Written by Skip Straus Monday, October 12 2009
The IT leaders who run Oracle E-Business Suite know the objective. R12. It’s the release that will carry them to 2015 or beyond. They will run one instance, it will be global in scope, and all the business users on the planet (well, the ones who logon to their instance) will follow the same business processes. R12 will be the single source of financial truth. Some 11i customers have already made the transition, others are in process, many are planning, and a few are too busy with other priorities and will wait.
Making the transition to a major release of an enterprise system with E-Business Suite’s scope is a huge endeavor, with many people in different roles, and there is a lot of freedom of action on the playing field. On one level, it’s a game – a complicated one – that takes several years to play. IT teams don’t really compete against each other. Most will actually get to R12, but the ones with the lowest costs, best looking R12 environments, and fastest times will be the winners.
There are four distinct strategies for achieving an objective: Direct, Divisional, Delay, and Indirect. The strategist selects the one that best fits the situation profile, the landscape, and available resources. How does the R12 strategist select the transition strategy to get to R12? What will they depend on to win? Let’s look at some examples.
| Strategy | Example 11i to R12 Transition |
| Direct |
This requires a position of strength. The Direct Strategist’s organization has confidence that R12 offers business value, and no one questions how much it will cost to get there. A direct strategy works best when you have plenty of resources and can take the most obvious approach. It’s easy for others to understand. There are two 11i instance landscape profiles where this strategy works.
|
| Divisional |
The Divisional Strategist doesn’t have the resources or the technology assets to go directly to R12. Top management may not fully believe how R12 helps the stock price. Getting part of the business on R12 becomes the short term, intermediate objective. There might be a small, relatively simple business unit that can be the R12 pilot. Implement. A fresh implementation will not be difficult or drain the IT organization. Once they go live in 6 – 12 months, the larger organization can monitor their success, typically for a year. Meanwhile, IT can advertise R12 throughout the business and figure out what to do next. The next objective is now more complex: to get from the mature, core 11i instance and a clean, lean R12 instance to the single global R12 instance. The intermediate situation is not of much value, but it looks like progress. R12 is live. Reimplement. The next phase is to go from division to division and reimplement them into the small R12 instance. There may be a learning curve where the reimplementations and data conversions get easier. The time this takes is in the 12 – 24 month range. |
| Delay |
What’s the hurry? The Delay Strategist waits for more favorable conditions. If there’s no immediate business value in running R12, you can’t afford the transition, the resources are better used for productive projects, the current 11i environment (with one or more instances) is incompatible with an upgrade to R12, or you don’t have the technology assets, then it makes sense to wait. Others can live through the early stability and quality issues inherent in R12. There is hope. Hope that 11i will be stable and supported for another 2 – 3 years. Hope that someone will figure out how to upgrade or reimplement easier and cheaper. |
| Indirect |
The Indirect Strategist is also resource-constrained. But where the Divisional Strategist settles for a partial objective, the Indirect Strategist maneuvers for a single global R12 instance, without compromise, with a go-live date sooner than anyone expects. The Indirect Strategist depends on finding a way to change the rules of the game. The organization should have confidence in the Strategist’s vision and prior track record for doing the impossible. The Indirect Strategist has allies in high places in the business whose success depends on the business capabilities due when R12 goes live. In the case of 11i to R12, the Indirect Strategist can change the rules by eliminating two requirements from the transition path.
The Strategist changes the game, but it’s recognizable. The business still needs to define what must be different in R12 to maximize value, but they don’t waste effort on configurations and setups that need not change. They consolidate all the 11i instances into one instance compatible with Oracle Upgrade to R12, without losing any data or database integrity. Reliance on the organization’s super users and business analysts who understand the business – instead of armies of programmers – leads to schedules of about 6 months to take a single instance to an updated R12 configuration, or 10 – 18 months to take multiple instances to a single R12. Business value sooner + lower transition costs = faster payback. Unlike Direct, Divisional, and Delay, this strategy is not transparent, and it’s not easily believed. Others won’t understand how it can work. The Strategist must discover how to eliminate the two 11i instance profile requirements. Thought leaders in the Oracle EBS community are just now discovering the software technology that enables the indirect strategy. Since the technology is new, the Strategist will also need to overcome natural resistance to change. |
eprentise provides the software technology that changes the 11i to R12 transition game. The Indirect Strategist substitutes software for consultants and programmers, and then captures the full value of the Oracle Upgrade technology asset. They retain more of the investment in the 11i instance, and Time-To-Value is shorter. The R12 instance is configured to go to 2015, and it is a true single global instance.
For the last two years, the thought leaders have counseled E-Business Suite customers to be prepared to reimplement. At the time that made sense. The Direct Strategists prepared for, and some have completed, R12 reimplementation projects. The Divisional Strategists conceded that they would implement and over time load 11i data into a new, small R12 instance, which is a flavor of reimplementation. The Delay Strategists accept the status quo and avoid the resource-intensive reimplementation project as long as they can.
It’s clear that the surprising combination of eprentise Transformation software plus Oracle’s R12 Up-grade software has an impact on all four 11i to R12 transition strategies. A single winner has emerged.
The game has changed, and the thought leaders are asking, “Why reimplement?”
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May Puzzle
David is often referred to as Rainman due to his peculiar ability to effortlessly figure out a certain date's day of the week. He recently displayed this talent when I asked him if there was a conflict with the upcoming Fuzzy Dice Conference and our weekly court-ordered community service. He asked the date of the convention. It was April 20th, 2012.
"Oh, that’s a Friday," he said, effortlessly. "And your sentences have you committed for the next few dozen Wednesdays so you'll be able to go." And of course he was right.
One day a few weeks ago I asked out loud in the office about the date June 5th. And of all people, my brother Tommy piped up and said "Oh, that's a Tuesday."
"That's right," said David.
Well how about Otcober 3rd?
"That's a Wednesday," said Tommy. Then I asked about Christmas Day 2012.
"Oh, that's a Tuesday." David nodded in agreement.
Do we now have two rainmen? Or had Tommy figured something out?
Solution
Here's what was going on. Tommy was using something called anchor dates. And these dates apply to each and every year. April 4th, or 4/4 we’ll call it from now on, June 6th or 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12, are all the same day of the week, each and every year.
So too are 5/9 and 9/5, May 9th and September 5th. So too are 7/11 and 11/7, and all the above dates are the same day of the week, as is the last day in February, Leap Year or not. And they’re all the same day as January 4th, it would otherwise be January 3rd, but this was a leap year, and that’s changes the anchor day from January 3rd to January 4th.
Tommy also knew that New Year's Day was a Sunday. He was sobered up by then. And he knew it was a Sunday because Christmas was a Sunday in 2011, so New Year's Day is a Sunday, so the Anchor Day for 2012, January 4th, has to be a Wednesday!
So if that's a Wednesday, then 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12, 5/9, 9/5, 7/11, 11/7, and February 29th are all the same day of the week, and they're all Wednesdays. So when I ask for example, about October 3rd, he knew October 10th was a Wednesday, 10/10. So 10/3 must also be a Wednesday. 12/12 is a Wednesday in 2012, so it’s 12/26, which is two weeks later. So 12/25, or Christmas Day, must be a Tuesday.
Success Tips for Oracle Project Management
- Create a standard for documentation at the beginning of your project, and hold team members accountable for completing documentation requirements as well as keeping them at and above the standards required.
- Before promulgating user documentation or training, it’s also a good idea to choose a representative from the among the business users base to review materials first.
- If you are not sure about the resources and budget required, obtain several estimates from people that have experience with the same size and scope of your project.
- Be explicit, before beginning the project, what internal resources are required for execution. This includes people, infrastructure, hardware, and software.
- Help the project champion understand the impact your project will have on the organization and how its successful completion will make him or her an internal hero or heroine for supporting it.
- Break up your project into smaller projects (try for projects that can be completed in 4-6 months, especially early on) to get success and demonstrate momentum.
- Make sure that your testing includes reports, upstream and downstream interfaces, customizations, enhancements, and workflows.
- Ensure that comprehensive transition reports and meetings between departing and incoming personnel are completed.
- Instead of spending time and resources implementing third-party reporting, consider consolidating multiple instances, moving to a global chart of accounts (CoA), and/or standardizing on a consistent calendar.
- Include governance, risk, and compliance management as part of the project plan.
- Finally, celebrate the successes. Too many projects focus on defects, failures, or small cost over-runs without looking at the big picture and what was accomplished.
The Analyst Corner
John Van Decker, Research VP of Gartner, states:
"A single chart of accounts allows consistency in financial reporting across the enterprise by standardizing on common metrics and reporting structures, reduces dependencies on a separate financial consolidation system, and significantly reduces the costs incurred with ongoing, complex conversions and translations."
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