Will Oracle’s Fusion Suite be released soon?

Without providing a specific timetable, Oracle has been busy pulling its many software acquisitions into its in-development Fusion applications.

Now, Oracle executives are indicate that an early version of this suite is nearing completion. Legions of Oracle coders are expecting it and many of them can actually get their hands on the thing…

• 450 customers are participating in the Fusion Suite development and providing feedback to Oracle; and
• 130 customers are taking part in an early-adopter program.

Oracle plans to begin beta-testing this year although nobody seems to know for sure when the suite will be released.

Customers with existing maintenance contracts can transition to Fusion at no extra charge so customers are likely to adopt this new suite rather than pass the opportunity to get a suite comprising business intelligence (BI) from Oracle’s Hyperion integration. Expect Retek and ProfitLogic acquisitions to add even more muscle to the suite.

In a nutshell, Fusion provides modern apps natively built in Java for modern business IT and as such, customers will be able to customize applications in exciting new way because, as Charles Philipps said, the design of each app, from the ground up, is to allow changeability after it ships.

As a final note, customers should know that the transitions to Fusion should be painless since its data models will be a superset of those in Ocale’s current applications.

Tags: oracle, fusion suite, java, information technology, it, business intelligence, bi, hyperion, retek, profitlogic, upgrades, oracle apps, charles philipps, modern business it, fusion development, fusion apps, fusion code, fusion beta, middleware

Time to break down the corporate silos

In the modern enterprise, information technology is an enabler for more productive collaboration between all departments, units and workers.

At a time when key performance indicators (or KPIs) should be readily available for all information workers and especially the C-level, it seems too many decisions are still taken without a clear picture of the real-time data that underlies critical applications, infrastructure and projects.

So even if IT could deliver awesome “dashboards”, ripe with timely and highly readable information, it seems way too many companies fail to tear down their corporate silos to produce such data.

The advantages of overcoming the silo approach makes it possible to envision a much better understanding of the company, as a whole. For instance, in an “un-siloed” company using , the IT department can get much better “real time” information so to anticipate (and resolve) the problems instead of merely reacting to them.

Having some kind of central repository, most likely gathering data from many sources, makes so much sense because to be able, in a single window, to identify [for instance] the performance of critical systems and projects in real time empowers people to act on things, way before problems occur.

It seems straightforward enough to work as a company-wide team but still, too many companies force their employees to rely on manual extrapolation of multiple applications, each containing silos of critical data, to go about their daily work. At best, this results in hit-or-miss decision making and a dangerous slide towards a certain inertia. At worst, working from flawed assumptions leads to significant costs, delays and wasted resources.

Retrofitting portal software to pull together solied data can help but overall, it does little to correlate information into useful guidance. In regards to software destined to enterprises of all sizes looking to implement dashboards, inquire with vendors such as BMC, Oracle, CA, Hewlett-Packard and IBM who are melding business service management (BSM), business intelligence (BI) as well as project and portfolio management (PPM) tools into overall dashboards.

Expect implementation and integration to be somewhat demanding while customization is plain inevitable (call it a “technical challenge”). This complex work might involve SOAP or XML bridges, especially if your application infrastructure isn’t homogeneous.

The payoff for such a bold transformative project towards dashboards mainly resides in the newfound ability to have largely useless data chunks (when taken individually) suddenly provide highly correlative insight, from all the data collected.

If your company isn’t using dashboards yet, now is probably a goodtime to break down those antiquated corporate silos to create infinite value from your various data sources.

Tags: dashboards, corporate silos, bsm, bi, ppm, kpi, it, critical data, information, enterprise

BI’s role in the intelligent enterprise

When in charge of making all the right decisions for their company, more executives than ever before like to consult their business intelligence (or “BI”) reports for added insight regarding the current, past and more importantly, future events.

The use of BI applications and tools among executives has been growing over the past decade and depending on who you ask, roughly 25% of all workers use on flavor or another of BI in the course of their work.

While this might sound encouraging, BI’s use is nowhere near as widespread as the major business intelligence vendors would have you believe.

In fact, the BI tools themselves are partially to blame for the somewhat lackluster adoption level currently observed. Add company cultures that encourage gut-and-feel decision makin to the mix and BI software, whatever the flavor, will have a hard time getting past the security guard’s booth!

To make matters worse, many companies tolerate information hoarding or, alternatively, allow IT department administrators to zealously lock away data that should, by all means, be made available to more employees for —you guessed it— basic to advanced BI applications.

The value proposition for BI might be obvious for the vendors but countless executives still don’t understand the advantages of business intelligence software over standard ERP system reports and, in some case, manual spreadsheets.

Executives and employees alike should take another look at BI tools out there in order to reap value from data to deliver, among other things, best-in-class service, boost revenue and increase operating efficiencies.

The future seems to belong to those who best understand the strategic importance of the proverbial gold mine hidden in their hard drives, waiting to be analyzed and used in creative, new ways, BI-style.

Tags: bi, business intelligence, data, information, spreadsheets, value, revenue

Technology trends update

Information technology managers need to keep an eye on a vast array of technological trends evolving across the spectrum, for modern corporations.

The following are just a handful of the latest trends gaining speed:

1. Corporate blogs – If you can’t post a sales rep at the door of every single one of your customers, why not have the president of your company post his educated thoughts online within the comfort of his own blogging engine.It takes discipline to keep everything updated but the payoff comes in many forms, namely a tighter relationship with your customers.
2. Evolved content management – While the major search engines help you locate the information you’re hunting for online, a new breed of content management solutions is emerging for you to do the same within your own corporate realm.Amazingly, the information already existing in your own archives could be even more useful to your team if it were to be searchable in new, engaging ways so make sure to fully tap this hidden resource using the latest CM offerings.
3. Passwords at large – While roughly 30% of all organizations keep a written record of their passwords, the balance of them keeps them on mobile devices and laptops.Sending out your road warriors out there to do their thing is good but if they’re walking around with utterly sensitive data, you may be exposing yourself to new unintended security risks.Be smart and lock you sensitive information in a safe, non-mobile, place.
4. Outsourced processes – You could call this “BPO 2.0″ mainly because the latest technological convergence, on-demand applications and network access are driving a new kind of business-process outsourcing (BPO).Depending on your line of business, there may be some advantages to outsourcing part or all of your business processes namely the fact that a more flexible and distributed workforce may focus more on quality rather than just lowering cost.The outsourcing can apply to a whole range of your internal processes ranging from manufacturing to marketing and globally, it helps businesses focus on their core competency instead of attempting to be an expert at everything.
5. The rise of BI – In a sense, business intelligence is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, providing access to and analyzing data for the purpose of helping enterprise users make better business decisions.While many BI applications are available at the desktop, more and more vendors are extending access to mobile devices therefore improving on-the-road productivity and broadening BI adoption.

While identifying, following and understanding these trends is part of today’s CIO’s jobs, it’s also important to keep corporate management in the loop.

Keeping an eye on what’s moving and shaking in technology is healthy, even if no implementation is planned in the short term because when the time comes, it’s better to have some reflection already ongoing about a given technology or approach than none at all.

Tags: tech trends, technology, corporate blogs, evolved content management, passwords, outsourced processes, business intelligence, bi, modern corporations