Can Social Media be the next big lever for Business Intelligence? - Part 3 " »
August 23, 2011
Oracle Mantas Next Generation UI is now under OFSAA
Guest post by
Sowjanya Achar, Associate Consultant, Infosys
Increasing financial crimes and money laundering activities across all sectors of the economy has necessitated government of every country to step up the vigil and make appropriate amendments to the law to curb such hideous acts and the grave consequences that occur on account of such crimes. Money laundering is a process through which illegal money is injected into the financial system in a systematic manner by disguising its true illegal origin and the usage of such funds for organized crimes such as terrorist financing, drug trafficking etc. It is in the purview of the regulators and financial institutions like banks to curb money laundering and so Anti-Money Laundering measures are at centre stage to curb financial crimes across the world.
Continue reading " Oracle Mantas Next Generation UI is now under OFSAA " »
August 18, 2011
Best Practices In Contract Manufacturing - Implementing An Operational Agenda
Continue reading " Best Practices In Contract Manufacturing - Implementing An Operational Agenda " »
August 15, 2011
ABC of Contract Manufacturing + Markowitz Theory = Depth of Cost Iceberg
Continue reading " ABC of Contract Manufacturing + Markowitz Theory = Depth of Cost Iceberg " »
August 8, 2011
Traits of a Green Supply Chain
There are certain attributes of a supply chain based on which the supply chain practices can be designated as Green Supply Chain. This blog is a result of the analysis of green supply chain initiatives of various companies. The blog describes the various innovative steps and business processes which are helping companies to have more aware and environmental friendly operations amd processes, making it more sustainable. These practices and steps indicates the traits of a supply chain being green and environmental friendly.
August 5, 2011
Contract To Kill - Focus on Core Competencies
Continue reading " Contract To Kill - Focus on Core Competencies " »
August 2, 2011
Online Insurance Distribution system - A win-win for Insurers as well as consumers
Guest post by
Kunal Girishrao Hedau, Senior Associate Consultant, Infosys
It has been for a while now that the Insurance Companies have identified the "Online channel" as one of the dominant lead generation channel as a measure of impacting overall sales. The dominance factor however has not been realized to the level that it should be.
July 31, 2011
Global Supply Chain Plan - Maximizing availability across geographies
Continue reading " Global Supply Chain Plan - Maximizing availability across geographies " »
July 29, 2011
Database and Application administration essential for Oracle E-Business Suite R12 upgrade
Guest post by
Umesh Tanna, Senior Technology Architect, Infosys
Oracle E-business suite R12 upgrade is a major project that organization undertakes. Functional, technical and infrastructure administration teams are the primary groups that are involved in upgrade project from IT department. Oracle Application Database Administration activities are very critical activities in upgrade project that is performed by Oracle Apps DBA. Following are most essential aspects of R12 upgrade project from the standpoint of Oracle Apps DBA.
July 27, 2011
KEP Strategy Is In Vogue
July 26, 2011
Oracle EBS Solution to E Publication Industry
Continue reading " Oracle EBS Solution to E Publication Industry " »
July 19, 2011
Centralized Procurement with Oracle Fusion
Introduction
With the business expanding across globes and with manufacturing organizations resorting to sub-contracting, there is a need for organizations to look at procurement beyond their current markets. This introduces the need for a centralized procurement function for better purchasing efficiency, better control over organization spend, and central and simpler management of contracts with suppliers. Oracle Fusion Procurement introduces new and better features that aid organizations to better manage their procurement functions. The following are the advantages of a centralized procurement function:
- Better control over organization spend
- Consolidated purchasing across business units
- Leverage volume discounts by consolidated demand
- Better supplier relationship management
- Single point of contact in buying organization for supplier
- Centralized contracts - easier implementation and better management
- Consolidated measurement of supplier performance
- Reduced overheads
Continue reading " Centralized Procurement with Oracle Fusion " »
July 15, 2011
OFSAA to measure Hedge Effectiveness !
Guest post by
Bhuvaneswari Venkataraman, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Infosys
In one of our recent workshops conducted (during February 2011) for a financial Institution, we were showcasing a complete banking solution including OFSAA for risk Management. While explaining the capabilities of OFSAA in Risk Management perspective, one key stake holder from client Group posed a question 'Can we check Hedge effectiveness with OFSAA?' To that, my intuitive reply was "NO. Not at this point of time. But I believe this would be available in future version". Little did I know then, that my reply will be proved right very soon?
Continue reading " OFSAA to measure Hedge Effectiveness ! " »
July 14, 2011
Roads Apart - Yet Worlds Apart
July 6, 2011
Enterprise Mobility Trends to Watch For
Guest post by
Amit Zutshi, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Infosys
How fast things can change and how quickly innovations can alter the competitive and business landscape is playing itself out best in the mobility arena today. Taking a real life example, I was witness to my friend's smartphone search and subsequent order from a manufacturer whom he was shunning as recently as four months back. At almost USD 700, it was not the cheapest phone on the block and hence "value-for-money" was definitely not a driving factor to embrace a hitherto novice in the smartphone domain. Visibly much happier now, my friend can't stop gushing about how his phone beats the wits out of the pioneer in its space. So, what happened in just four months?
Continue reading " Enterprise Mobility Trends to Watch For " »
July 4, 2011
Power of Empowering - The new perspective of ERP implementations
Continue reading " Power of Empowering - The new perspective of ERP implementations " »
July 2, 2011
TEAR Factors to Gauge ROI of Big Ticket Engagements
Continue reading " TEAR Factors to Gauge ROI of Big Ticket Engagements " »
June 29, 2011
Solutions for Linear Asset Management - A Data Model for Definiing the Linear Assets
June 28, 2011
Myriad of options for migration to Exadata
Guest post by
Rohit Kaul, Senior Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Infosys
We all know about Exadata as a fast and scalable database solution for most of the enterprise applications. So the next natural question would be - what is the best migration path from current version, platform to the Exadata platform. The basic thought to keep in mind is simply that the target platform is always fixed and would always be an Oracle database version 11gR2 with ASM on a Linux platform (Oracle Enterprise Linux x86_64 (OEL5)) or on Solaris Express - So it is to be treated like just another migration from an Oracle DB/non-Oracle database to another Oracle 11gR2 database on OEL5/Solaris Express platform. So before one embarks on the migration journey one needs to make sure that the application is certified on Oracle database 11gR2. In this blog, I will cover a few preferred migration options and not the exhaustive list, since there would be multiple permutations/ combinations of other possible options considering several factors.
Continue reading " Myriad of options for migration to Exadata " »
June 27, 2011
Emerging Trends in Publication Industry
Publishing industry of yesteryears consisted of developing content and selling them as books, journals etc. The customer had two choices either to buy it or not buy it. They did not have the opportunity to check the contents of the book / chapters of the book for a limited time before buying it or for that matter buying only a portion of the book. The publishers at maximum had variants like paper back, hard cover, soft cover with minor price difference to cater to different segments of customers. The business processes of a publisher were mainly related to Sourcing content, Printing the content and selling books / journals from warehouse.
Continue reading " Emerging Trends in Publication Industry " »
June 22, 2011
Shifting trends in Risk Management in Financial services market, OFSAA to play key role!
Guest post by
Ankush Agrawal, Associate Consultant, Oracle Practice, Infosys
Risk management has always been of prime importance for any industry and more for financial services markets. The financial crisis exposed inherent weaknesses in the risk management system, like outdated systems and processes, poor decision-making, inadequate forecasting, and reporting structures. The negative impact of these flaws on many institutions shocked the industry, and as a result, there has been a shift in attitude toward risk and it has started getting more attention.
June 21, 2011
Thinking beyond Rigid Scheduled Maintenance
Guest post by
Abhishek Prasad Verma, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys
Assets are the lifeline for a Power Utility Company. Considerable amount of money is spent in ensuring their availability, longevity and efficiency for power generation/transmission or distribution as this has a direct impact on the top-line and bottom-line of any company. Assets not maintained well can result in accidents causing huge indirect losses in form of penalties and/or compensation.
Continue reading " Thinking beyond Rigid Scheduled Maintenance " »
June 20, 2011
Oracle Exadata - A platform for consolidation (Part-2)
Guest post by
Umesh Tanna, Senior Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys
In Part-1 of this blog we found that Exadata has many features that facilitates database consolidation. This blogs describes those features and explains how it helps in database consolidation.
Database Resource Manager (DBRM)
If we are consolidating multiple databases say for ex. A and B into a single database AB, DBRM would help us control how much resources to allocate to process/programs/sessions of A and B while they run in shared database AB. Basically this enables us to control how CPU are shared amongst A and B and also establish the priorities. This is implemented with what is known as resource allocation scheme amongst the consumer groups defined within database. Also the allocation scheme changes are dynamic i.e. we can have one resource allocation scheme effective during business hours and can have different during after business hours.
Continue reading " Oracle Exadata - A platform for consolidation (Part-2) " »
June 7, 2011
Oracle BI Apps - What are customers interested in?
Guest post by
Rajesh Dhanapal, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd
In the current era the customers are not interested to wait for months and years for BI project implementation. The customers are keen on quick wins rather than implementing the BI solution from scratch by following traditional BI approach. The Oracle BI Apps solution provides head start for the organisation to reach the to-be state quicker with reduced time and effort, and reduced risk.
Continue reading " Oracle BI Apps - What are customers interested in? " »
June 6, 2011
Oracle Fusion Applications - Are you still looking for answers?
Guest post by
Mukesh Nakra, Senior Program Manager and GTM Director-Oracle Fusion Applications, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Tough market competition is putting pressure on organizations in terms of process standardization and access to integrated information. With the availability of the internet and all online content adapting to the Web 2.0 standards, employees and organizations are expecting systems that support businesses to adapt to these standards and new technologies. Oracle supports multiple ERP packages like Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and Seibel to name a few. Taking advantage of the evolution and availability of new technology platforms and with a vision to standardize the applications, both from a usability and technological basis, Oracle Fusion Applications were created.
Continue reading " Oracle Fusion Applications - Are you still looking for answers? " »
May 30, 2011
FTS Needs Leads To KEP Strategy, Involving a WMS, ROI Follows
Continue reading " FTS Needs Leads To KEP Strategy, Involving a WMS, ROI Follows " »
May 19, 2011
Typical Challenges faced in Implementing Meter Data Management Systems in Utility Distribution Space - Indian Context
Guest post by
Dilesh Deepak Dattani, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
A lot of Indian companies in Utility Space have either already started or in the process of starting implementation of IT Systems to which would help in increasing their operational efficiency and reducing costs. In this post I would like to highlight some of the typical challenges which we come across in such implementation projects in India.
May 18, 2011
Viability of Big Ticket WMS Engagements
Continue reading " Viability of Big Ticket WMS Engagements " »
May 13, 2011
OBIEE 11g Security Architecture Overview - Gateway to Enterprise BI
Guest post by
Harish Ajjarapu, Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) is a comprehensive solution platform for enterprise business intelligence, including a scalable and efficient query and analysis server, an ad-hoc query and analysis tool, interactive dashboards, proactive intelligence and alerts, real-time predictive intelligence, and an enterprise reporting engine. Recent release of OBIEE 11g has moved one step ahead in terms of completeness, scalability and integrated the security with Middleware products like Web logic being added to the mix. Earlier versions of OBIEE (up till 10.1.3.x) while having Object and Data level security, it was often prone to tweaks and workarounds to achieve the Role Based Security using various authorization mechanisms.
In this blog, I hope to discuss the level of scalability Oracle has provided with respect to Object and Data Level Security in OBIEE and highlight the out-of-box Role Based security features of the product.
Continue reading " OBIEE 11g Security Architecture Overview - Gateway to Enterprise BI " »
May 11, 2011
Oracle Exadata - A platform for consolidation (Part-1)
Guest post by
Umesh Tanna, Senior Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Consolidation is one of the many key reasons for deploying and using Exadata. Oracle Exadata is an appliance - hardware and software bundled and engineered to provide maximum performance. It is a database machine that is purpose built and integrated. True, that there are high end systems that are best suited to be replaced by Exadata platform considering the growth and performance need of those system. However, by design, Exadata offers high end configuration and specification which not all types of Oracle database application that today runs in IT department need. Hence, solid business case can be built for those systems if, some type of consolidation solution is considered which can simplify, increase availability and performance and ultimately reduce total cost of ownership.
Continue reading " Oracle Exadata - A platform for consolidation (Part-1) " »
May 3, 2011
Role of Testing in successful project implementation
Guest post by
Amit Tuteja, Senior Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
I was lucky to be part of one of the complex Oracle implementations done by Infosys Oracle Practice in Retail industry. During my work with this large retailer I got the opportunity to work on design phase and later got involved in testing phase. Most of us understand and realize the importance of Testing in any implementation but in this blog I would like to emphasize how a well planned Testing phase increased Management/ Stakeholders confidence and paved the way for a successful Implementation.
Continue reading " Role of Testing in successful project implementation " »
May 1, 2011
What happens in the Warehouse stays in the Warehouse
Continue reading " What happens in the Warehouse stays in the Warehouse " »
April 29, 2011
Extrapolative Analytics for Staffing Industry
Guest post by
Sandeep Suresh Deshpande, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
A large part of a Staffing branch's daily activities include communications with customers, applicants, and other contacts. Typically the volume of applicants that a recruiter will work with at any given time can be quite large. At the same time, they are also working with large volumes of orders. The ability to match an employee or applicant to an order in a timely manner is the key to the success of a recruiter.
Continue reading " Extrapolative Analytics for Staffing Industry " »
April 28, 2011
Automation of Business Process Management
Guest post by
Vamsi Neti, Systems Engineer, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Change is inevitable. I was wondering how big a step required to process and manage the change. Business is not an exception, to be in the market accept the truth and "change the business constantly". Here is a real-time example of business change happening today, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. A big shopping mall wants to open its new store, to sustain the competition it has planned to use RFID tags on stock (which enables stores to identify and track item in the supply chain automatically and make the customer to use virtual cart). This action has sent employees scrambling to learn about the wireless technology, ordering signage, requisitioning products and launching a PR campaign to coincide with the opening. All of these tasks need to be completed on a schedule. The implementation is very complex due to very high cost, time taking process and risk involved in designing the strategy to respond to market changes instantly.
Continue reading " Automation of Business Process Management " »
April 27, 2011
Transportation Management 2.0: The road ahead
Guest post by
Nipun Lakhotia, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Transportation Management Systems (TMS) have come a long way from home grown systems primarily aimed to reduce freight spend to highly advanced optimization systems. Let's have a look at some of the most sought after features offered by next generation TMS.
Continue reading " Transportation Management 2.0: The road ahead " »
April 26, 2011
Getting the maximum value from BI Applications
Guest post by
Anand N P N, Consultant - Business Intelligence, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Oracle BI Applications has been in the market for a long time now and has matured as a packaged solution offering over the years. However, as more and more clients choose to implement BI Applications, the question still is - are they making an informed choice? The second major concern is - Is the implementation leveraging the best features of the OBI Apps?
Continue reading " Getting the maximum value from BI Applications " »
April 25, 2011
Best May Not Be Best, Sometimes !!
April 21, 2011
On-the-go Computing for Enterprise Mobility
Continue reading " On-the-go Computing for Enterprise Mobility " »
April 20, 2011
CSR@Green Supply Chain
April 1, 2011
Accelerated Approach of BI
Guest post by
Samrat Vangari, Systems Engineer, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Amidst soaring competition, meeting needs of a customer no more solely define Business. There is an addition "Accelerated Approach" to complete the definition of business. Adaptively, Business Intelligence restraining its familiarity and to curve it upwards, is all set with its comprehensive and Accelerated Approach.
March 30, 2011
Top 5 things that can make or break your EPM application integration program
Guest post by
Navpreet Singh, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Late 2009 and 2010 witnessed quite a few mergers as economies took a U-turn from the trough of sluggishness. Now, with gloominess having ostensibly bottomed out, corporate restructuring is likely to regain momentum. Amidst M&A, the "soft" element of integrating human culture remains paramount during any change management process. These challenges get magnified by the existence of non-uniform standards and discrete IT support systems amongst merging entities.
Continue reading " Top 5 things that can make or break your EPM application integration program " »
March 29, 2011
Can we integrate existing Oracle Forms Applications with Oracle Fusion Middleware?
Guest post by
Rinku Das, Project Manager, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
What is the future of Oracle Forms applications? Is Oracle going to support Oracle Forms in near future? There are many such questions worrying the developers working on forms and the customers using forms in their applications. All these are scary questions for application developers who are working on Oracle Forms for a long time and are not familiar with Java. These developers may not be in a position to immediately migrate/move to new technologies/tools like ADF, Fusion Middleware and SOA. These are the common debates now-a-days amongst Oracle developers.
March 24, 2011
Questions a CIO must ask before going for an 'On Demand' Solution
Guest post by
Kartik Kamalakar Deshmukh, Senior Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Having been part of the 'brick and mortar' industry in the initial years of my career, I have always appreciated the pace of innovations and customer centric solutions that the Information technology sector has been offering its customers. Equally importantly, the customers too have been extremely receptive to these innovations and ready to experiment with newer technologies and solutions.
Continue reading " Questions a CIO must ask before going for an 'On Demand' Solution " »
March 19, 2011
Responsive Supply Chain is a Responsible Supply Chain: A Green Initiative
Continue reading " Responsive Supply Chain is a Responsible Supply Chain: A Green Initiative " »
March 17, 2011
Importance of Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway
Guest post by
Rinku Das, Project Manager, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
With the introduction of Oracle Fusion Middleware technology, technical consultants who are mainly working on E-Business Suite started questioning how to expose Oracle business interfaces (like Business Events, PL/SQL, XML Gateway, etc) built using multiple technologies as Web Services and also how to invoke & consume external Web Services. The answer to such questions is YES. This is feasible using Integrated SOA Gateway available in Oracle E-Business Suite R12.1.
Continue reading " Importance of Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway " »
Managing uncertainty in deploying a Data Warehouse
Guest post by
Debapratim Dutta, Lead Consultant- Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
A few weeks back I woke up with the morning newspaper, and was surprised to discover that my sun sign has got changed! The news article explained that according to latest astronomical discovery there is now a 13th zodiac sign, instead of the long held astrological belief that there were only 12. The newly identified constellation which is between Scorpio and Sagittarius is called Ophiuchus. Before I could finish reading the entire news article, a friend of mine called up and sounding highly disappointed, informed me that from now onwards she will be happy to throw the morning newspapers' horoscopes in the bin. Co-incidentally, the day before that, the CRO of a reputed bank in an informal call told me, that from now onwards he will have to throw away many of the risk reports to the bin as most of the sophisticated risk models developed in the past are no longer accepted as valid by the regulators. Sounding equally disappointed as my horoscope savvy friend, the CRO wanted to know whether we can advise some solution to him, as they got to now re-do the entire risk data warehouse to cope up with new regulatory standards announced under Basel III.
Continue reading " Managing uncertainty in deploying a Data Warehouse " »
March 16, 2011
Total Project Estimation - Business Time Requirement Estimation
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Principal Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In the previous installment we discussed how to arrive at the effort estimate for the implementation team based on the complexity of the technical components underlying. These effort estimates can also be used to arrive at time requirements for the business IT counterparts (Business System Analysts and Business Technical Leads). We can pair them with their implementation team members and use a percentage of that effort. However we are missing a key portion of the implementation effort. BUSINESS TIME REQUIREMENTS.
Continue reading " Total Project Estimation - Business Time Requirement Estimation " »
March 15, 2011
How to measure ROI for SOA projects? A Tollway Approach
Guest post by
Prasad Jayakumar, Technical Lead, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Early morning I was hitting I-94W to meet my client in Milwaukee. I wish I had my I-PASS; toll varied from 25 cents to little more than a dollar. I was wondering "Why not the government builds the infrastructure out of tax collected and let us free?" Immediately I realized my ignorance. My discussion topic with client was "How to measure ROI for SOA Projects?" It was a meeting to see if we can present benefit of SOA in a tangible way to business. I was wondering if the toll way could answer the question.
Continue reading " How to measure ROI for SOA projects? A Tollway Approach " »
March 9, 2011
The Power Of Oracle Life Sciences Data Hub (LSH)
Guest post by
Nobendu Roy, Senior Project Manager, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
We know that LSH is a clinical data integration platform, but it can also be used as a computing environment that gives tremendous power and flexibility to a PLSQL programmer to extend the functionalities.
Continue reading " The Power Of Oracle Life Sciences Data Hub (LSH) " »
March 8, 2011
Challenges Faced in Global ERP Implementations -Like Crossing A Sea?
Continue reading " Challenges Faced in Global ERP Implementations -Like Crossing A Sea? " »
Total Project Estimation- Non Developmental Time estimation
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Principal Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
As they say "A journey of a thousand miles begins but with just one step" so too any Implementation project begins but with its estimation. Many a project flounder due to inaccurate estimates made to start with. Without an accurate estimation of effort and timeline it's difficult, if not impossible, to allocate the correct resources to the project or determine milestone dates and phase durations.
Continue reading " Total Project Estimation- Non Developmental Time estimation " »
March 7, 2011
Supply Chain Best Practices: Reduced TCO via Best Of Breed or ERP WMS
Continue reading " Supply Chain Best Practices: Reduced TCO via Best Of Breed or ERP WMS " »
March 4, 2011
Need to Avoid Web Asset Proliferation? Oracle Portal and other Oracle Products can help you Rationalization Web Assets
Guest post by
Ravisankar Nagavarapu, Technology Lead, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In today's world most of the organizations are going for complex integrations of heterogeneous contents on their websites. This is resulting in scattered web content and scattered information is very difficult to manage and maintain.
Oracle Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Oracle Portal Life cycle management make it easy for the developers/organizations to bring heterogeneous content from different web assets on to a single platform. The open nature of the architecture and the standards provided by the tools help organizations to plan their future for rationalized web assets.
February 26, 2011
Trends in Supply Chain Practice: XDock- From Mundane To Magic
Cross Docking is the balancing fulcrum between the Dock to Stock and Direct Store Delivery approach as we have discussed earlier. There are certain tenets of successful cross docking implementation and its best fitment.
Continue reading " Trends in Supply Chain Practice: XDock- From Mundane To Magic " »
February 22, 2011
Oracle SOA 11g - One Less, One More
Guest post by
Prasad Jayakumar, Technical Lead, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd
One Less, One More™ - "one less negative thought or action, and one more positive thought or action, and soon our lives will be less stressful, and if practiced as a community [...] would move in the direction of our collective goals, dreams and desires" by Robbie Vorhaus, Communications, crisis and reputation advisor.
Oracle acquired many best-of-breed products on SOA landscape may be for architecture excellence or for concept/idea or for market share or to fill the void or based on some other strategy which only acquisition experts know. But, what's interesting is how Oracle managed to unify all the acquired products and paved a path to Success as a corporate and for Oracle SOA practitioners.
Integrated Operations and Services Planning
Continue reading " Integrated Operations and Services Planning " »
February 21, 2011
Supply Chain Planning and Logistics integration
There was a time, not so long ago, when various business functions within the enterprises used to function in silos and that was still ok. Simply because that was the norm of the day. Not any more though. In today's competitive environment, managers are continuously looking for avenues to cut costs without compromising service.
Unless the functions in the enterprise collaborate, those objectives are highly likely to fall flat on their face. It is like building a tunnel. If two teams start digging from either side of the mountain without working with each other, the probability of them finding each other half way down is pretty low. What the enterprises need in such situations are systems and processes which work across the functions to recommend what's in the best interests of the enterprise. Availability of better systems is a big enabler in this aspect.
Continue reading " Supply Chain Planning and Logistics integration " »
February 18, 2011
Do we need SOA Governance ?
Guest post by
Prasad Jayakumar, Technical Lead, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In my recent client discussion the ever pondering question popped up, "Do we need SOA Governance?" Definite YES, I told without second thought. If they would have asked me "Do we need SOA?" the answer would have been based on whether business is ok to WALK or wants to DRIVE. Since the question was about governance, it is as simple as saying "If you want to drive safely, better hold a valid driving license."
February 17, 2011
GST: The supply chain and Logistics angle
Guest post by
Nipun Lakhotia, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Supply chains are generally designed to optimize resources and provide better customer service. But in India, supply chain design decisions are mostly driven by financial considerations - especially tax implications. Let me explain this in detail.
In India, interstate sale of goods attracts central sale tax (CST), in addition to local sales tax (VAT). Due to this dual taxation, manufacturers tend to open several small warehouses in each state and perform simple stock transfer between their manufacturing plant & these warehouses. In this process, they save on CST and only pay local tax while making sale to the end customer. Hence tax implications over shadows classic principles of warehouse design like location, capacity, storage, transportation cost etc.
Continue reading " GST: The supply chain and Logistics angle " »
February 13, 2011
Supply Chain Best Practices For Store Based Retailers - Reverse Logistics
It may leave many of us agape, but it is widely understood that retailers and distributors end up loosing close to 15% of sales revenues handling returns each year. A return has much more to it than mere waste management. In my last blog I had discussed on the probability of return as a function of multiple variables. Unless handled properly, returns could have a severe adverse impact on the bottom line of any retail organization. Concept of reverse logistics first surfaced in the 1980's, it is not new. But it may have been only well understood by proactive organizations or those smitten by the return bug.
Continue reading " Supply Chain Best Practices For Store Based Retailers - Reverse Logistics " »
February 10, 2011
Who holds the key to success in ERP led business transformation programs
Many analysis has been done and many artifacts written about the success of the ERP projects but the question which primarily remains unanswered and less explored is who holds the key to success of the program.
Continue reading " Who holds the key to success in ERP led business transformation programs " »
January 29, 2011
Mirror Images of Sales and Returns
Quality relates to perception as they say, and profit links a dollar value to this perception. Sales and return are the two sides of the same coin. They depict and demonstrate the extent of both quality and profit hand in hand. While returns trickle in throughout the year, for many consumer goods retailers the annual holiday season is characterized by an flurry of returns. Successful organizations around the world provide an easy opportunity to the customers to return the products. It is a fact that many customers prefer to shop at stores that offer the best returns policy along with bargain pricing.
January 20, 2011
Does Business understand that 21st Century Business means SOA!
Guest post by
Malay Kumar, Principal Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Lot has been said and written on SOA, but are we successful in educating Business. Why is SOA good for smarter business? Unless Business understands and adopts SOA, we will still struggle to create value for our clients. SOA enables the business to focus on business and allows IT to evolve in this ever changing world.
Continue reading " Does Business understand that 21st Century Business means SOA! " »
January 17, 2011
CRM Shifts in the Age of Digital Consumers and Social Media
In 1999, P&G launched Reflect.com, an online retailer of health and beauty products, that raised the bar for personalized products and service. It enabled women to create their own make-up, skincare and haircare products by choosing from a wide range of colors, fragrances and ingredients. It may have been an idea ahead of its time (Reflect.com shut down in 2005), but consumers are now taking a leaf out of P&G's book.
Continue reading " CRM Shifts in the Age of Digital Consumers and Social Media " »
January 11, 2011
System integration during M&A: How much to integrate?
Guest post by
Ashwani Arora, Senior Project Manager - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
The leadership team at the level of CIO needs to take control of the situation immediately after a merger is announced and since emphasis is on speed, most critical decisions related to IT integration are finalized during this short period of time and with many unknowns to start with. One of the key areas which attracts lot of attraction and effort during M&A is to determine how much to integrate the technology, which systems and hardware to keep, what data to keep, and in what systems.
I will discuss below some key factors which are considered while laying out the long term plan for technology integration. There can be many more scenarios as we go to next level of planning details, but the below are the ones that will most likely come up in CIO level discussions immediately after a merger is announced! Also many times tradeoffs need to be made among these factors to achieve the larger business goal of the acquisition.
Continue reading " System integration during M&A: How much to integrate? " »
January 9, 2011
Cross Dock- The Seesaw Between D2S and DSD
Retail sector has clearly demonstrated the practice and implementation of cross docking. Whereas, it is difficult to find many examples of true cross docking outside of the retail sector.
Continue reading " Cross Dock- The Seesaw Between D2S and DSD " »
January 5, 2011
Tapping the un-fathomed benefits of Oracle Applications through Oracle E+ (Efficiency Plus)
Guest post by
Murali Krishna Somisetty, Principal Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
It's easy, It's wholesome and its efficient and mind you, we are not talking about a new module of Oracle applications here. We are talking about how effectively different Oracle modules can penetrate into a company's business process effectively, for not only maintaining regular transaction data but also to help in various other aspects which any normal end user wouldn't dream of.
Our rendering of Oracle E+ series will be an inimitable blogging experience by itself. It will encourage innovation by making people think, 'oh how did I miss this and what if I used it this way?' This series will emphasize about how Oracle modules can be an excellent facilitator to manage the Oracle Applications ERP Program itself and the business needs which are not exactly application related. These guidelines and techniques can be used either during or after implementation. The initial blog posts will concentrate on what can be used 'post implementation' and later blog posts will cover what can be used 'during the implementation' phases. They also cover important aspects for such considerations and the preparation required by organizations before practicing them.
December 31, 2010
Ready for a Joint New Year's Resolution?
Continue reading " Ready for a Joint New Year's Resolution? " »
December 26, 2010
Picking SMARTLY, Aren't You?
Picking is the deemed to be the most important activity in the Warehouse Management as it is cost-intensive. Order picking in most distribution centers represents the largest area of cost, often said to account for more than 50% of labor costs. Due to the nature of distribution and fulfillment there are more outbound transactions than inbound transactions, and the labor associated with the outbound transactions is likely a big piece of the total warehouse labor budget. Another reason for the high level of importance placed on order picking operations is its direct connection to customer satisfaction. The ability to quickly and accurately process customer orders has become an essential part of doing business. In my earlier blogs on picking I have touched upon multiple dimensions of effective picking in relation to warehouse design in order to achieve operational efficiencies. Study conducted by Norman Saenz in past can be put to use to carefully analyze tenets of effective picking. Retailers around the world can reconsider their picking approach holistically to get a step closer to being a world class organization. We extend the SMART (Simple Methods to Achieve Rapid Throughput) ways to perform the picking operation SMARTLY in a warehouse.
December 22, 2010
Smart Phones to Smart Shopping?
Guest post by
Shankar Viswanathan, Principal Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
With the advent of smartphones, 3G/4G technologies and the increasing trend of consumers wanting to spend lesser time shopping at the traditional brick and mortar stores, it is not a surprise that "Mobile Commerce" is touted to be the next wave. Mobile phone manufacturers are planning to launch devices that enable these transactions, industry standards are being drafted to make this happen and there are new applications being launched everyday by zealous entrepreneurs looking to cash in on the impending boom.
December 17, 2010
If Warren Buffett was a CIO, he would invest in the cloud
Warren Buffett needs no introduction. He has few peers when it comes to selecting stocks that deliver exceptional returns. He is equally well known for shying away from stocks of technology companies. At the 2000 annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, he stated, "It is not that we don't understand a technology business or its product. The reason we don't invest is because we can't understand the predictability of the economics ten years hence."
Trust Warren Buffett to deconstruct technology from a buyer's standpoint.
Continue reading " If Warren Buffett was a CIO, he would invest in the cloud " »
December 16, 2010
Moving towards Excellence in Maintenance - Predictive Maintenance & Reliability Centered Maintenance
Guest post by
Ankita Nagpal, Senior Associate Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Maintenance, in all its essence, is an absolutely indispensable activity for all organizations today. Downtimes or any damage due to malfunctioning of an equipment are most expensive and thus an immense squeeze in the profits. Almost each and every organization across industries have woken up to this fact and employ some or the other maintenance system.
Furthermore to just having a system in place to take care of the maintenance activities, organizations today are moving towards most intelligent and sophisticated methods of maintenance viz. Predictive Maintenance and Reliability Centered Maintenance.
December 15, 2010
Need to develop more productive JAVA applications? ADF proves to be the best solution !
Guest post by
Vyshnavi Allamsetty, System Engineer - AIA Center of Excellence, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In today's competitive market place, the organizations have to concentrate on building robust, maintainable and high performing applications in order to withstand the competition. In addition, they need to build composite applications which adhere to standard principles and reduce human effort. This need of various organizations forced the S/W developers to build extremely agile applications and in order to implement the best practices in applications, the developers have to write loads of code.
December 13, 2010
Mobilizing the Enterprise- Strategies, Technologies and Organization Readiness - Part 4
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Lead Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
We have till now discussed about the imperatives of mobilizing the enterprise, the basic configurations that are broadly adopted by organizations, the stages and types of enterprise mobility and the implementation considerations before an organization begins its enterprise mobilization journey. We will now round off the discussion with a look at the future and challenges.
December 6, 2010
Mobilizing the Enterprise- Strategies, Technologies and Organization Readiness - Part 3
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Lead Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In the previous installment we discussed about the stages and types of enterprise mobility. In this installment we will discuss about implementation considerations before an organization begins its enterprise mobilization journey.
December 5, 2010
"I" Am A SMART Retailer
Cross docking is a common practice amongst the retailers and has been widely acknowledged to provide operational efficiencies and scales of economies. In my earlier blog I had mentioned about the warehouse shape and size and how it relates to effective cross docking practices. Let us take this discussion a little further.
November 30, 2010
Mobilizing the Enterprise- Strategies, Technologies and Organization Readiness - Part 2
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Lead Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
In the previous installment we discussed about the imperatives of mobilizing the enterprise and the basic configurations that are broadly adopted by organizations. In this installment we will discuss the stages and types of enterprise mobility.
November 29, 2010
How 'closed' is closed-loop-marketing?
Guest post by
Nitin Lehri, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
So many times we casually make use of the term "Closed-loop-Marketing" without fully realizing its actual meaning. Most of us may have not, but I am sure people who are associated with Marketing related services, would have used this jargon. Several clients limit themselves to the response which they receive against the myriad offers they roll out to customers. Further they content themselves with response rate figures derived as part of post roll-out reviews of campaigns. Clients, banking on IT applications, will actually realize the benefits of closed-loop only when they can see the conversions coming in.
Continue reading " How 'closed' is closed-loop-marketing? " »
November 26, 2010
Mobilizing the Enterprise- Strategies, Technologies and Organization Readiness - Part 1
Guest post by
Jaideep Ranjan Vijayakar, Lead Consultant - Banking and Capital Markets, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Increasing productivity of employees who spend a majority of their time away from the office /desk is THE BUSINESS IMPERATIVE in today's world. Enterprise mobility is one of the enablers for this objective. Enterprise Mobility, put simplistically, transforms "Work" from 'some place you go", to "something you do". It is about providing employees with a technology platform which will enable them to work, "when" they want to work and "where" they want to work, in a secure, compliant and risk managed way.
November 22, 2010
Am I on the right path for my Social Media Strategy?
Guest post by
Aniruddha Suresh Parwekar, Principal Consultant- Business Intelligence, Oracle practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Most people make haste in getting on to "Social Media" bandwagon. They want to ensure that their organization has presence on all the key social networking portals and also put in a sincere attempt to lead a discussion or two before the initiative gets fizzled out. Why does this happen? If I am a business executive, I would invest only in that activity where I get the biggest or at least some bang for my buck. And I would question, with participation in the social media, am I generating additional sales? Am I able to provide better service to my customers and prospects? Is my company image getting better? Am I generating more Word-of-mouth? Am I engaging prospects and customers on a new idea or co-creation? This is very similar to what many organizations did in late nineties when "e-commerce" was the buzzword and every company thought, mere presence on the net would boost their sales. What went wrong? STRATEGY!!!
Continue reading " Am I on the right path for my Social Media Strategy? " »
November 20, 2010
Are you a SMART Retailer ??
Cross docking has gained popularity amongst the retailers and has been widely acknowledged to provide operational efficiencies and scales of economies. A key business imperative for the retail industry is quick turnaround and cross docking proves to be a definite enabler.
November 15, 2010
Upgrade to Fusion is like relocating your household till it gets in final shape. Oracle R12 Financials or Fusion Financials, What's the Upgrade path to choose?
Existing customers on 11i are in a jinx on what is the right step to do? Most of them do not want to pay the premium support cost of Oracle 11i and also want to shift to the latest technology and functionalities. However with Oracle announcing the release of Fusion early next year here are some pointers on whether one should go for R12 V/s Fusion
November 8, 2010
Looking for the most cost-effective and complete content management platform? Use Oracle Content Management
In today's scenario, organizations are facing many problems in managing content with nearly 80% of the unstructured information, lots of content duplication and spending around 15-20% of the operating revenue in fixing problems that arouse from inappropriate data.
To maximize content management efficiency, improve security and reduce costs, organizations need a comprehensive enterprise content management solution that fits easily with their business processes. Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g meets these demands delivering the high performance and scalability required to face the challenging enterprise content management environments.
November 7, 2010
Task Of Avoiding Stock Outs- Task Management
Out of Stock is a common problem that has smitten retailers immemorial. It is a part and parcel of the industry dynamics. One of the core WMS concepts can come in really handy and act as a panacea.
Continue reading " Task Of Avoiding Stock Outs- Task Management " »
November 6, 2010
Consignment Pull Operations For Lean Supply Chain
Consignment operations at a typical HTDM organization form an integral part of the sales process. It is a strategic operation both from volume and revenue standpoint.
Continue reading " Consignment Pull Operations For Lean Supply Chain " »
November 1, 2010
IFRS with Oracle - What standard and solutions impact the most?
Introduction of new regulations or changes in existing regulations at local or international level can lead to drastic changes for an enterprise. IFRS is one such change which would change the financial statements for ever. US markets would also be affected starting 2013 though SEC is yet to make any decisions on the start date as to when to adopt IFRS.
The key IFRS differences which would have big impact on US companies are:
1. Consolidation, Associates and Joint Ventures
2. Property Plant and Equipment
3. Employee Retirement Benefits
4. Borrowing Costs
5. Inventory valuation
Though oracle claims that it is ready for IFRS with multiple solution options like Sub ledger accounting, Oracle General Ledger or Hyperion Financial Management, some key solutions would have to be worked as per the client situation. The most complex solutions to design would be Fixed Assets and Inventories since these solutions would have sub ledger level impact
No ERP package provides an out of box solution to immediately converge to IFRS especially at sub ledger level. However let's look at some of the features of Oracle R12 which can be used at sub ledger level to achieve asset componentization and thereby comply with IFRS standard on Property plant and Equipment
Continue reading " IFRS with Oracle - What standard and solutions impact the most? " »
October 25, 2010
Dynamics Of HTDM In Asian Markets
Responsive supply chains are no more just a jargon. More and more organizations are adopting this route in order to stay competitive in this era of globalization. Last few years have seen economic downturn and thereby a trend of consolidations. There have been many a mergers and acquisitions.
October 23, 2010
On Demand WMS For Responsive Supply Chain
When an organization engages in systematic, purposeful acts, using and stretching its abilities to the maximum, it cannot help but feel positive and confident abut itself. I firmly believe that by stretching yourself beyond your perceived level of confidence you accelerate your development of competence. It holds good equally good for an organization that is a living individual.
Continue reading " On Demand WMS For Responsive Supply Chain " »
October 7, 2010
Emerging Disconnects in the Traditional Sales Pipeline
Continue reading " Emerging Disconnects in the Traditional Sales Pipeline " »
October 6, 2010
Harmonize to Globalize
Per many researches conducted pan globe, companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of rolling out standardized WMS processes across their national and global warehouses. Popularly referred to as WMS unification, this initiative is typically triggered from a need to streamline processes by extending best practices from the industry or within the organization to all the storage locations. This delves into the outline, benefits and implementation perspectives to design the "Right" WMS instance strategy for organizations having geographically distributed warehouses on the road to a WMS unification exercise. Hence the choice of an appropriate WMS for an organization will act as a positive catalyst and enabler.
September 26, 2010
Pick Effectively To Get Pricked Minimally
A day in life of a warehouse involves labor intensive and system dependant activities. I have earlier written on multiple dimensions of inbound logistics, putaway and detailed receiving. Put-away is getting material and putting it in the storage areas of the warehouse. It accounts for 15% of the total costs as many a research have spelled but picking is exactly the opposite and it costs more than 3 times of putaway.
Continue reading " Pick Effectively To Get Pricked Minimally " »
September 20, 2010
Demand to Deliver Solution: The Panacea for Supply Chain Disruptions
Continue reading " Demand to Deliver Solution: The Panacea for Supply Chain Disruptions " »
September 19, 2010
Competition Powering Utilities: Is it the competition that is driving the utilities towards newer and bigger initiatives ?
Competition that has conventionally been a stranger to the utilities has now great influence over the utilities business across the world. Although different geographies are into different phases of evolution, competition is only gaining more relevance across. Another significant positive change is the increasing adoption of information technology, more specifically the connect of typical operational systems such as SCADA, PMS, NMS etc with the enterprise wide IT systems such as asset management, billing and customer care. A whole new set of systems such as Automatic Metering Interface (AMI), Meter Data Management (MDM), Distribution Management System (DMS), Outage Management System (OMS) although still evolving, has played its role in achieving this connect. Continuing the change is clearly visible trend, a long journey ahead which takes the initiated utilities toward Smart meter, Smart grid and smart customers.
I was wondering how much credit goes to the competition for all this action that mark the state of the utilities today? Is it the competition that is driving the utilities towards newer and bigger initiatives ?
September 15, 2010
Are your company's sales and operations planning, demand management and operational planning processes integrated?
Strategic Sourcing - Leverage Supplier relationship for cost effective procurement
Is IT an 'enabler' or 'creator' of Business Value?
Continue reading " Is IT an 'enabler' or 'creator' of Business Value? " »
September 12, 2010
Dynamics of Shipping Industry- A Glimpse
World has indeed changed from when Ferdinand Magellan's set on the first expedition of 1519-1522 to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean thereby completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth.
Continue reading " Dynamics of Shipping Industry- A Glimpse " »
September 6, 2010
Strategy, Social media, CRM and me!
September 3, 2010
Are you able to objectively and quantitatively measure the performance of your entire Demand to Deliver Value Chain in a holistic manner?
In a traditional manufacturing enterprise, the supply chain works in a piecemeal way through multiple departments executing their own functions and tracking their own performance. Most package-based IT solutions also accordingly adopt a siloed view of the business and provide disparate modules/ applications for different business functions. Thus measurement of overall process performance becomes tedious as end-to-end Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are not defined, benchmarked and measured, leading to dilution of process-level accountability and view, leading to dissatisfied customers and suppliers.
August 31, 2010
Resolve Supplier Collaboration Problems with Oracle Supplier MDM
Continue reading " Resolve Supplier Collaboration Problems with Oracle Supplier MDM " »
August 27, 2010
Is "On-Time Delivery" Just a Promise or a Process to Gain Competitive Advantage?
Over the years, transportation remains one of the top five expenditures for Hi-Tech manufacturers, Retailers and Distributors. As Hi-Tech manufacturers strive to be competitively responsive to the marketplace demands in order to leverage the economic growth, and be a step ahead of their competitors, gaining control over pace and the cost of the transportation activity becomes imperative. As per leading industry analyst firm "A 5% reduction in transportation cost has the same P&L impact as a 5-30% increase in sales".
August 17, 2010
Choosing the right solution for your consolidation needs
Every organization has unique consolidation needs due to the way it has grown, complexity of the business and also its legal entity structure. What are your consolidation challenges?
Are you coping with multiple systems / multiple vendors sending data for consolidation in discrete manner?
Do you have multiple instances of your GL, which need to be consolidated?
Do you need sophisticated consolidation needs like Extended reporting capability in a single GL environment?
Do you need insights into consolidation for Analytics, Performance management like KPI's, Ratio Analysis etc to make informed decisions?
Continue reading " Choosing the right solution for your consolidation needs " »
August 16, 2010
Warehouse Sizing and Configuration- Art OR Science
Continue reading " Warehouse Sizing and Configuration- Art OR Science " »
August 13, 2010
Is your IT system geared to support the dynamics and complexities of the High Tech Value Chain?
High Tech manufacturing enterprises operate in a very competitive environment with a complex and long value chain. Value Chain Planning is the key differentiator and thrust area for these enterprises, as this lends them to better demand capture and fulfillment, better operational and financial efficiency. IT systems play a crucial role in enabling them to remain competitive. These IT systems acquired/built over a period of time, inevitably result in a complex integration landscape involving plethora of heterogeneous B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Customer) and A2A (Application to Application) transactions. Even the reporting for running operations and management decision making is premised on multiple sources of truth.
August 7, 2010
From KYC to KYS- A Paradigm Shift
Organizations pan globe have engaged in programs like VoC (Voice of Customers) since time immemorial. They all want to know what their customers perceive of them. Recent times have seen the flattening of the business world. In order to keep an organization's supply chain lean and optimize on cost and operations, it is equally important to engage in programs like VoS (Voice of suppliers).
August 6, 2010
Be prepared to weather the next storm - Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)
In the crisis just gone by, newer and complex financial products, ameba like organizations cause of heightened pace of M&A and ever changing relationships between different types of risks resulted in broken models, violated assumptions and ineffective risk management just when it was needed most. Couple it with continuously evolving regulatory requirements, an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is needed which can align risk function with strategic business imperatives, create a common language of risk and facilitate optimal levels of risk.
Continue reading " Be prepared to weather the next storm - Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) " »
June 24, 2010
What Is Better: Radio Frequency Identification or Barcodes?
There is always an obvious choice at the end. It could to difficult to make though. But for long there have always been discussions which technology is better - RFDI or Barcode. There are many differences and benefits that each of these carry with them. Both bar codes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) are a type of automatic identification and data collection (AIDC) technology.
Continue reading " What Is Better: Radio Frequency Identification or Barcodes? " »
June 10, 2010
What is the Credit Rating of Your ERP Implementation?
LIC - Life Insurance Corporation of India (Govt. owned) is the largest life insurer in India with an asset base of USD 160 billion and insuring 220 million lives over past 50 years.
Recently LIC was denied a license by the Singapore authorities to expand its operations in the country since it was not rated by an International credit rating agency. They have no option now but to get themselves rated by Moody's or S & P
Taking a cue from this incident and considering the changes in emerging markets like India, there may be a day when a ERP implementation or Software service provider may have to be rated by specialized agencies as AAA or at least A+ to qualify or bid for a proposal.
Continue reading " What is the Credit Rating of Your ERP Implementation? " »
June 8, 2010
Pillars of WMS
Receiving and putaway have often being defined as 2 of the 4 pillars of a typical Warehouse Management System. Put together the two pillars account for no less than 17% of warehouse operating expenses. Hence choosing the right processes and a system to support these processes is paramount.
June 4, 2010
CRM-Changing Rep's Mindset: Looking Inwards!
Why would a sales rep embrace CRM Application? To answer that, let's wear a Salesrep's hat for a moment and see why he would not embrace it!
Continue reading " CRM-Changing Rep's Mindset: Looking Inwards! " »
June 2, 2010
Order Management for Legal Online Publishing
During a process improvement discussion on 'Voice of Customer' meet, one of the sales managers said, "Order processing in systems is the biggest bottleneck in our sales cycle. Further you simplify, more you will get it". The meet was part of large scale transformation endeavor, instigated with a new product launch for a legal media publishing company.
How true it is for a sale representative! Continuously bombarded with new products, company's acquisitions resulting in desperate order entry applications and compensation linked with products cross sell. Why only for sales? Even for call center reps doing order entry while on call, and for consumers doing order entry through self service channels.
Let us take a quick look at online products; typically online products are sold as part of Menus. For legal publishing, these Menus consist of information published from content sources. The content provider publishes varied information like Cases, News, Public Records, and Court Filings etc.
Now let us look at some facts which make these offerings complex;
• Within last 10 years, number of menus has increased to 1400 %**
• Individual source can appear in any number of Menus
• Each Menu has a different price point
(**Data - leading legal solution provider in US)
Typical characteristics of legal publishing enforce designers to think laterally for this industry where business models are getting transformed from "Service Providers" to "Solution Providers".
While it is true that legal industry dynamics and product structure contributes to Order entry complexities. But majority of complications are also due to 'People's involvement & training', 'Holistic Process definition' and 'Right use of technology & tools'. While there are enormous discussion opportunities on these subjects, I would limit the scope by illustrating on order processes.
In legal publishing, the order function revolves around following high level processes;
• Proposal & Contract: Proposing different offers and finalizing on one, subsequently formulating a contract with approvals, legal terms editions etc.• Order Capture & Validations: Entering the order details and subscribers data along with system checks on data validations like emails, subscription period etc.
• Security & Verification: Validation of subscribers, company and contact information for background check and future communications.
• Billing Provisioning: Sending order information to billing application and setting up the billing cycles, account and subscription information.
• Order Fulfillment & On-boarding: Running the subscriber information against authentication, generating and sending the user id password information.
• Subscription Management: Different operations on a subscription e.g. extend, inactivate, reactivate, terminate, interrupt, resume etc. with different level of validations and authorization.
The problem statement becomes more complicated while leveraging the alignment of "Order-to-Cash" with "Campaign-to-Order", "Cash-to-Care", "Billing & Invoicing" & "Royalty" processes. What make it worst is the inconsistencies in order processing rules across different segments like Small Law Firms, Mid-Size & Large Law Firms, Law Schools, Law Students, Corporate & Non-Profit Firms and Government clients.
Different leading software vendors have been collaborating with publishing leaders to enrich their application platform. Infosys team has been working with a US client to create a seamless solution on Oracle platform. We successfully completed the first milestone where the Order Management functions are configured on Siebel platform with an end-to-end integration with Billing (BRM), Finance (PeopleSoft), Fulfillment (WAM) and other back office applications.
I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences and opinions for handling complex order management function on typical enterprise software packages. Also if you are facing similar challenges, I will be very happy to share more details. Please feel free to write back.
May 28, 2010
Building a Project Brand the right way!
In the last blog, we had discussed about how a Brand can help a Program transition from an unexciting unanimated entity to a complete personality with whom all the stakeholders relate to. This blog would provide pointers to project/program managers, sponsors towards building a Project Brand
1.Provide a Form/Shape to your Program: I believe this is the first step towards building a Brand. It gives visual cues towards the Brand values and helps in building Brand Recall. Typically we leverage a Program Name, Tag Line, Logo or a Mascot for this purpose. (Not necessarily All but in some useful combination depending on client context). Majority of the times the first perception is formed through these Brand Cues, therefore these have to be crafted carefully with good brainstorming among key stakeholders.
Continue reading " Building a Project Brand the right way! " »
May 22, 2010
Go Lean: Minimize customizations and reduce overall TCO in Oracle ERP implementation (Part 3)
There are many ways to achieve Leaner ERP implementation, and I have discussed some of the strategic levers for it in my previous blogs Go Lean (Part 2) and Go Lean (Part 1) like senior management and executive sponsorship, robust decision making framework, effective change management approach, upfront planning for middleware and reporting platforms, solution design workshops, selection of appropriate edge products and leveraging localizations. However, there are many tactical and operational levers also available for enterprises to adopt, which are primarily part of implementation execution cycle. I am discussing here some of these levers and best practices to minimize customizations:
- Boot Camp Trainings - Before initiating the solution design phase, organizations must seriously consider to conduct the boot camp trainings on chosen ERP to their key super users, business analysts and implementation core team, facilitated by System Integrator (SI). The intent for boot camps must be training to the team for vanilla features and functionalities of ERP relevant to their industry processes. This will enable them to bridge many gaps and requirements through seeded ERP functionality, and increase the overall fitment of the package application, leading towards reduced customizations.
Oracle R12 : Journey So Far! Key Learnings
Oracle R12 has now completed a good number of years in the Market. It arrived with much fanfare, so has it delivered so far? What have been the key learnings from the upgrades that we have seen?
The former is a more difficult question, as any enterprise technology upgrade always comes with fading support for the previous version, thereby creating a risk for the organization. So product upgrades are akin to insurance policies one just has to get them. But R12 was the path to fusion so expectations were a little different. Let us discuss the latter question first, what have we learnt from our engagements of R12 Upgrades. I will next attempt to list down some of the top things I have heard from supporting multiple engagements in R12.
1. Measure twice - Cut Once
Well this common rule in carpentary holds true for R12 Upgrades too! People often underestimate the amount of technical impact that this version has. Oracle users have been used to almost a 10 year period when the version releases were between 11.0.3 to 11.5.10, all essentially sub releases. But R12 brings together substantial differences in the core financials modules, namely GL and AP. The one thing that we learnt from a lot of engagements is to make sure we estimate multiple times through a rigorous check with version comparisons. While the Infosys Upgrade tool does estimate the impact, it does have some limitations. For example Folders, Forms Personalizations these are aspects which not many technical tools capture. The more of these and you have a big problem of missed estimates.
In summary, accurate estimation of technical components from a technical upgrade is a must and is often underestimated.
2. It looks different - It IS different - User Interface changes
The R12 screens borrow heavily form PeopleSoft applications in the user interface technology, so when you look at for the first time, they look bluer and more different! We have seen lot of engagements miss the boat on estimating the effort needed for retraining some of the users, even the expert Oracle 11i ones. The html based navigation is different, and does need some getting used to. Although 11i had introduced OA framework based html screens, R12 has introduced these to a wider number of modules, even financial module of AP has a lot of these screens for eg Supplier Entry.
3. New Functionalities
Just like the above bullet, a substantial business user involvement is needed even if an organization is looking at technical upgrade, since R12 contains many standard functionalities that would retire customizations. Evaluate of these functionalities are best done as part of the upgrade and not as a separate project after the upgrade. The additional testing and project management effort might make the justification of the subsequent phases difficult to fund.
4. Reporting Changes
When underlying data structures change, it has a big impact on the reporting out of the application. And R12 contains a lot of data structure changes, this makes it opportune time to review and revise the organizational reporting strategy during an upgrade. Also with R12 the tools supported for reporting are changing, Desktop ADIs and FSGs can be replaced with a combination of Web ADI and Reports Manager. Also the BI publisher enables a lot of reuse of reporting entities
These were some of the main themes emerging from the 30+ R12 engagements that infosys is engaged in. What are your experiences? I would love to hear back from your personal experiences with R12.
May 20, 2010
Branding of Large Transformation Programs - Fad or Necessity?
In my professional experience, I encountered quite a few jazzy brand names of large business transformation programs - Ascent, NextGen, Compass, Catalyst Frontier, Leap, Unity, Accelerator, and so on. Earlier, I used to wonder about the need for such branding and whether it is a fad, a marketing gimmick or is really a necessity for large transformation programs? As I encountered these mores, i learnt interesting facts about the association of a Brand to a project, which I am sharing with you in my series of blogs.
How does the business user community relate to the project even before it is implemented? What do the external partners like customers, distributors, and suppliers perceive about the project and its impact on their operations? What do the analysts and share holders think about this multi-year multimillion dollar investment? How does the internal IT team get motivated to be on the driving seat of the large initiative? All these unanswered questions points to common phenomenon 'WIIFM' (What's in it For Me).
Continue reading " Branding of Large Transformation Programs - Fad or Necessity? " »
May 16, 2010
The TMS Way- The SMART Way
There are many ways to perform an operation and there is a SMART way of performing the same operation. Inbound logistics is an integral part of any warehouse management system.
May 5, 2010
Business Process Reengineering: How to reengineer towards an efficient process?
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) has become yet another buzz word of recent times where every System Integrator advises clients that before going ahead with any large transformation program they need to conduct BPR of their existing processes. But is there a correct prescription for this critical step? After all, a wrong move can jeopardize the entire ERP investment.
May 4, 2010
When is the right time to conduct End User Training in Oracle implementation?
One question that continues to baffle the program management community around Training delivery in large ERP implementation programs is when to deliver end user Training? The answer is probably not as straight as you may expect. Let's first discuss the constraints around this decision:
- Go Live Date: If there is a huge gap between Go Live Date and User Training, the user tends to forget what they learnt as during this period they have to continue using the legacy system and will not be able to unlearn some of the old practices and habits post go-live. On the other hand, if the training continues till the last date, you will not be able to make an apt decision towards user readiness and its implications on implementation Go No Go Decision.
Continue reading " When is the right time to conduct End User Training in Oracle implementation? " »
May 3, 2010
Training Need Analysis, the first steps towards a successful End User Training for large implementation programs
Typical implementations would tread the wrong path by training their end users on all the modules/ functionalities being implemented using the traditional system based classroom session training approach, assuming that this will make them ready for the implementation. Some of these organizations, who are more mature, may leverage similar approach, however by grouping their user community by departments and having some amount of hands on training. But the fact is, the both ways lack the vision and approach towards a successful Training Program. Even before any training activity is initiated, it's important to understand the target end user population, their current skill sets, the impact of the system changes on their day to day tasks and job responsibilities, and then only a strategy must be developed around Training.
Road towards Package Adoption and Learning - Comprehensive Training Strategy is your Precursor to implementation success
In my last blog Still waters run deep - Poor User Adoption may cost you your ERP Implementation.. I discussed at length about the importance of ERP training and the need for organizations to focus more on user adoption. As ERP Implementations mature and grow, the focus on user training also intensifies. While many organizations have started realizing the benefits of user adoption, they often struggle to determine the right budget and the right approach to achieve it.
Go Lean: Minimize customizations and reduce overall TCO in Oracle ERP implementation (Part 2)
To get an answer to the question raised in my previous blog Go Lean (Part 1), first we need to understand the primary reasons why organizations tend to develop custom code in typical Oracle ERP implementation program, and then what are the best practices or guiding principals they can adopt to go leaner.
April 30, 2010
Go Lean: Minimize customizations and reduce overall TCO in Oracle ERP implementation (Part 1)
'Flexible and Extensible' is one of the key differentiator for Oracle in Enterprise Applications market space. Despite providing rich out-of-the box functionality and edge products, Oracle also offers variety of tools and methods to personalize or customize the vanilla solution to meet the industry specific unique business requirements. Admittedly, it is sometimes reasonable and worthwhile to customize the ERP to address the specific gaps and meet strategic objectives of the implementation, however these customizations come with their own cost - Increased TCO, Painful and expensive upgrades to newer versions, Ongoing maintenance challenges, No support from Oracle for customized application, need for scarce ERP technical resources to maintain custom code and many more.
Still waters run deep - Poor User Adoption may cost you your ERP Implementation..
April 21, 2010
Governance, Risk and Compliance: Are You Ready?
With ever increasing frauds being detected, a Governance, Risk and Compliance solution is no more a nice to have but an absolute necessity to address the challenges. Companies are now realizing the benefits of an investment which has the potential to yield phenomenal gains in the long run.
Before even delving into an IT solution, it is imperative to understand the needs around Governance, Risk and Compliance. A good starting point is to have your auditor look at your risk mechanism, governance issues, control mechanism. A strong foundation needs to be in place before we can think of an IT enabled solution.
Once we have built the foundation around segregation of duties, key data to be tracked, mitigating controls, the next step is to look at the OTC products available in the market and come up with a solution which works best for you. It may not be a 100% fit but 80% fitment is good enough to start with.
Though on financial terms, the investment may not result in immediate gains but in the long run it gives you a peace of mind which unfortunately is not quantifiable. Also the amount of time and money which goes in meeting these needs is huge if we do not have a workable solution in place.
March 19, 2010
The Combo for Successful Application Integrations is on its Way!
It makes sense for us to begin the story with the mention of nothing other than the Application Integration Architecture release 3.0 (AIA 3.0) which is going to be out shortly. Application Integration Architecture is an integration solution for orchestrating agile, user-centric business processes across enterprise applications. It offers prebuilt solutions at the data, process and user interface levels delivering a more complete process solution to business end users. With handful of productivity tooling components, reference process models, infrastructure components, methodologies that guide us through the SOA development lifecycle and many more, AIA 3.0 is going to stand out as superior reference architecture for implementing best practice Service Oriented Architecture in Enterprise Application Integrations.
Continue reading " The Combo for Successful Application Integrations is on its Way! " »
March 15, 2010
Managed Solution for Staffing Industry
As staffing industries remain challenged to grow their revenues, their focus areas have also shifted to reduce their back office costs continually, streamline the business process through automation, front to back office integrations and integration with VMS systems. Given their proven experience in implementing and supporting global implementations be it compliance with global accounting requirements or managing global payroll, ERP System integrators are very strongly placed to help staffing companies reduce their back office costs both on the pay side and the bill side, thereby improving their bottom-line revenue.
Continue reading " Managed Solution for Staffing Industry " »
March 9, 2010
Hitting two birds with a single arrow………. Integrating financial planning to operation reporting
If your organization is relying on spreadsheets to produce the information for forward looking guidance, it might be time to consider a more-robust solution, which provides more control. What more if these information systems can supplement the operational reporting needs?
Just as companies are seeking ways to better utilize their ERP investments, they are also seeking ways to maximize their ROI in business processes through integration and standardization. Industry is grappling with multiple challenges today, but there's no turning back – yes, the financial planners now need sophisticated measurement tools to churn out accurate estimates.
Need for sound financial planning has never been as profound as it is shaping up in wake of recent financial crisis. Businesses are fast recognizing a need to tighten integration of financial reporting; EPM; and governance, risk, and compliance. A greater integration in information delivery systems is being witnessed for serving dual objective of compliance and decision support systems.
March 4, 2010
IT - The Strategic Tool for Staffing Industry
The staffing industry has seen a huge swing towards recruiting professionals from varied streams such as Finance, Sales, Engineering, Information Technology, and Management. While this trend provides myriad opportunities for growth, it also brings a unique set of challenges that include Customer Retention & Serving new industries; Applicant loyalty, soaring operational cost due to disintegrated systems in usage; high percentage of manual effort involved in the process of matching the right people with the right job that prohibits a quick response to the customer for an order, and integration of the business processes across geographies.
Continue reading " IT - The Strategic Tool for Staffing Industry " »
February 28, 2010
A diet for your General Ledger system: From “Fat GL” to “Thin GL”
Determining the number and composition of the extended accounts (Flexfield structure in Oracle) has been a topic of debate and angst amongst GL architects.
A “Fat GL” design as the name implies contains a very large number of journals, often containing information that would typically be required for operational management reporting and typically containing minimal summarization.
Continue reading " A diet for your General Ledger system: From “Fat GL” to “Thin GL” " »
February 24, 2010
IFRS would change a company's financial statements forever
Come 2011 and there would be a major transformation in the manner Indian companies present their profit and loss accounts and balance sheets. 2011 is when it becomes mandatory for them to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
What is IFRS
-- International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) has issued principles based pronouncements comprising of standards and interpretations which are popularly known as IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards).
-- Replaces existing Country specific Accounting Standard which are rule based
-- IFRS compliance is not just accounting change, its impact will be on all entities connected with an organization including shareholders and employees. Policy and Procedural changes need to be analyzed across all areas e.g. Organization, Taxation, Systems, Processes and Controls
Impact on Financial Statements:
Extensive Disclosures
: The market value of Financial Derivatives, ESOPS, Properties , Machineries etc need to be disclosed as opposed to current practise of accounting only at historical cost. This would facilitate all stakeholders to assess the correct market value of organization.
Greater transparency: Goods will have to be sold to end consumer to be reflected as revenue instead of existing rule of recognizing revenue by just sending the goods to distributors godown
Risk related disclosures: Investors would have better access to information on company's exposure to interest rate risk, forex risk etc since such disclosures would be mandatory under IFRS. This in turn would help better risk management for the investor
Information Complexity:
Since it is a principles based accounting standard, their may be lack of uniformity in disclosures by companies leading to increased complexity for investor. Investors must adjust themselves to such fluctuations
Overall it would increase the length of financial statements due to extensive disclosures but facilitate better and informed decision making for all stakeholders
To conclude, post IFRS the Financial Statements would be Re Born for ever, so are you ready for the change?
January 12, 2010
India Incs 3 Critical Financial Changes in 2011- will they be winner like 3 idiots
January 1, 2010
Playing the Russian Roulette
December 16, 2009
5 Mistakes Every Future ERP Implementation should make
One must thoroughly assess all of options in evaluating potential external implementation companies. Software companies aren't always the best at implementing their own software, and some are more expensive than others. An organization should look at a vendor who can partner with them in their ERP initiatives not only for software implementation but also in managing the non-technical aspects of the project, such as organizational change management, training, and ERP benefits realization. b) Map the software to Business requirements don’t just buy it
If an organization has decided that ERP is the route it needs to take, it is important to begin by looking at the desired software to implement. In most of the cases, package selection is influenced by top executives who have previously worked on particular package. Instead, executives should define and document key business requirements irrespective of the package that may be selected. This includes not only nice-to-haves, but also requirements that can be "proposal-breakers" if the software is unable to accommodate. The package selected should focus on achieving measurable business value for the organization, and one should choose the software that best enables to do thisc) Focus less on System training and more on Change management / Executive sponsorship
What is your Business Case and ROI? This is where many companies fall apart. Answering and documenting this question is important to get Executive sponsorship and ownership for an ERP program. The lack of a change management approach as part of the program can prevent a program from succeeding. Resistance to change is human nature and is quite often caused by (1) A failure to convince a case for change, (2) Lack of involvement by those responsible for working with changed processes (3) Inadequate / Improper communication (4) Lack of visible top management support and commitment, and (5) Arrogance. A lack of buy-in often results from not getting end-users involved in the project from the very start, thereby negating their ownership of the new system and processes. ERP-related training is also crucial as most employees must learn new software integration and business processes which affect the operation of the entire organization. Appropriate focus should also be given on this part of the ERP implementation else it leads to much pain and suffering downstream.d) Don’t just Save Dollars sometimes?
One of the key causes of ERP implementation failure is unnecessary cost cutting. In an effort to avoid multi phased roll out costs, repetitive conversion costs, some companies take a very risky route and go live “Big-bang” at multi-plant sites simultaneously, subjecting all plants or some plants to a total shutdown, should there be a failure Some projects have compressed schedules in order to save on expenses, only to eventually overrun both schedule and budget. Sometimes the question “What is my Value for Money / ROI?” should take a back seat as some projects should be treated as an upgrade to the company infrastructure that is necessary to maintain or gain a strategic and competitive advantage.e) Yes we can but are we prepared for Failure?
Best organizations would prepare themselves for unforeseen contingencies, similarly all implementation projects should have a fail over plan. No matter how well-run a project is, one should be prepared for failure. If the project failed or if the software was not implemented correctly, what will be the backup plan? Would users be able to access legacy systems? Would certain processes be performed manually until the system is brought up? Catastrophic failures may not be common, but they do happen on occasions, so companies should be prepared for the "what-ifs."
December 2, 2009
Are you getting the most out of your investment in PLM and ERP?
Continue reading " Are you getting the most out of your investment in PLM and ERP? " »
November 26, 2009
Consistent product master data across the sales front ….today’s necessity!
As consumers we have increasingly become used to the idea of having a same product available to us across different stores or channels from the same selling company. And we expect consistent product information available to us across these sales channels.
Continue reading " Consistent product master data across the sales front ….today’s necessity! " »
November 22, 2009
Making the most of your GRC Investment
Continue reading " Making the most of your GRC Investment " »
November 19, 2009
Sustainable manufacturing – The road ahead
Oracle has recently announced plan to develop an evolved offering for sustainable manufacturing using its Energy Specific Manufacturing Operation Center (MOC). It will use sensor technology from partner OMRON. While the Outcome of this initiative is yet to be seen, My focus in this blog would be to discuss about sustainable manufacturing which has become BUZZWORD from some time.
Continue reading " Sustainable manufacturing – The road ahead " »
October 9, 2009
Lean in Everyday Life
My last few blogs have been around lean principles as applicable to businesses. This blog is a little different and dwells on using lean thinking to see if some improvements in our day to day processes and transactions can be obtained. Lean philosophy advocates improving process by removing the non- value adding activities and if we take a few examples, we can see how we can apply lean in our daily lives and improve some of the processes.
October 6, 2009
Extend Lean To Your After Sales Service Too!!
Ever since Lean philosophy became mainstream, businesses have embraced it a lot all over the world with varying amounts of demonstrable and measurable success.
Continue reading " Extend Lean To Your After Sales Service Too!! " »
September 30, 2009
IFRS Implementation in India-Revisiting Fundamentals
In IFRS convergence Journey, companies will have to deal with changes in lot of fundamental definition which will be different from current one.
Continue reading " IFRS Implementation in India-Revisiting Fundamentals " »
IFRS Implementation – Not just an Accounting Change!!!!
To name a few like definition of subsidiary company, valuation of inventory on LIFO or revenue accounting based on net present value (in mention example either the concept or definition will change from existing one) .
Continue reading " IFRS Implementation – Not just an Accounting Change!!!! " »
Feasibility of "KPO" Outsourcing of High Value Added Manufacturing Processes in Hi-Tech Companies
Knowledge process outsourcing(KPO) may be defined as outsourcing of high added value process where the achievement of objectives is dependent on the skills, domain knowledge and experience of the people carrying out the activity. It is being claimed that KPO is one step extension of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) which is outsourcing of low value added services to a partner company.
Is it possible for a Hi-Tech company to outsource high value added and critical processes like Design, manufacture of critical components, etc. to global outsourced partners to achieve business benefits? Let's look at what are pre requisites for this and the pros and cons of this and evaluate.
September 18, 2009
Innovation through Outsourcing in HiTech Companies..Is it Achievable?
In recent times Hi-Tech companies have increasingly looking to outsource substantial portion of their manufacturing to vendors in developing nations like India, China, ec. to uncover substantial reduction in costs. This outsourcing helps the companies to improve competitiveness and profitability and to some extent even helps in making the Hi-Tech companies operations viable in the marketplace.
Continue reading " Innovation through Outsourcing in HiTech Companies..Is it Achievable? " »
September 16, 2009
IFRS - Are you ready for Dual Reporting?
Worldwide countries are moving for either adopting or converging to IFRS as common accounting standards across globe. However during transition phase which is spread over next decade, organization adopting IFRS will have to do dual reporting to meet the requirement of IFRS 1.
Continue reading " IFRS - Are you ready for Dual Reporting? " »
September 15, 2009
Needs & Opportunities - Staffing Industry
There have been astounding changes and developments during the evolution of the staffing agency in its 50-plus years of existence. The staffing industry has evolved from its early years where temporaries were provided in emergency situations to replace absent workers to become strategic partners for its clients by providing wide range of employment services and solutions.
Continue reading " Needs & Opportunities - Staffing Industry " »
IFRS Implementation in India -Train has left station Embark now
Continuing from :http://www.infosysblogs.com/oracle/2009/04/ifrs_countdown_has_started_are.html & http://www.infosysblogs.com/oracle/2009/07/ifrs_adoption_to_wait_watch_or.html
The transition to IFRS in India is no longer a question of whether and when but a question of how. A journey which started in 2006 is coming very nearer to its destination.
Continue reading " IFRS Implementation in India -Train has left station Embark now " »
September 14, 2009
Understanding Value Stream Mapping and its applicability to your business
Value Stream Mapping is one of the lean techniques businesses employ to understand the value adding activities in their current process and design a future process after weeding out the unnecessary activities that do not add value from a customers’ point of view. This technique found its origin in the automobiles industry and has found widespread acceptance in other discrete industries and also in service industries.
Continue reading " Understanding Value Stream Mapping and its applicability to your business " »
September 5, 2009
How Risky is your supply chain?
Typically we talk about two kinds of supply chain- A responsive supply chain and an efficient supply chain. An efficient supply chain is mostly targeted at reducing costs while a responsive supply chain is designed to cater to the changing needs of the demand (both new and variant) by building some kind of redundancy in the system. But in both cases have you incorporated the risk element?
Capture actionable information from your shopfloor
So you have just implemented an ERP system that automates your organization-wide business transactions, reduces a lot of paperwork and also helps with reports at different levels of aggregation. However, when it comes to the shop floor, is your ERP capturing what goes on behind the transactions? To find out the answer, you can start by asking your business the following question-Have there been improvements in the three key elements of your OEE- namely, Quality, Performance and Availability?
Continue reading " Capture actionable information from your shopfloor " »
August 27, 2009
Green Design – A Means to reduce Product Development Costs?
It is seen that for High Technology companies’ compliance to green related regulations required for market entry is the top pressure driving green product development. Most of the High Technology manufacturers have a green product development initiative in place, even more than other industries. They also seem to brand energy efficient technology as one of their top marketing strategies
It is clear, that while today High Technology manufacturers are focused on compliance to regulations like RoHS, REACH, WEE, TSCA, etc. they must look ahead and add cost reduction strategies around green design in their efforts in order to capture and sustain competitive advantage.
But doesn’t too much focus on compliance lead to increasing product development costs and affect their sustainability in the marketplace?? Let us see how successful High Technology manufacturers address this.
Continue reading " Green Design – A Means to reduce Product Development Costs? " »
August 12, 2009
An Introduction to Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center (MOC)
Does your manufacturing intelligence system support proactive monitoring for quick decision support? Lots of data gets collected on your shop-floor – but how should it be organized to assess the performance of a machine, a line, a plant, or a fleet of plants? What will it take you to make the process more a science than an art? Oracle has launched a new product - Manufacturing Operations Center - to answer some of these questions.
Continue reading " An Introduction to Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center (MOC) " »
August 4, 2009
Best Practices in Handling Uncertainties in Business Requirements in Enterprise Solution Implementations
Experience shows it is impossible to define all business requirements in the initial phase of a packaged software implementation. Some requirements are missed due to schedule pressure or oversight, while others originate later due to changed business realities. How can program sponsors manage changing requirements without impact to budgets and schedules? This article attempts to answer the question based on practices observed in multiple large enterprise system implementations.
July 22, 2009
Effective usage of Earned value management.
Earned value management is a tool by which senior management can track exceptions in projects execution very easily. However there are certain pitfalls in basing your decisions completely on this single measurement for project progress reporting, unless you take care of certain points for measuring projects progress.
Continue reading " Effective usage of Earned value management. " »
June 30, 2009
Calling up your customer - Think Twice
Recently I came across an interesting article which talked about how placing too much focus on customer sometimes irritates him/her so much that the customer builds up a negative image about the brand.
Continue reading " Calling up your customer - Think Twice " »
June 16, 2009
IT Outsourcing - Recession Survival Kit - Series I
Everybody is talking about it.. Decision makers are contemplating either to invest for growth now or to cut costs to maintain margins.. or do both. well.. am sure people know that these are easier said than done. there are too many theories, hypothesis, advices, opinions and the latest in the list.. 'management books'... trying to use all possible ways of the current situation to make themselves heard.. but what is heartening is that there is good amount of truth and reality in all of these.. as they are directly from their heart.. they have felt it, experienced it and living with it.
Continue reading " IT Outsourcing - Recession Survival Kit - Series I " »
June 10, 2009
Video - Want NextGen Application Integration? Look at Oracle PIPs
Are you looking for a tool that ensures maximum convergence of the best-of-breed Oracle applications deployed at your enterprise?
Let’s discuss how Oracle Process Integration Packs (PIPs) not only offer out-of-the-box process integration solutions to composite industry processes, but also cut deployment times significantly.
June 1, 2009
Customizations to a ERP....
Can a ERP system exist without customizations? Can a Company run its business using a Vanilla ERP product? This is a question which can be debated on and on..
May 17, 2009
Regulated Energy and Utility Market Challenges – Pricing
In today’s competitive environment the unit prices for electricity and gas is driven heavily by the competition between energy companies.However, to ensure that the customer receives a fair price and to avoid monopoly, it is quite common to have this price overseen by regulation. Though there are many pricing models available in different countries, by and large the pricing models in regulated scenarios are either revenue based pricing or rate based pricing. This blog briefly touches upon the pricing models and the components of prices. Pl. note that the examples in this blog focuses on UK energy market.
Continue reading " Regulated Energy and Utility Market Challenges – Pricing " »
May 15, 2009
Oracle's vertical integration - A move towards Cloud Computing ?
I read about Oracle’s acquisition of Sun; a move which had been preempted and discussed after IBM’s failed attempt to acquire Sun few months earlier. And then the obvious question “ Why Sun” ?
As per my understanding, Oracle acquired Sun for open standard Java language , a backbone of various applications and mobile phone related software . The second reason is Solaris on which a high number of Oracle database runs. Also a significant chunk of Sun’s revenue comes from maintenance services( around 40%) , a revenue stream which Oracle cannot ignore and which means Sun’s hardware business is still going to remain(though Hardware is considered to be a low margin business). And should we account of Sun’s customer base too..
Continue reading " Oracle's vertical integration - A move towards Cloud Computing ? " »
May 14, 2009
Regulated Energy and Utility Market Challenges - IFRS compliance challenges in Fixed Asset Management processes
Vertically integrated utilities have large assets in form of their generation stations and their components. This part of the business is regulated in some countries. Through the regulatory environment, the government gets involved in various aspects of utilities viz., pricing, Secured energy supply, Pressure to reduce carbon footprint etc.,. Equally there are some accounting challenges that are posed through regulations and reporting norms. This blog talks about one such challenge faced by generators on the way in which they manage and report their generation Assets and their significant components.
April 20, 2009
Unleashing MEA's Potential in Telecom Services
The telecommunication market in Middle East and Africa (MEA) is extremely diversified in nature. The region spans across 60+ countries and has an interesting mix of demand, expectations and maturity levels. In current global economy downturn, the MEA telecom market is relatively less impacted. Within some African countries the market is gaining momentum. Privatization and liberalization are visible latest trends and cost effective communication technologies are now becoming available to meet the needs of these diverse group of countries. These new technologies include fixed wireless access, mobile telephony, fiber optics and satellite.
Continue reading " Unleashing MEA's Potential in Telecom Services " »
April 1, 2009
Failure of Peanut Corp. of America, what should we learn??
The peanut butter and peanut paste recall have been considered the largest product recall in history. Nine people have been died & thousands have reported sick due to consumption of PCA products. Questions are being raised about the food safety regulations & quality issue in Supply chain. Is it the system Failure or Greed of few individuals? Is it only the PCA whom to blame? What about the downstream Manufacturer who were using PCA products as their Raw Material? Also, are our Quality regulations sufficient? But the most important question that most Food companies should be asking themselves is this, what to do to avoid the repetition of same in future?
Continue reading " Failure of Peanut Corp. of America, what should we learn?? " »
March 31, 2009
Transportation and Logistics market in Emerging economies like India - Glocalization approach needed
Logistics costs in India are estimated to be around 13% of the GDP, which comes to around US$94 billion in 2005-06.Transport sector’s contribution to India’s GDP is estimated to be around 7.6% in 2006-07, and road transport has a dominant role in this contribution with a share of 4.7% in India’s GDP.Currently, the market is extremely fragmented and dominated by unorganized sector. Most of the organized players are using their home grown operational TMS system for managing their day to day work.
March 30, 2009
Going "Lean with Green" through Enterprise Solutions
“Earth Hour” observed on Saturday 28th Mar, 2009 from 8:30 to 9:30 PM across the world. While this is equivalent to switching off China's emissions for less then six short seconds, it shows our concern for climate change. It also means, Companies have to comply with stricter regulations in coming future.
Continue reading " Going "Lean with Green" through Enterprise Solutions " »
March 22, 2009
Why Lean may need ERP?
The traditional thinking is that Lean and ERP are contrary to one another. Lean signifies a pull system and simplicity whereas ERP signifies a push-based complex environment that relies on innumerable transactions at every step to run smoothly. Lean is reality-oriented while ERP is data-in-the-system-oriented. One can argue forever on these lines…
If one scratches the surface, however, it does not seem so contrarian after all.
Consider some real-life examples below from my consulting experience where an ERP system assisted the lean philosophy of an enterprise.
Changing face of EAM in a competitive 'Carbon emission control' environment
Continue reading " Changing face of EAM in a competitive 'Carbon emission control' environment " »
March 13, 2009
Top Down vs. Bottom-up techniques in Manufacturing… The debate continues
Continuing from my previous post:
Standardization: Top Down vs. Bottom-up
There are a few more considerations to the standardization approach. Implementation of enterprise software has led to the motto “Common…and Global”. As a result, companies are adopting standards in definitions and processes for global implementation. A standard implementation refers to a set of guidelines which is better known as a template or a blueprint allowing minimal deviations during rollouts. At times, these monolithic implementations indirectly lead to a situation, where established and efficient local practices are abandoned or compromised to make way for standardization. This in turn has the potential to create large scale organizational change issues and productivity loss in the short-term.
Continue reading " Top Down vs. Bottom-up techniques in Manufacturing… The debate continues " »
March 11, 2009
Wanna beat the recession and still keep IT running?
Recession.. difficult times.. reduced cash flow.. credit hard to come by.. on and on and on..
Let us face it. These are unfortunate events but are reality.. but should we just sit and keep worrying about it or do something to beat it. We anyway need to have the business running.. Key executives are looking for ways to weather the storm by cutting down costs. Invariably, eyes roll towards the Enterprise IT of the company.. trying to optimize, consolidate or even retire some of the IT assets. Most easist and the fastest thing to achieve quick wins is to cut down on 'labor' as an asset class.
Continue reading " Wanna beat the recession and still keep IT running? " »
March 9, 2009
Brazil Localization: How is it different?
With the economy in such turmoil, more and more companies are looking at emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) for growth. With unique statutory, legal and language requirements, it is imperative that companies follow the rules of the land to do business.
Continue reading " Brazil Localization: How is it different? " »
February 17, 2009
Speed to Market - Using historical data
The other aspect of successful design is effective usage of historical data. Recall the fact that only 30% of new products launched succeed. Effort that would have gone into the other 70% of the failed product will prove useful in the new initiative.
Continue reading " Speed to Market - Using historical data " »
February 16, 2009
Detail Design phase - Speed to Market Strategy
Continuing the series of previous posts on Speed to market started at:
Continue reading " Detail Design phase - Speed to Market Strategy " »
February 13, 2009
Speed-to-Market - Get it Right for your Business
The first step in launching a new product is designing one. With available tools, once product design is frozen, manufacturing and launching can be managed effectively. The time taken to freeze the design is highly unpredictable. From my previous post, we will discuss on collaborative design and effectively using the historical data.
Continue reading " Speed-to-Market - Get it Right for your Business " »
February 6, 2009
Is my CAD vendor the natural choice for PLM?
As a head of Product Engineering team, you finally convinced the management for a PLM tool for your organization. The next big question will be which tool should you implement? All CAD vendors have PLM tools & few ERP vendors also offer PLM as a module.
Continue reading " Is my CAD vendor the natural choice for PLM? " »
January 22, 2009
Quality and Liquidity
Very often we see the Terms Quality and Liquidity used interchangeably with Products or Services offered.
Although never directly related these terms are something which is heard everywhere on a day to day basis At one point of time you have the Customers talking about Quality, and the other part you have the Stakeholders discussing about Liquidity.Let us try to understand these terms and find out whether we can relate these terms and decide if ultimately Quality turns to Liquidity.
January 7, 2009
Beat the competition with speed to market
Impact due to reducing product lifecycles and the need for speed and collaboration
In this Era of Innovation,the latest gadget becomes obsolete within no time. Better products come to market at cheaper prices and/or with higher value. The result is shorter product lifecycles.
The main effects of shorter lifecycles are:
- Need for New Product Introduction(NPI) at shorter intervals – speed to market is the only way to beat the competition
- Focus on cost effective / high value products
- Innovation in processes
The key enabler to achieve the above is
- More collaboration between stake holders.
Continue reading " Beat the competition with speed to market " »
December 30, 2008
Is Perfect Estimation Achievable
Historically it has been observed that lots of projects experience cost, effort and schedule overrun or poor quality. In most of cases, the project end up taking alternate paths to fulfil the budget constraint and ends up delivering an inadequate product/application/service. Further changing market Scenario does create estimation overruns. In such cases is it ever possible to get a Perfect Estimation.
Standardization – What is required?
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.
December 29, 2008
Challenges in Demand Management in Recessionary Times
The recent macroeconomic changes and the speed at which they impacted end-consumer demand have significantly affected organizations. Some of the immediate effects on businesses include: Production Shutdown: Excess inventory piled up at different stages of the supply chain have caused manufacturing facilities to shutdown production to reduce inventoryWorkforce layoff: To react to reduced market demand and to cut costs, manufacturing facilities are reducing work force to continue to be competitive
Continue reading " Challenges in Demand Management in Recessionary Times " »
December 24, 2008
Are you still using function points for estimating the size of Package Implementation?
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.
December 22, 2008
Redefine your measurements to stimulate operational excellence
A difficult business climate as today’s provides corporations with an opportunity to take a hard look at their operational procedures to weed out inefficiencies that might exist in various business functions. Focusing on reducing waste and improving operational processes helps businesses in their journey towards attaining operational excellence. In addition, it also allows for cost savings, which can provide stability to the profit margins in adverse economic times as these.
Continue reading " Redefine your measurements to stimulate operational excellence " »
December 18, 2008
Reuse and Recycle of WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) – Optional or Mandatory?
The Directive on WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) in EU notes that the content of hazardous components in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is a major concern during the waste management phase and recycling of WEEE is not undertaken to a sufficient extent. The WEEE directive places the responsibility of end of life (EOL) disposal responsibility of the products on the manufacturers either individually or by joining a collective scheme. This implies that the cost of disposal of the product and the harmful substances that it contains squarely lies on the manufacturer. The EU Commission has set new targets for recovery and reuse/recycling by 31-Dec-2008 for all EU countries.
December 12, 2008
Importance of Outsourcing to provide flexibility to Hi-Tech Manufacturers
Today’s global environment has placed increased pressure on Hi-Tech manufacturers to become more competitive and profitable. Global outsourcing activities have increased in importance and have increasingly emerged as a key strategic tool in achieving cost reduction, quality and delivery improvement, cycle time reduction, and improved responsiveness to customer, competitive, and financial market demands. It is estimated that a well planned and executed global outsourcing strategy can result in a cost savings differential of 15 to 25 percent when compared to manufacturing inhouse.
Using external suppliers to design, manufacture, ship and service products or components - has been a growing trend in recent years as Hi-Tech manufacturers have sought, among other things, to divest themselves of production capacity (and the inherent risks associated with owning capital equipment), lower their labor costs and maintain greater flexibility in the face of ever-shrinking product lifecycles.
Continue reading " Importance of Outsourcing to provide flexibility to Hi-Tech Manufacturers " »
December 3, 2008
Large Projects challenges - Beyond applications
In my earlier blogs, I had briefly touched upon how a project centric approach will facilitate utilities achieving process efficiencies by integrating its various business functions. We had also seen how Oracle out of the box capabilities can be leveraged. Whilst the oracle based project centric solution enables utilities, there are some industry wide challenges that cannot be addressed through any system or solution. Based on our experience the following are the few industry challenges that need to be considered while implementing any transformational solution to such project organisations.
Continue reading " Large Projects challenges - Beyond applications " »
November 24, 2008
Using Operational Levers To Boost Supply Chain Performance
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 " »
November 18, 2008
Providing visibility to your large projects through a Project centric solution
In continuation with the entry here
Standardised project management process
Utilities have a trend of growing through acquiring other companies and hence the project management processes are likely to vary within their business. For e.g., an organisation that took over a contracting company that specialises in executing rechargeable jobs is likely to have its processes and systems for managing rechargeable jobs different form the rest of the business - unless there is a conscious effort to homogenize the processes. The project centric solution design addresses this by mapping the processes to the job classification available out of the box in Oracle ie., direct and indirect jobs Also project management templates can be defined to ensure that the projects are defined in a specific way that is aligned with other projects in the organisation. This substantially reduces the time required by the engineers and/or planners to create projects in Oracle. In some cases (Large capital projects), the project are likely to be created in best of breed project management software like Primavera or MS Projects etc.,. The out of the box interface available in Oracle eBusiness suite can be used to reduce the need to duplicate effort in entering project data into Oracle. With this, the process, the resource assignment and budgeting are the only processes that need to be done in Oracle eBusiness suite, whilst the other core project management processes are managed in the actual Project management suite.
November 13, 2008
ERP implementations in a recessionary economy: Is Limited Functionality ERP the way?
Hence for an IT service provider, the challenge lies in guiding the customer to make the right amount of investment in a timely manner, so as to minimize the initial CAPEX requirements at these times of turbulence.
Here are some of the ways to my mind, which can be put in practice for proposing new engagements:
1. Partnering with stakeholders
Let us partner with the customer and create a close collaboration between customer, IT service provider and the OEMs to provide the customer the best price
2. Using out-of-box features
Customers should be encouraged to use the standard built in features of the ERP product to the greatest extent possible. Enhancements should be entertained for addressing only the business critical needs.
3. Customer driven design
The need of the hour is more emphasis on incorporating customer’s requirements and his wishlist at the very early stage and designing the solution along-with the customer. This will reduce the number of iterations and rework in the project life cycle. Extensive workshops with the customer on the product and design will help on this aspect.
To add to the above, another aspect which can be explored more can be to bring in more modularity in the solution. We need to work with the customer in identifying the core business needs that need attention on a priority basis and provide a solution on those areas only; however care should be taken to ensure for the future enhancements to be added to the core solution with ease later.
In summary, the impending recession has made customers more cost-conscious than never before; this is probably the right time to sell a limited functionality ERP in a big way. This concept may sell when corporates are trying to just sail through rather than expecting to make huge profits. Customers with basic business processes in place in an ERP framework will be equipped better to scale up in boom times through adding more functionalities.
November 10, 2008
Managing large projects - Do you need a piece of paper or an integrated system?
‘What is the project budget?’, ‘Who approved this capital investment?’, ‘who is monitoring the budget overruns?’, ‘who is tracking the project performance in terms of cost, quality, time and effort?’ and finally ‘Where are we in terms of planned Vs Actuals?’ – These are common questions one will come across, if they have spent some time in utility industries. Utility industry is one of the very few industries that manage their operations as projects. Everything they do is managed in their systems as an outcome of a project or a group of projects. Given this challenge, what does one need to manage these projects? Will there be the organization’s ace project manager available to manage all your projects efficiently? – Probably not. !
Innovation through Collaboration: Addressing Flat World Challenges in the Hi-Tech Industry
The global business scenario has changed dramatically in the last year. Rising costs continue to put pressure on margins; globalization and the power of emerging economies are increasing the complexity of the business environment, and customer expectations from vendors and service providers has multiplied exponentially. The economic slowdown, collapse of the housing market and unexpected exchange rate fluctuations have made the business environment even more difficult. C-Level executives can no longer rely on conventional approaches to create a competitive advantage and have to look at innovation through collaboration to steer their organizations through turbulent times.
October 17, 2008
Earned Value Management for 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 " »
October 16, 2008
Going Lean the ERP Way
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?"
October 3, 2008
Localization vis-a-vis Customization: Which way to go?
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? " »
October 1, 2008
ERP Systems for Small & Mid-Sized Companies
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 " »
September 25, 2008
Age of packaged BI and analytics – Should you embark on this journey? Part 2
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 " »
September 20, 2008
Large scale HRIT Portfolio Transformation
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 " »
Integrated Talent Management to improve workforce effectiveness
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.
Going Green
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.
September 19, 2008
Value Realization and Oracle - A Perfect Match
"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
Transforming your business- beyond PPT
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
Managing Indirect Spend? Slash costs and Save upto 20% of indirect cost
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 " »
September 18, 2008
New Generation Business Intelligence
September 16, 2008
How to Improve Visibility into Customer Demand
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.
Different applications will be associated with different forecasting parameters. Typical examples of such parameters include geographical areas, types of product and priority levels of service. This list could be enriched as diverse application scenarios might be considered. As a result, the design of a generic and fully automated forecasting framework requires the definition of a generic data representation. This data type will hide the low level details and present an abstract view on which the generic forecasting framework may operate on.
Excerpt from the working paper – Shah M., Owusu G., Shoban B., Balkundi N., “Improving Forecasting Accuracy of Traditional Demand Planning System” (2008)
September 10, 2008
Six questions to analyze if your company is ready for SOA
Continue reading " Six questions to analyze if your company is ready for SOA " »
September 8, 2008
How to make more money with customer information
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 " »
September 4, 2008
Do you wanna expedite your Order cycles?
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
August 31, 2008
High Tech Industry: A State of Flux
August 16, 2008
Thinking of Acquisition? Keep ERP as one of the decision parameters
Continue reading " Thinking of Acquisition? Keep ERP as one of the decision parameters " »
August 14, 2008
Age of packaged BI and analytics – Should you embark on this journey? Part1
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 " »
August 13, 2008
Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points
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 " »
August 10, 2008
Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade
Continue reading " Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade " »
July 21, 2008
High Tech Industry’s Logistics Woes: Oracle Transportation Management may be the answer
July 19, 2008
Collaboration: The way forward for High Tech Industry
In his classic best-seller ‘The Goal’, Eliyahu M. Goldratt discusses about the three fundamental ways of making money for a going concern namely,
- Increase throughput (the rate at which the system generates money through sales)
- Reduce Inventory (all the money that system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sells)
- Reduce Operational expenses (all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput)
Continue reading " Collaboration: The way forward for High Tech Industry " »
July 10, 2008
Retailing in a Down Economy, any different from a Boom?
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? " »
June 2, 2008
Having Confusion around Fusion!!!!!!!!!!!
Continue reading " Having Confusion around Fusion!!!!!!!!!!! " »
May 27, 2008
Segmentation: Value based or Need based?
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? " »
May 26, 2008
SCRUM Methodology: Does the Twenty-Twenty Version of the Waterfall Model Work?
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.
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