Oracle E-Business Suite Review

• Integration
• Ease of use
• API interface
• Personalization capabilities

The punch-out capabilities to other vendors e-commerce sites for shopping. The county does not need to manage catalogue content. All information is exchanged electronically including purchase orders and invoices, this automation has improved county efficiencies.

Prior to Oracle, the county procurement system was antiquated and individuals typed orders on a typewriter or filled out paper forms. Orders were faxed to suppliers and delivered to a central county warehouse that farmed out orders to departments. The county was dependent upon a 20+ year old mainframe system and there was no integration between the procurement and financial systems.

With Oracle, the county switched from paper-based purchasing to an automated solution which allows departments to place orders and receive within days or a week. The Purchasing department was centralized and allows the county the ability to better manage contracts and negotiate better prices. The purchasing operations were fully integrated with back office financial systems.

Reporting, particularly in the area of public sector encumbrances.

I've used it for 11 years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10.

9/10 - there is always room for improvement. Occasionally It takes too long to work problems and there is typically an unnecessary long list of information that has to be supplied before the analyst will start work on the issue.

We previously used a custom mainframe solution that was developed in house. We switched because we wanted to leverage modern technology, with a vendor who would enhance their solution, and incorporate new intellectual property through acquisitions and/or mergers.

Oracle implementations are complex and require that the customer understands, and reviews their business processes. Often time it is difficult to revert from one configuration to another. Customer need to wisely consider things like set of books and general ledger account structure and how their business processes align with best practices and what Oracle has to offer.

We used Oracle Professional Services for our implementation. The team was extremely knowledgeable.

While I cannot provide a tangible amount for the ROI, the county has definitely seen a significant return in regards to operational efficiencies.

The county spent $8million on licenses, training, and implementation services. Oracle offers the best deals at the end of their fiscal year in June. The licensing for Oracle is very complex, and it is best to buy only what you need. Oracle, like most vendors, is not amenable to removing products that you are no longer using/need.

The county did look at SAP, but decided on Oracle E-Business.

• Make sure you document and understand your business processes and how they align with the product and best practices
• Ensure that you have a plan for governance and adoption
• Limit the number of integrations and customizations. While Oracle API’s are good, they require strong technical resources to develop. Once developed, they are very stable and require little maintenance
• Make sure you have appropriate support staff. Oracle is very complex and requires a lot of expertise to support and maintain
• Make sure you have a plan to perform and keep up with upgrades. Again, upgrades require a lot of testing and it would be nice to have a dedicated team to work on upgrades
• Look at Oracle’s road map for Oracle E-Business over the years. The strategy and road map keep changing