Friday 28 September 2012

OpenWorld 2012 T-2

So, there are 2 days to go before Oracle OpenWorld 2012 begins!  I'm making my final preparations and have built my schedule for the week. 

I'm focuesed on Fusion HCM and Taleo, so highlights for me will include:
  • Fusion Human Capital Management: Overview, Strategy, Customer Experiences, and Roadmap presented by Gretchen Alarcon
  • Talent Management in an Oracle E-Business Suite Coexistence Model 
  • Oracle Fusion Functional Setup Manager Deep Dive - presented by Mandar and Chitra
  • An Introduction to Oracle Taleo Talent Management Solutions for Small Businesses
  • An Introduction to Oracle Taleo Recruiting Solutions
.... and of course all the new announcements that are bound to come out during the week.

I'll also be attending the Oracle EMEA Partner Appreciation Reception as part of the Oracle Partner Network Exchange @ Openworld

Not forgetting, of course, the Annual Oracle ACE Dinner at the St. Francis Yacht Club!

I will be posting daily update.

Sunday 23 September 2012

A Learning Experience

Last week, I gave two presentations on Fusion HCM.  One at the UKOUG Public Sector HCM Customer Forum - the subject was Fusion HCM - Preparing for the Future, the other at the Criminal Justice Forum in London where the subject matter was 'Cloud computing for Shared Services - a new way of thinking'.  Here's a brief synopsis of the talks:

We've been involved with Fusion HCM on a daily basis now for the last 8 months, mainly doing training and teaching people about Functional Setup Manager, Fusion HCM Implementation, Fusion Compensation Management and Fusion Talent Management.  We've also been showcasing the application to potential customers and proposing Fusion based solutions to them.

What's become apparent is that Fusion Applications provides a learning experience for us all.  By that I include customers, implementation consultants and Oracle themselves.  This is a new product, it's not the next version of EBS or PeopleSoft, incidentally a fact that a lot of people are only just waking up to.

The real challenge is to have a new mindset  when approaching Fusion Applications.  Most customers will probably opt for a SaaS model (see previous posts) and this will mean thinking more about the service your SaaS provider offers rather than 'can I customise the application?'.

Fusion HCM has some fantastic functionality.  Don't be blinkered and just think it is a shiny new version of EBS.  Be prepared to explore it and find out what the product can do.  You may be very surprised!

Ove the next few weeks, I will post some articles based on what I learn from the Oracle OpenWorld 2012 conference.  Keep watching...


Monday 10 September 2012

SaaS - A New Way of Thinking

As Fusion Applications evolves, it is becoming apparent that the vast majority of customers are likely to adopt a SaaS model.  There may be many reasons for this, the complexity of an on-premises implementation versus the simplicity of deploying SaaS, cost, or using a co-existence model.

Whichever reason it is, I find myself being asked a lot of similar questions by potential customers:

  • "What will I be able to change in my SaaS environment?"
  • "How can I change the system to meet my requirements?"
  • "Why can't I write bespoke code in my SaaS environment?"
We need to be thinking about SaaS in a different way to how we viewed our 'traditional' ERP implementations of the past.  Traditionally, an ERP implementation began with a requirements definition phase and then a 'gap analysis' to identify where the 'out of the box' system could not be configured to meet the requirements.  Typically, 'gaps' would end up being addressed by customisations rather than workrounds.  This often led to lengthy and costly implementations, with the system being significantly changed to meet customer requirements.  Public Sector projects are particularly challenging, where maybe 80% of an implementation is taken up with complex requirements.

With SaaS, the key is is the 'S' at the end of the word. 

S stands for Service.

Nowadays, nearly everyone uses the Internet for commerce, be it banking, ordering theatre tickets, buying a seat on a train or a plane or buying books.  We don't log on to Amazon refuse to use it just because we expect it to provide us with a detailed breakdown of every time the author has used the word 'widget', even if we think that would be very useful. 

We don't expect the screens to be displayed in a different order or colour scheme just because we have certain preferences.  We simply accept the 'service' the system is providing us and make the best use of the functionality it delivers.

When we use Microsoft Office tools like Excel and Word, we don't refuse to use it because Word don't allow us to type in a complex algebraic equation and then solve it for us, nor do we complain about Excel because we want it to operate like a word processor.  We make use of the functionality each provides us within its limitations.  If necessary, we other tools to make up any deficiencies.

So, why don't we have this attitude with ERP systems which are delivered as SaaS?

We must start to have a new way of thinking, and of implementing.  We must start to deploy the SaaS package and help customers work with it, rather than radically change it.  Fusion Applications, and specifically HCM, come with a range of tools which allow us to 'tailor' the application.  The composers allow us to adapt out of the box User Interfaces, Processes, Data and Reports, without altering or 'customising' the underlying software.   Fusion Applications provides a much richer functionality than it's predecessor applications (EBS / PeopleSoft etc.), so the need to customise should be vastly reduced.

Our new way of thinking leads to a new way of implementing.  Now, we should be looking at getting the application out of the box, configuring it (functionally) to represent the customers enterprise and then deploying, maybe in a phased approach.   Keep it simple at first and then build on the system later.

Result?  Quicker, simpler and cheaper implementations.  Makes you think doesn't it.....?




Friday 7 September 2012

FSM in Fusion Version 4

I've just finished delivering a training course on Fusion Functional Setup Manager.  We've been doing these courses for some time now, but this week we used a version 4 (RUP3) environment.

FSM is a fundamental component in Fusion Applications, and as such it hasn't changed much since the original releases of Fusion.  There are a few subtle changes in Version 4, and sometimes, it is the little things that matter....

Take for example the assignment of tasks to implementation consultants.  This is something that the project manager does via FSM.  It was always a pain that the project manager could assign a task to a person, but that person didn't have the correct Role Based Access permissions to execute the task!  Thankfully, the developers have taken this on board, and now there are 2 new columns in the task assignment pages.  1 shows whether the assignee has the correct permissions and the other shows the roles which do have the permissions and therefore helps if you need to assign a new role.

Nice work, Oracle!

Monday 3 September 2012

Upcoming Conferences

I think it's really important for consultants to share their insights with the community in which they work.  From a purely commercial viewpoint, it's good publicity, but from an altruistic viewpoint it's sharing knowledge for the good of us all. 

There are two conferences I will be speaking at in the next few weeks.  First up is the Criminal Justice Management forum on 19/09/12.  This event takes place at the QE2 Conference Centre in London and brings together leading thinkers from across the sector.

The next day I will be presenting at the UKOUG Public Sector Customer Forum.  Both presentations are on Fusion HCM and the impact SaaS may have on Shared Service Operations.

A busy few weeks.... and after that, it's off to San Francisco for Openworld.  Lots more posts around that time!