ERP Content

Industrie 4.0 is, in a nutshell, the promise of ever-more automation and it is all the hype these days. Kaitlyn McAvoy, in a recent post, cited McKinsey Partner Richard Kelly as pointing out this is “much more than hype,” i.e., it is the tangible future. Richard was absolutely correct; Industrie 4.0 has definitively arrived on the world business agenda. At the recent Hannover Messe, exhibitors from across the globe and from all industries (from Microsoft to Bosch) presented over 400 ongoing project examples in the Industrie 4.0 space. I would like to discuss in this post why, in particular, Industrie 4.0 should be great news for procurement and why it is worth being a proactive, targeted adopter. So why thanks to Germany?

Now more than ever the vendor management system (VMS) cannot act as an isolated entity. It must interface with ERP and financial systems, procurement suites, HR systems, best-of-breed procurement tools and talent marketplaces, as well as work intermediation platforms. Seem complicated? It doesn't have to be. Join Spend Matters, SAP Fieldglass and a special guest on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at 11 a.m. CDT, for Strategic VMS Integration: ERP, Procurement Systems, HR Systems and Beyond.

Spend Matters welcomes this guest post from Daniel Martinez, manager at GEP.

Over the last 10 years there has been a surge in ERP implementation based on supply chain transformation projects, aiming to get complete and correct information about the flow of goods. But how effective have these implementations been in delivering results?

Spend Matters recently spoke with a large procurement organization whose IT group is supporting 50 locations globally with an SAP implementation, as well as a third-party purchase-to-pay (P2P) solution and supplier network deployed on top of it, leveraging the underlying MM components for core automation. The lessons we learned from the discussion speak to the importance — and beauty — of thinking through all of the details when it comes to thinking through ERP and procurement systems integration, especially when multiple systems will be handling different aspects of transactional procurement.

Come on. Admit it. You (or a friend) have used a dating application with no intent of finding a lasting relationship from it. In many ways, seeking and getting into such a one-off, short-term relationship is akin to using a standalone procurement module to achieve a means to an end (e.g., identified cost savings through a sourcing event). But long-lasting partnerships and marriage are different. These both require the equivalent of tightly integrating specific needs from each “source system” — and even true “integration” in the form of joint finances, (i.e. “closing the books” together).

In the previous post in this series, I began outlining 10 supply chain provider areas that could benefit from the infusion of a robust supply network information model. In this final installment in the series, I highlight the remaining provider areas, the convergence in supply chain intelligence and analytics and look at x potential providers that span multiple adjacent services and solutions sectors in business process outsourcing (BPO), management consulting, supply market intelligence, business intelligence, content management and others.

In the first three parts of this Spend Matters PRO series on Oracle’s procurement offerings, we discussed Oracle EBS Advanced Procurement, Oracle Procurement Cloud, the capabilities of Oracle Information Discovery and Vinimaya integration with Oracle Procurement Solutions. Today, in this final installment, we examine PeopleSoft Procurement and its plans for the future. PeopleSoft, one of the first ERPs in the market, was purchased by Oracle in 2004 to help the software giant gain greater market share and increase its ability to invest in application development and support — and to prove to the market that it was serious in taking on (and even passing) SAP as the dominant ERP and business applications giant. PeopleSoft competes in the procurement and purchase-to-pay (P2P) space with its PeopleSoft Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) suite, which integrates applications such as Purchasing, e-Procurement, Catalog Management, e-Supplier Connection, Supplier Contract Management, Strategic Sourcing, e-Settlements, Procurement and Spend Analysis and Services Procurement. This Spend Matters PRO research brief provides an overview of each of these modules and offers further perspective and analysis of PeopleSoft’s procurement capabilities.

The Oracle Cloud — previously known as “Oracle Fusion” — is a line of products that may have initially appeared to be a targeted bet and experiment for Oracle as it explored native SaaS development and deployment models and attempted to combine the strengths of different organic and acquired assets in a common suite. Oracle Cloud, since this initial vision, has matured considerably, both in capability, but more important, in strategic value to Oracle. In the first two installments in this Spend Matters PRO research series, we explored Oracle’s overall procurement portfolio and eBusiness Suite (EBS) procurement capabilities in detail (as well as iProcurement Endeca extensions and how partner Vinimaya integration strengthens the capabilities of iProcurement). In this third installment, we explore the Oracle Procurement Cloud product and offer our perspective on the history of the solution, optimal customers and partner integration (and capabilities) with Vinimaya. We also offer our take on how Oracle Procurement Cloud stacks up to the competition.

SAP and Microsoft announced a new integration plan Tuesday that deploys SAP HANA on the Microsoft Azure cloud and links SAP applications, including Ariba, with Microsoft Office 365, giving procurement organizations opportunities for enhanced collaboration, functionality and connectivity within the tools they regularly use. According to Joe Fox, senior vice president of business development and strategy at SAP Ariba, the partnership with Microsoft shows SAP/Ariba’s commitment to delivering innovation through an open platform

By nature of not having made targeted acquisitions in the procurement market, Oracle does not call as much attention to itself in the space as ERP rival SAP, which purchased Ariba, Fieldglass and Concur. Yet Oracle is not sitting still in the race to rapidly build out competitive capabilities through major acquisitions, but rather to incrementally develop both EBS and Oracle Cloud Suites as true integrated suites rather than a portfolio of applications loosely connected to each other. In the first installment of this Spend Matters PRO brief, we explored the types of general investments that Oracle is making in procurement, its different procurement application lines, and the various approaches it is taking to offering cloud deployment and integration modules. We also provided an introduction to EBS Advanced Procurement. In this second installment, we explore all of the applications of the Advanced Procurement suite. We also delve into how the iProcurement module has benefited from Oracle’s Endeca acquisition and the gaps that Oracle partners, such as Vinimaya, are filling within the Oracle EBS Procurement picture to enable parity with best-of-breed competitors in the catalog management, federated search, comparison shopping and presentation areas. Finally, we also offer our take on how Oracle Procurement Cloud stacks up to the competition.

As noted in the Spend Matters Almanac, Oracle was one of the original pioneers in the e-procurement space, introducing its original iProcurement release, part of Electronic Business Suite (EBS) of integrated applications, well over a decade ago. Today, Oracle continues to offer iProcurement. But it also now delivers a cloud-based suite of applications known simply as Oracle Cloud (formerly “Fusion”). Oracle Procurement Cloud is a native SaaS suite that is designed to compete against specialized cloud providers. And last but not least, Oracle, in its long career of acquisitions, has also acquired other solution suites with their own procurement applications (on-premise and hosted), including PeopleSoft SRM. In this Spend Matters PRO series covering Oracle’s procurement solutions, we explore the range of Oracle procurement solutions across its different branded and functional product lines, including the overall “state” of Oracle in procurement today. We also analyze key modules, functional capabilities and features across different Oracle solution brand serving the procurement market. Finally, this series explores Oracle’s competitive advantages and challenges today and offers perspectives on how different trends are likely to influence Oracle customers to use (or not use) Oracle’s procurement solutions today and tomorrow by application line.

FusionOps is a supply chain intelligence company founded in 2005 in Sunnyvale, California, to automate ERP-based business processes, such as direct materials procurement and supplier collaboration, that could not be accomplished effectively using the standalone sourcing and procurement solutions of the day. However, around 2009, the company switched directions — or “pivoted” in tech speak — and started amalgamating "big data" from ERP, MRP and other supply chain and supply management systems in an effort to extract actionable intelligence for clients. Today, FusionOps delivers "big data as a service" through its supply chain intelligence cloud, which contains more than 50 built-in proprietary supply chain models that run on more than 1,000 KPIs across the inbound, internal and outbound supply chain that can be used for diagnostic, predictive and even prescriptive analytics. This Spend Matters PRO research brief provides an introduction to FusionOps, an overview of the provider’s strengths and weaknesses and customer recommendations.