Last week we had our webcast: “Oracle ERP Cloud: Let’s Talk Numbers!” where our experts dived into the real costs of supporting on-premise environments vs. moving to the Cloud. Today we bring you the transcript of the Q&A session
What kind of accuracy have you seen on invoice scanning?
With customers who have adopted it, we’ve seen it’s between 80-90%. If customers are emailing you PDF, the accuracy rates actually go up substantially. Asking your customers to send you PDF invoices instead of physical ones is a good way of improving your accuracy.
Is Release 11 available for customers?
Oracle has told us new customers will be put on release 11 pod, and shortly any existing customers will be doing their upgrade. So if you’re thinking of Oracle Manufacturing, you can now buy it in the cloud.
Is oracle still investing in on-premise applications?
This is something we’ve been hearing a lot; many people are concerned about the migration path from Applications Unlimited to the cloud. The answer is yes, Oracle continues to invest on the software it has. E-Business Suite Release 12.3 will probably be coming up this year or the beginning of the next. Same thing happens with JD Edwards, the investment continues. Of course, these products are so mature that the changes Oracle is making are not massive – it’s mostly about creating new user experiences, enhancing mobility and improving the software productivity. Large part of the investment is related to connecting these applications to the cloud so you can work with both in a coexistence approach, and since the interfaces are getting more and more similar, there’s not a big gap for the users.
Is there a critical mass needed to achieve ROI, like processing 3 invoices per week?
Well, if you’re smaller you will find that some features such as vendor registration or automated invoice processing don’t make sense for you just yet. But it is something to consider down the road, knowing that that functionality is a possibility for the future.
Can ITC check for the customizations that won’t be allowed in the Cloud?
Yes, we have a CEMLI analysis tool that we can run. A lot of times, the customizations were made so long ago that they are no longer necessary or the functionality is now covered as a standard in the product. When there are key customizations, those are addressed with Platform as a Service so they don’t impact your upgrades.
Do you have process manufacturing solutions in the cloud?
Oracle has this on its roadmap – probably another year or two until it’s here. This doesn’t mean you can’t’ do a coexistence strategy in the meantime – use the financial accounting on top of EBS.
What sort of resources did you include in your HR process cost analysis?
We only included the technical part – technical manager, DBA, junior DBA and a system admin. You might have core developers, a bigger team. I did some national searches on Glassdoor and got a national average of salaries and burdened up at 40%.
Have you seen customers implementing SEM and Financial Cloud together?
The easiest way to do this is with the Financial Accounting Hub, which allows you to apply a patch to your EBS environment and does all the integration. From the Hub you can expand on the financials.
In the technical HR analysis, would you not still need an application owner or admin to manage change impact on upgrades?
I look at that as a functional activity, as most of the activities will be owned by your functional people (finances, HCM business partner). From a technical perspective, you don’t need a DBA applying patches, it’s all configuration.
According to Oracle, the ERP Cloud install base is well over 1,800 customers and has claimed 334 in the last quarter. So Cloud ERP is gaining a huge momentum in terms of adoption, especially from companies who had not worked with Oracle before. For more information, contact us.