Putting midsized businesses on a rapid growth trajectory

By Teck Wee Lim, General Manager, Applications for Oracle Singapore and Indonesia | Nov 4, 2011

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In today’s competitive environment, technology is critical to helping midsized businesses compete with their larger counterparts.

However, most midsize businesses considering enterprise applications are at a crossroads. They have the same complex IT needs as large enterprises, but enterprise software selection is often a big monetary investment and a “make or break” decision with little room for error for a midsize company.

The Evolution of Project Implementations

Many midsized businesses tend to start out with less expensive – and also less sophisticated – applications that are able to meet their immediate needs and also meet their tight budgets. Alternatively, they may deploy new applications to meet their new requirements as they grow, thus leading to application sprawl. This eventually becomes a complex and vulnerable network, patched together by home-grown solutions to deal with temporary problems.

What such businesses need is enterprise-class software that offers unbeatable scalability but one that is easy to adapt and maintain at the same time.  They need the assurance of implementation simplicity with a focus on high-value business processes, as well as a needs-based modular deployment to allow delivery of business value in weeks.

Recognizing this dilemma, Oracle sought to address SMBs immediate needs with Oracle Business Accelerators, which provides a robust and economical solution that offers a scalable path for growth.  Oracle Business Accelerators are tools and templates that help midsized businesses deploy applications quickly and economically. Based on industry and country-specific best practices and business processes, the solution makes it easier for midsized businesses to deploy their applications with less customization.

These tools, in effect, take heavyweight applications and make them “digestible” for midsized firms without sacrificing utility. In fact, when analyst firm, Nucleus Research(1), analyzed the actual experiences of customers using Accelerators, they found that all customers surveyed were able to reduce the time taken to deploy Oracle E-Business Suite – many by more than half the time an implementation without Accelerators would have taken.

Full Scale Deployments in Half the Time

V.ABC Paints Manufacturing (Shenzhen), a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based V.ABC Group Limited, is an example of a midsized business that successfully leveraged the Oracle Accelerate methodology to cut deployment time greatly, and achieve accurate cost management across their business.

To unify its business and financial systems and share data between departments and eliminate a fragmented legacy system, V.ABC Paints Manufacturing used Oracle Business Accelerators to fast-track the implementation of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne from six months to three. As a result, the company was able to pursue its expansion strategy by implementing new business models and well defined chemical manufacturing and distribution workflows. The improved efficiency across the financial, manufacturing, and distribution departments also meant reduced human error from manual data entry by automating workflows.

Another example is Tikona Digital Networks which needed an ERP solution to meet the needs of an organization with a complex, sophisticated product line. By leveraging Oracle Accelerate methodology, the wireless broadband service provider based in Mumbai, India, was able to capture the company’s business requirements, automate the configuration process, and successfully deployed its ERP system in just 35 days.

It’s All About the Bottom Line

For midsized businesses, it is important that software becomes not a back office expense but a strategic enabler. With the same aspirations of large enterprises but not similar resources, such companies have grown in size but still retain the cost-conscious mindset of small businesses.

By leveraging the tools to successfully deploy enterprise level solutions in an affordable and predictable way, midsized companies will have peace of mind about scalability. They will also be able to better focus their energies on developing new products and services and meeting the needs of their customers rather than be constantly limited by their business applications’ capabilities. The results are fast time to value, improved performance, and low Total Cost of Ownership.

 
_{(1) Nucleus Research (Feb 2011), RESEARCH NOTE – Oracle Business Accelerators.}