Some use cases are in the pharma industries like , mostly life sciences. So, which has the Life Science products mostly in the pharma industry, which is quite critical in terms of having a supplier base, supplier qualifications, and then doing sourcing negotiations with them, and then bringing onto the procure-to-pay cycle. There's a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) integrated with that in that particular industry that we're talking about. There are a lot of GXP processes that we follow, including documentation and all that stuff. Especially approvals are something which is very critical in those kinds of businesses which we do. So these are some of the complexities I can think about.
Highly customizable, scalable and seamlessly integrates
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The cycle time is something that is very critical because, unlike EBS, the life cycle for projects of these types is mobility in most places, about five to five and a half months. So we need to take our learnings from each project to the other and come up with some generic template processes, which can be easily plugged into the customers for validation.
What needs improvement?
Off late, most of my customers, where I see a trend, are long-standing heavily customized major customers on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) on EBS who want to convert themselves to the cloud, and they expect us to provide the same level of customizations that EBS supports them in the cloud. So that's the challenge where we are currently. We have a few strategic advisory accounts like that, and we are evaluating those customizations to see how we can plug them as part of the solution offering so that the customer retains their current custom behavior and they don't have to deal with too many changes with their users. And that's the biggest change that we are working on. And there is a bundle of such initiatives that we do internally. Custom roles are one such thing.
There are several areas of improvement. In the procurement cloud, we have today the landed cost management, where there's a lot of flexibility, which has been given on the cloud side in terms of costing. So the license and pricing have become a little complex area. And then auto management has completely changed in the cloud, the way the pricing strategy has been. It's been more complex and more flexible in the cloud. So that's the second area where we see challenges.
These two, plus yes, now with self-service procurement, the dynamics have changed in global procurement, where the corporate will do the billing and invoicing, and we can do it from any big use, placing purchase orders and all that, the consolidation and the dynamics of testing. So these are some of the things which have greater flexibility, but at the same time, there is complexity in terms of implementation. We try to implement everything within the same window of the same customer window of six months.
In future releases, I would like to see the idea of automating the period close process, which would be beneficial for sustenance after go-live. It is more like sustenance, both go live. If there is a mechanism where the period close can be automated, or it can be if the product can come up with a dashboard specifically for that, which ties with the sequence of the sub-ledgers, what are the conflicts to close the sub-ledger areas to facilitate and close the ledger area? Which consumer buying? That's one initiative or one idea that I'm thinking about. There are quite a few like that, which are more from the sustenance standpoint, more than the implementation standpoint.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been implementing Oracle Procurement Cloud for the last seven years. But my expertise is mostly on the EBS side. However, I have been working with the cloud for the last two and a half years.
We have been the implementers of Oracle Procurement Cloud for both direct and indirect customers. We have implemented quite a few customers in our IT. We currently work with the latest version, 23A.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There will be issues when we kind of implement anything new. There will be different issues. I wouldn't say that we are 100% successful there. But, yes, we are able to figure them out within ourselves. So, yeah, we are still a long way to go before calling ourselves stabilized.
The clients have not faced issues with the stability of Oracle Procurement Cloud due to the high level of customization. However, we have a sustenance support period with customers, which allows us to gather feedback and address any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
These are some of the things which we talk about to our customers, like scalability. However, as we get new releases every quarter, we need to see how the customer fits into this existing structure and whether there would be too much of an impact. And do we need to make architectural changes again? So there is a sustenance investment to it. But given that where we are today, this procurement has matured over the years. So I don't see many changes that would have a downstream impact.
They will have incremental features which can be plugged in, but I don't think the existing features, the initiated software name, would have an impact on it. Or, I don't see that many of the fantastic design changes, unlike other products which are new on the cloud. So, we are good somehow.
How are customer service and support?
Nowadays, these solutions have been offered in-house, so we have our own technical support teams. But wherever we have limitations with the product, we reach out to the product support teams and engage them. As a gold premium partner, we try to get that experience to get the guidance and direction in which direction we are moving towards.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is definitely an investment in terms of this idea that we have. We do it today, but we don't have an integrated system that guides us to proactively look at what the errors are. The business users may know about it, but from an IT standpoint, we're just supporting it. The systems have to be tested. So thinking about something like this and coming up with a custom dashboard would be really helpful, which we would invest in at some point in time. But, if this is something that the product can consider, then that can go a long way.
What about the implementation team?
We have quite a few in-house resources available who work on the implementation of the product. We have now set up the integration team within our organization, which kind of evaluates, prioritizes, and works towards accepting some of these learnings that we have from projects that we implement. So those are ideas being posted by various project managers on the project teams that they're implementing. And then our onshore Center of Excellence would evaluate case by case and prioritize some. And if we quarter the plan to increase our features, which are more beneficial or more important, so they have their own criteria for shortlisting it, and maybe some of them would go, and they discuss it with Oracle product teams as well.
These are the ideas that do flow in. We have a mechanism to track them. And from there, from an idea to a concept to the implementation, we leave it to a high stakeholder to make those decisions.
We just began the maintenance part of the solution. There will be a lead team that will support it. There's a managed services team with the shared managed services tools that we have. There are a hundred-odd people. They start maintaining and supporting them across the customer base that we have. And they bring in that consistency, and that's our USP as an implementer.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are decent margins. But we do face challenges, and sometimes we need to support our margins as the cost of investment is high, especially during the initial phases. But over a period of time, with all the initiatives that we build, I think we will definitely have a better ROI to install this.
For medium and small enterprise customers who are not looking for too many customizations, there are other ERP modules available on the cloud, which provide better integrations. So they can go for that. But Oracle is more suitable for those large enterprises with heavy customizations.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Other solutions I worked with include NetSuite. And I did hear about Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, but I haven't personally used it. But I have heard from my other company friends that it is even more popular for small and medium-sized businesses.
Oracle, on the other hand, is more suitable for heavily customized large customers. We see the trend that many customers using EBS, which is reaching its end of life in 2020, are willing to migrate to the cloud. So for the next five to ten years, we have a potential market to convert those large customers into adopting Oracle Cloud. There are challenges in bringing those customizations into Oracle Cloud, given the architecture that we have. So it's an exciting time, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can add value to our customers.
What other advice do I have?
For the next seven years till 2030, there's a huge potential for customers who are currently on EBS to migrate to Oracle Cloud if they want to continue their relationship with Oracle. If we can retain around 60% of that customer base, there is a huge working potential for people like us. So that's the market we are tapping into right now, and strategic advisory is the best spot for all the consultants to provide custom solutions. We look forward to that.
For medium, and small enterprise customers who are not looking for too many customizations, there are other lighter ERP modules available on the cloud, which provide better integrations. So they can go for that. But Oracle is more suitable for those large enterprises that heavily rely on customizations.
But for a large customer base with Oracle database as the native, I would definitely rate this solution an eight out of ten.
