Five Years of Oracle Cloud and What I have truly learned about Business

Five Years ago this summer, I was in London in a City wine bar off of Fenchurch Street mulling over the future direction of Certus. “Fusion”, as it was known then, was really the only topic of discussion as I could see it was going to be a true differentiator and change the market for years to come. To say a healthy degree of scepticism didn’t exist would be a lie but Oracle’s product line, despite its many acquisitions, in my opinion was like Apple’s in the 1990s – confused, ugly, outdated with no real viable roadmap and frankly completely unexciting. To be blunt Oracle was in danger of becoming irrelevant.

Come 2016 and looking back if Oracle hadn’t embraced, what we refer to today, as the Cloud it would be fast on its way to becoming a dinosaur regardless of its cash position and healthy bank balance. Instead of posting monster revenue growth quarters, it would be losing money. Oracle needed to change, the customers it served were crying out for innovation as their industries and businesses were changing and Cloud was to be the Game Changer. Oracle needed to become “relevant” again.

Now I have written about this extensively in my previously blogs of how Certus as a business was born in the Cloud and the digital era of disruptive technology as well as the challenges we have faced and I am pleased to say successfully overcome. However the most fascinating insight I have gained is the difference between those organisations that are going to be successful and those that are not in this new era.

My Insight

The great thing about digital technology, and the Cloud in particular, it has enabled a multitude of businesses to access technology of the likes of Oracle that would have been previously out of reach. Used correctly Cloud technology will transform your business, from engaging your employees, managing your talent, through to the adoption of best practice across finance and procurement as well as giving you access to real time management information. As a consequence over the past five years we have got involved in a wide range of new and exciting industry sectors and businesses from Gaming, Technology, Mining (Gold Mining - Yes Really!), Charities, Sporting Organisations and Hospitality as well as still servicing the traditional areas of Financial Services, Telco's and Government (more about that for another day!).

I honestly believe, as I enter my 29th year in IT (I still call it that!), we are truly living in the most exciting time of all. I have absolutely never enjoyed myself so much and love seeing the status quo in markets being constantly challenged and seeing companies like Uber and Airbnb disrupt en-masse. Innovation and disruption are now the only constants in a world of chaos.

Now this might sound harsh but for those organisations who didn’t decide to go Oracle Cloud or any other Cloud or even worse the ones that decided to do absolutely nothing at all after a protracted irrelevant procurement exercise (and there have been many) I say face the greatest challenge of all – Survival!

Cutting to the chase some people get all of this “stuff” and can see how their industries are transforming and the many new business opportunities that are available and some just don't. Unfortunately they are on the road to failure and extinction.

I always say on projects the only mistake you can really ever make “is not to make a decision at all” as the impact of indecisiveness costs time, money and business opportunity. Organisations that I have come across over the last few years that are indecisive I honestly believe will not be around in 3-5 year’s time. The reason being that the Executives seem completely “trapped” by their own culture to such an extent that if they cannot make a decision to go Cloud, especially given the body of evidence regarding the benefits and the very fact that their competition is using this technology that  sometimes allows a multitude of new players with new ideas to enter the arena then frankly it is only a matter of time before their own business disappears. 

You can hear it now the famous words of the Nokia CEO being repeated “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Well sorry you did do something wrong – “You stood still and didn’t bloody do anything!” – Game Over.

It’s truly fascinating stuff that case studies should be written about, albeit granted it’s only the kind of case study that ever gets written after the event and not during it. Most of all when trying to pin point why companies fail, I think it really comes down to culture and a complete lack of ability to adapt fast enough to a changing world. You simply become irrelevant.

Digital Darwinism

Only 22% of FTSE100 companies from 1984 are still in business today (with Lloyds Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland only being saved by HM Government bail outs in the 2008 crash). Technology and digitalisation in its most extreme form has changed the rules of business. We are now in an era of pure Digital Darwinism, how many of the remaining 22% will be there in 5 years time?

““the evolution of consumer behaviour when society and technology evolve faster than our ability to adapt.” (http://www.mrryanconnors.com/adaptive-marketing-digital-darwinism-one-can-prevent-the-other/ )

The successful companies - the ones that survive are the ones that adopt and adapt. Those that stand still join the dinosaurs. For those that do survive, they have the constant challenge of staying relevant to an intelligent demanding consumer base. To do that you need to constantly innovate and that ultimately requires investment in people and we come full circle back to the "war on talent".

The Cloud Moves Fast!

Without doubt, the Cloud is the most extreme fast moving business environment I have ever experienced. Oracle was late to the Cloud but it has and continues to change its entire business model, it will not only survive it will get stronger as it has the financial resources to back its plays. Does it get everything right? far from it and it still has a long way to go (sorry Larry, Mark, Safra). We learn by our mistakes and if you are smart you adapt accordingly. Even Certus constantly has to disrupt itself not just to stay competitive but to stay relevant to an ever changing environment and to our own customer’s needs.

The Cloud story is still in its infancy and we have many more exciting times ahead. So strap yourself in and get ready as Roald Dahl writes in Matilda “Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”

So what I have learned - those that survive and excel are decisive, they know they have to adapt, are calculated risk takers, and most importantly know they must constantly innovate to stay relevant to their consumer base.

There are many more chapters in this book to come and as I have said before we all write our own story so go be brave and go write the next chapter.

The Urban Myths of Oracle Cloud Implementations – The Epilogue

The articles I wrote a couple of months ago in relation to the many urban myths around Oracle Cloud have generated so much interest that I have been approached online, at conferences and even in the street! – Famous or what he laughs! Anyway such has been the interest and the intrinsic value of a shared conversation I thought I would post part III, an epilogue of sorts to address the two questions that I have been constantly asked since publication. So for those who are interested please find my views on these subjects and in the spirit and words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th Century American Lecturer and Poet “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.

#011 – Is Coexistence Real? Can You Integrate with On-Premise Systems

Oracle can support coexistence and you can integrate and exchange data between on-premise systems and the Cloud. Some basic examples do exist but for the more complex scenarios nothing does exist directly out of the box except the standard tools and you have to design and build the integration required yourself. Getting data into the cloud is straight forward so if your integration is one way going into the Cloud then it’s easier, however if you want two-way real time integration then it’s much more difficult.

CHALLENGE: So yes it can be done, anything can be done for a price. However please be warned it could be expensive in-fact from our experience it may be more expensive than just going for a full Cloud implementation. The Implementation Partner needs a number of skills so find one who has done it before and knows what they are doing as they need to know the source system; the Oracle Cloud; the tools provided by the Cloud (e.g. HCM Data Loader / HCM extract); and know how to design and deliver integrations supporting business processes. Also keep in view integrations need to be maintained and the Cloud is changing currently twice yearly therefore there is going be the ongoing cost of ownership to consider as well. Remember one of the reasons for adopting the Cloud is low cost of ownership.

So the lesson here is simple, try and do it on the cheap or find an inexperienced partner then get ready to write a hefty cheque.

Personally unless it is absolutely necessary we always advise to consider going full cloud, we always have. However in saying that we do recognise that this may not always be possible.

#012 – Business Change is Minimal

We need to be clear and differentiate between business change and training. Implementation of Cloud is transformational. The system is so intuitive that end users need little to no training especially if they are millennials. The older demographic can be served by using short contextual “youtube” help style videos and using standard functionality to embed these into the system at appropriate points. As for Professional Users we have taken a millennial intern (age 17) given them 2 hours teaching and training and then had them flying around the system doing payroll testing! I am not saying it’s always that easy but it really is not that difficult in terms of system user-ability. (equally I am not saying here we created a payroll expert in 2 hours!)

But we need to be clear the business change effort does need to be undertaken you can’t just “wing it”. If the business is not engaged, then the implementation will fail from an adoption perspective.

CHALLENGE: Cloud is transformational and therefore you change for good. You need to understand the long term impact that Cloud brings on your business, so find a partner that can articulate the future "service" offering in such a way to win "hearts and minds".  To do that you need someone that understands the business operation and the underlying subject matter.

The ongoing challenge is the constant stream of Oracle innovation means that some organisations struggle with the amount of change coming at them. Hence moving to a place mentally where the system is constantly changing and ensuring that employees are comfortable is key. Maintaining constant awareness, engagement and adoption are the watchwords here.

From our experience the most common challenges we see organisations face in turning to the Cloud include, but no means limited to:

• Industry best practice, means streamlined processes and automation of transactions – The impact being is that your Central HR and Finance departments may need different personnel with a different skill mix as their role becomes "value add" especially as the embedded management information means the focus is on insight and informed decision making – this  means organisational change; especially where HR and Finance are involved together

• The rate of change of innovation and the capacity of the organisation to consume change alongside business as usual – this means you need a mechanism for dealing with sustainable business change

• Determining effective mechanism’s for driving and sustaining user adoption The “What’s in it for me?” question needs a compelling answer

The bottom line is don’t under estimate the effort involved if you want to be successful. Remember you only get to transform once.

Epilogue

Regardless of implementation partner a client chooses we want all implementations to be successful. So writing this article isn’t just too merely demonstrate Certus knowledge and experience with the Oracle ERP & HCM Cloud it’s to provide enlightenment and insight to prospects and clients alike in the hope that this series of articles will, and continue to, steer them down the path to success. As Benjamin Franklin said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn” – so join the conversation and share your experiences…

Positive Disruption - Want to be Really Successful in the Oracle Cloud? The Secret Is Simple…

So two weeks ago we signed our first ever office lease – something we have put off for as long as possible, but due to our growth this has now become an absolute necessity. Building for growth and scaling is one thing, building a sustainable business is a completely different matter entirely and not a day goes by when you remember that “cash is always king”. In my opinion you build a sustainable business first and then build out. You can’t grow if you have no foundation. So as another milestone is hit and the company faces the challenge of further exponential growth it seems like a good time to share how we achieved our success to date but also remind ourselves that we keep our feet firmly on the ground albeit whilst I’ll heads are always in the Clouds.

So here’s another 2 part special, but fundamentally “the ability to Execute and Deliver is Absolutely Everything”. If you cannot deliver or you get a reputation for poor quality and non-delivery frankly you're dead! As Warren Buffett said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently”.

I am often asked as to how we built a modern day consultancy cloud practice and as many of you will know Certus today is an award winning Oracle Specialised Platinum Partner, with a business model dedicated to Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud. So if you want to know the secret to our success then please read on…and hey don’t be to surprised if a lot of what now follows appears to be lifted from the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Sir Allan Sugar, James Caan amongst others! It unashamedly has…but let me try and put the Oracle Cloud practice positioning on this…

The Principals of Certus' industry reputations were always based upon the maxim “they get the job done, in the right way and they always deliver”. We were and still are the people you come to when you have an ERP project in distress. The problem with reputations is as the jobs get bigger so does the risk profile, and the knowledge that regardless of what you have achieved in the past you only need to screw up once and that is what everyone remembers!” – So for Certus to be successful it had to be seen as an extension of our own reputations and based upon a strong sense of delivering value to the customer. To achieve that you first need your own strong value set. Employees need to buy into that value set for the company to grow, and the easiest way to do that is to build a “brand”, and that is what we did and from that gained the reputation for “being a safe pair of hands”.

The Equation of Digital Disruption

Even in the era of “Digital Disruption” which without doubt is very real and tangible it’s still all about People! It’s a two sided equation, it’s about the people we employ and it’s about the people we deliver to. If you cannot deliver sustainable success for your customers then regardless of what you sell them you won’t survive long in the Cloud game. Whilst investors are chasing Unicorns (“Emperor’s New Clothes” is the term that comes to mind. Someone please explain to me why you would invest large amounts of money in continuous loss making businesses in the hope that they are supposedly going to one day generate a fortune?), the fundamentals in any service based industry remain; without customers you are nothing, and in the Professional Services industry you need to find, develop and protect your talent as they will look after your customers.

 “The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers” - Sir Richard Branson

I still would para phrase Digital Disruption quite simply as  “better, cheaper, faster” – albeit a quote if any readers have ever heard me speak I always pay homage to Colin Fisher, IT Director of Lloyds Bank in the 1980’s and trusted lieutenant to Sir Brian Pitman when asked by an 18 year old who at the time was under strict instructions from his line management to keep his mouth shut asked “How do you deliver shareholder value mean?” and his answer was “better, cheaper, faster” (I’ll leave you all to guess who that was!). Today, 30 years on the principles are exactly the same, but what we did and continue to do with Certus I like to see as “Positive Disruption” to the Oracle Partner landscape.

1. “Build a Brand”

From day one we didn’t just want to build a great company we wanted to build a “brand”. We could see where the Oracle Cloud was going (even before Oracle!) and we also leveraged our experience and knowledge as to what the traditional market players (our “future competitors”) would do, betting and knowing they wouldn’t move fast enough to invest in the product set. This would create the space that a small nimble start-up could fill and by establishing a brand early on, our prospects, customers and the industry itself would remember us! Quite simply we wanted to be a new breed of Oracle partner.

Extend the brand, not only is Certus a brand name today in its own right – its engage® services – engage® Implementation Services, engage® Business Support Services and now (launching this month) engage®.gov is intrinsically linked to Certus. We also protect this with the Intellectual Patent Office! – So Imitators Beware. 

2. Be First and Become The Leaders in the field – the Recognised Experts in the Product

Timing in business is everything, from seeing the opportunity through to day-to-day cashflow. We sort introductions and networked into Oracle Development and then invested heavily in training gaining product knowledge and experience. We continue to do so today and feel we play a significant role by feeding back to Oracle our ideas and findings of implementing the product set. We want to be seen as an extension to the development team. For many years we have been known as the partner that trains other partners, but at the start Oracle asked us to train early adopter customers and the larger tier 1 transformational partners - this in effect became paid pre-sales as we were front and centre demonstrating our knowledge of the product set. The bi-product of this was it created implementation and consultancy opportunities for ourselves. Remember when starting out you need to get highly creative to generate cash to reinvest. This laid the bedrock of the business and we still do it today. Being first is great, you make a lot of noise and it gets you noticed but then you have to stay there! and that's harder. For many Certus came out of nowhere! 

3. Be different!

Oracle Cloud was a new market trying to establish itself in 2011, early 2012. In our opinion the Oracle Partner Landscape was “tired” we couldn’t see any new innovation and there was a high degree of status quo in the UK. That in itself was opportunity and Cloud was just the enabler. As James Cann often says he builds great businesses “Observe the masses and do the opposite”. That’s exactly what we did. We worked out how to implement Cloud differently and then we started to market ourselves; instead of UKOUG and Oracle (not saying that these channels aren’t effective), but we went directly and set up stand at the CIPD – The biggest HR Event in the UK – back then there wasn’t a Cloud insight!, especially an Oracle one. 

4. But…You don’t have to Redefine The Wheel

And here is the contradiction.…do look at the past, learn and reapply from those that have been truly successful. Edenbrook was (in my opinion) the last great Oracle Consultancy Practice in the UK before it was acquired - that was of course until Certus came along (smile). I went and met Mark Robinson, Serial Entrepreneur who now runs one of the fastest growing tech companies in the UK – Kimble. I talked through our ideas, the challenges and listened to the journey he went on with Edenbrook, and its predecessor Fulcrum. No point falling into the same bear traps if someone has kindly done it for you already, albeit in another era, but he has and always is been willing to share his experience with me. As for me I just shut-up, listen and learn. 

5. Buy into the Market, this is the risky part – in-effect we had to find (difficult), convince the first customer we could deliver the project (very difficult) and subsequently turn the customer overtime into an advocate (very very difficult with the early versions)

Finding the first project, buying into the market and putting your money where your mouth is demonstrates to a prospect your level of confidence in delivery. It took us the whole of 2012 to find the first customer, and we have many hilarious stories (especially the one about the Gold Mining Company in Africa! – catch us in the bar sometime and I will tell you) that today we still look back and laugh at. This however is very much the risk part. Yes it was completely loss making and for a SME it kills your cashflow and you have to be highly creative in resolving that, but from our “investment” and successful delivery we got reference-ability and customer advocacy

6.  “Walk the Talk” - Establish Credibility through Reference-ability

Reference-ability is everything when dealing with new technology, new implementation approaches and new markets. The Cloud takes you to new and different markets, but the rule is the same. If you don’t have happy satisfied customers, then you don’t get the reference-ability. Those that follow you will find it harder to establish themselves as well as gain reference-ability. To get reference-ability you have to earn the right to ask your customers and you only get that through successful delivery. So whatever you commit to make sure you deliver it!  

 Part II to follow soon…

The Horse Whisper - Lessons For Business

“When you cannot walk Let me help you to run. When you are afraid Let me teach you to trust. When you feel weak. Let me build your strength. When you can’t find your voice. Let us speak without words. When you cannot reach. Let me raise you above the world. When you want to give up. Let me show you how far you can go. In riding a horse, we borrow freedom!!” ~ Author Unknown

Even though I am the first to admit I am not a “horsey” person I have always quietly admired those who can ride and their relationship and natural ability to have an intrinsic understanding between human and animal. “Eventing” (Dressage, Cross-Country and Show Jumping) to me is the ultimate challenge, requiring the highest levels of skill, discipline and ability, let alone hours and hours of practice alongside care that goes into putting on the perfect performance is something I find completely admirable and also extremely brave. Controlling an animal the size of a horse and projecting confidence and control in dressage; undertaking a challenging cross country course; and then jumping in a tight arena against the clock is by no means can be considered easy, and all with the risk of serious injury to both parties. Equestrian riders are far from ordinary people, but then again a horse is not an ordinary animal.

So why am I writing about this? and what parallels (if any) are there to business? Well good question but for me I am always looking to put completely different aspects together. Looking for similarities (if any) or lessons that can be learned and transplanted. I am forcing my mind to look at things differently as it leads to innovation. This doesn’t come naturally to me it’s a learnt behaviour.

For me riding and business come together on a number of levels. To be successful in anything you need to have passion; dedication to practice; commitment to the challenge and high levels of trust. The aspect of fascination to me is the underlying psychology and behaviour in play and it is this aspect that I would like to explore. You find these characteristics in both.

That brings me to “The Horse Whisperer”, if you have never read the book – then find time to do so. I love the film, not just because there is a great love story and it also stars two of my all-time favourite actors and actresses in Robert Redford and Kristin Scott Thomas, but primarily it describes the struggle of the journey of an injured girl and an injured horse against all odds to come to heal each other after a tragic car accident. Triumph over adversity is right down my street.

However the controversial element in the film is that around horse psychology and behaviour, and that the instincts of horses can be used to human advantage to create a bond between human and horse. In layman terms horses can be controlled through training and repetition.

‘’A good trainer can hear his horse speak to him. A great trainer can hear him whisper’’ – Monty Roberts. Reflect this into a business context my personal interpretation would be “A good leader listens to his followers. A great leader listens to what is not said!”

Ok – so good so far? Let’s take it a step further.

The Psychology of Horse and Rider

Sigmund Freud’s theories gave us the useful metaphor of the “horse and rider” – with the conscious “ego” being the rider varying in skill and energy as they try to control a beast that is mysterious, much larger and more powerful. I apply this to the role of the Project Manager and the Project he or she is tasked with delivering.

All good Project Managers (“the rider”) have a degree of ego, it is the natural element found in their DNA that drives them to succeed and rise to the challenge of achievement. Project Management can be a very lonely job, especially when your pulling both client and suppliers (the “heard”) in the same direction to achieve what should be a common goal, so it the strength of personality and ego often carries Project Managers through the dark moments. If you don’t believe you can deliver the project, then your not going to convince the project’s sponsors let alone your own project delivery team.

Again just like any good rider, the good Project Manager must excel across a number of disciplines and skills. Including, but not limited to technical delivery skills; great business knowledge and context; the ability to be able to lead and communicate direction of travel clearly; and the ability to work with various stakeholders and possess at times the diplomacy of a NATO peace keeping force!

The Psychology of the Project

The vast majority of organisations, especially those that are SME’s are not overly disciplined in delivering business projects (especially IT enabled) in a controlled manner. Delivery takes place, but often in a hap hazard way, with projects always costing more than usually first envisaged.

Anything that disrupts business operations (digital or not) needs a degree of management and control. In a nod to Certus activities Oracle Cloud implementations are no different to any other project.

Project Management and delivery of business change / transformation projects is not about PRINCE2, MSP and the latest trend for agile (yawn! Any seasoned project management professional will tell you that, so nothing new here). True Project Managers know that projects are always fundamentally about people, and the skill is simply in getting people who don’t want to do things for you to get them to do things for you. Ok that’s project management theory dealt with. However you should see the link here between horse and rider – delivery is a learnt behaviour. Behaviour changes can be taught and adopted. It does however as any psychologist will tell you take time.

“Remember the “P” in PM is much about People Management as it is about Project Management” (Cornelius Fichtner).

The underlying skills of project management that really matter are those linked to emotional intelligence and people skills, ranging from displays of empathy and understanding, onto the rare occasions when it is ok and acceptable to lose your temper. The point being here it is a display of assertiveness in acknowledging you are proactively soliciting a pre-determined response. In other words - ‘’If a horse says no you either asked the wrong question or asked the question wrong’’ – Pat Parelli. Equally in Project Management if your project delivery team doesn’t respond to you in the way you expect, then quite possibly you are reading the situation wrong or similarly you have “asked the wrong question or asked the question wrong’’.

Food for thought and possible insight into the behaviour of project managers and project teams. As for me, I’ll keep my relationship between horses and myself to the racetrack and the bookies!

The Urban Myths of Oracle Cloud Implementations – Part II

Here we go for the second and concluding part of the article. Part I dealt with the myths of an Oracle Cloud product that is allegedly not ready; cost of the implementation against on premise; the myth we can get you live in 6 weeks; implementation partners quoting ridiculously low implementation prices and also that anybody can do a Cloud implementation! So lets add to the list of myths and lets try and dispel them.

#006 – Oracle Cloud Cannot be Customised

True – It’s not designed to be customised. You configure the cloud "service" to meet your organisation’s needs, but you cannot access the back end database and you cannot customise the code line. But why would you? Best practice processes and management information are embedded – so why would you want to change it? Why as an organisation in transacting basic back office business processes are you any different to the company next door – HR is HR, Finance is Finance. I would argue differentiation for competitive advantage is a front office activity and not a “commoditised” back office transactional task. “Efficiency and Effectiveness” are the watchwords of the back office, and Cloud gives you both!

Oracle Cloud can be extended through configuration, but again I would challenge as to how much configuration you really need. Also if you truly have something that is “unique” and required to make your business operation function, then Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a consideration.

PaaS is not however the “universal panacea”; it is a powerful tool set that if used correctly allows a client’s bespoke business processes to be configured, integrated and provide a consistent User Experience with the Oracle SaaS products.

CHALLENGE: In the first instant ensure your implementation partner knows the Cloud product suite and can demonstrate how it can be applied to your business. This should be through the use of best practice and standard configuration where possible, but they also need to be able to demonstrate and back it up with client reference-ability. Where have they done it before? What was the approach? How did they address solution gaps? – just some of the valid questions that should be asked.

#007: You Need Light Touch Project Management and Governance – It just Costs too Much!

Really? Good Project Managers and good governance models ensure projects get delivered on time. Great Project Managers do all of this and ensure the project is not only operational successful with the business but the customer (the users) are happy with a positive experience. They also will save you a fortune along the way. Equally a bad Project Manager will cost you a fortune!

CHALLENGE: Try putting Cloud in without good project management and governance then be prepared to get your cheque book out! Cloud is positive disruption and it’s going to change your business therefore it needs to be carefully managed and management needs a governance model that allows fast effective decision making.  

#008: We Can Move You From E-Business Suite R11 to Cloud in 12 Weeks

Get Real please. Yes - technically we could lift your current years worth of transactional data out of EBS and load it directly into the Cloud inside 12 weeks against a default configuration but the levels of compromise would be significant – Would you be happy at the end? I doubt it; Will you start changing things? – Definitely; Will it cost more in the long run? – Absolutely.

Everyone wants to be delivering value as quickly as possible, but be sensible and spend a little time in determining what is the right journey into the Cloud for your organisation.

For those of you that have spent the last 10 years customising the hell out of your on-premise system trust me you don’t have a lot of credibility if you look at a customer and tell them your going to migrate their payroll in 12 weeks? Do we just not test anything properly these days and just lob it into the Cloud and hope it just works? – if you do all I can say is I am glad I am not on your payroll.

Everyone has a different journey into the Cloud. Good implementation partners LISTEN and SEEK to UNDERSTAND a customer’s business and then work collaboratively with them. Throwing something in and not understanding the operation itself, is paramount to disaster.

CHALLENGE: Viable? – Well try and answer these questions - What’s your data quality like? What are you doing about data cleansing? What’s your appetite for risk around payroll and other key financial business processes? What’s going on around your organisation that will impact an implementation in this time frame? How mature as an organisation are you in regard to business change? Will you have to change your operating policies and procedures if you adopt Cloud? Are you willing to “compromise”? Remember you still have to address all of these questions and now you have to do it in less than 12 weeks!

#009: Vanilla – It’s all Out of the Box

It’s not! - All Cloud systems require configuration and at the very least you have to load your data. So effort is required. The smarter implementation partners will provide a degree of pre-configuration through methodologies and accelerators to speed up the implementation. And please remember there is no such thing EVER as an Out of the Box Payroll!

CHALLENGE: Get the Implementation Partner and Oracle to show you what you are getting and make sure it’s the current release and not something that may or may not be delivered in the future. Ensure your expectations are set correctly, but also keep in view what your being sold won’t be what you will go live with as new innovation will have been delivered through the upgrade cycle.

#010: Doesn’t Need Support, Oracle Cloud Upgrades Automatically Over a Weekend

The Technical Upgrade is a weekend activity however the upgrade cycle, so long as no major problems are identified, is 3 weeks from start to finish - You have to regression test the upgrade against your Cloud configuration before implementing the upgrade against the Production instance.. You will also get a choice of when to upgrade within a 3 month window – but remember you will be upgraded!

Cloud needs support, and not just technical support. The Service Management function is more important than ever with dealing with Cloud applications. Oracle does not, and to be honest isn’t geared up to provide that constant “customer attention” for the smaller to medium size customers. It’s ok scaling your sales organisation, but if you don’t scale your customer service and support organisation – then you are just asking for operational problems.

CHALLENGE: How are you as an organisation going to support the system moving? This is where partners can play a pro-active role. Who better to help the customer continue their journey into the cloud than the partner who worked alongside you to implement. A good partner gets to know your business and your people, these relationships underpin any good support arrangement, which should also be pro-active and not only manage the upgrade cycle for you, but also to advise and constantly guide you on the product. So ask if your implementation partner provides an ongoing support service to manage upgrades and the Oracle relationship for you. For example Certus provides engage® Business Support Services, not only to our existing customers but also to customers that we didn’t undertake the original Cloud implementation for.

In Summary…

Controversial - absolutely! but if you haven’t got something to say that provokes thought and debate, then really you have nothing to say. As Thomas Watson, Founder of IBM said “Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity”. So let’s see who agrees and disagrees….anyone care to debate, or comment, I love a good argument!

The Urban Myths of Oracle Cloud Implementations – Part I

For those that follow me on a regular basis you will know I don't use my posts to discuss Oracle Cloud directly as I would rather concentrate on the trials and tribulations of running a small medium business. But after listening to the many urban myths that seem to be miraculously circulating recently and seeing much misdirection I feel compelled to step up onto the soap box and set the record straight in a 2 part special expose!

Certus has been dedicated to working with Oracle Cloud since 2011 and I am proud to look back and say we were amongst the very first true pioneers that saw the potential of how Cloud would become the next paradigm shift in the Oracle technology landscape that would truly enable digital business transformation of the back office. Today this potential is a firm reality.

A Changing Landscape and Language

Language that entered the EMEA Oracle Sales team vocabulary in early 2012 like “customer journey” and “customer experience” was very much influenced and I would even go far as saying created by Certus in our early sales pitches. I have seen more of my presentations copied and manipulated over the years than ever before – as they say “plagiarism is the best form of flattery”. Our dedication, positive customer advocacy, and thought leadership has allowed us to develop close working relationships with the Oracle Cloud development teams where we constantly provide feedback as to how the Cloud is implemented and works in practice.

Over the past 5 years we have seen many organisations of all shapes and sizes across different industries be brave and become early adopters of the Cloud. Others are, understandably, still undecided – however with momentum of Cloud based products across the industry and all future commercial application development now being undertaken in the Cloud it really is only a case of when Organisations move and not if. However one has to acknowledge that each organisation has its own journey to make and consequently the route taken will be somewhat unique. Business after all is all about timing!

Certus is, and always will be, a customer focused delivery organisation with the  focus on ensuring a positive customer experience. Today we have over 20 Cloud Customers (some of the biggest brand names in the UK), 16 successful implementations live, 75+ Cloud modules implemented ranging from single pillar to multi-pillar Cloud implementations that are currently in progress. Many of these have been global in nature so I think we can make claim to say with some authority that we are one of the most experienced and leading active practising Oracle Cloud consultancies in the world today. (Note: There are not many of us, and one less after KBACE being acquired last week).

At Certus we believe firmly from the outset in establishing an honest open relationship with our customers. We want our customers for life and this can only be achieved by being transparent. Equally we have to combat the many detractors out there, who advise and talk with minimum to actually no experience of cloud implementations. Just because you spent the last 20 years implementing Oracle E-Business Suite or PeopleSoft does not make you a Cloud expert. This was something that even the Founders of Certus were faced with in 2011 when four of us got together in a hotel room for a week, with 100+ years of experience and come Friday we had retired to the pub knowing we were no further forward in working out how the Cloud could be implemented “better, cheaper, faster” than we were on the Monday morning when we started – Now that’s not a problem today, but it took us 3 years to learn our trade and as anyone will tell you the rate of Oracle innovation hits you so quickly staying on top of the product is a constant challenge.

So being a customer delivery focused organisation I find it very frustrating when the Oracle Cloud and the approach to delivery is questioned and challenged by those so “called advisors” who have very little knowledge, but unfortunately have significant influence on organisations decision making process. I want every implementation to be successful and customers of Oracle Cloud to be advocates of the product. Hence it’s now time to create some positive disruption and in the spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing clear away the Cloud marketing and sales spin by dispelling some of the urban myths that have been built up by highlighting the reality.

So for all prospects and existing customers – enjoy! and hopefully you will take some insight away. Controversial – yes; but you wouldn’t really expect anything else from me.

10 Urban Myths, The Reality and the Challenges that should be laid down

#001 - The Oracle Cloud applications don’t work and aren’t ready

In 2011 this was true, Oracle was late to the Cloud, something they admit themselves today and the early versions of the product felt like they were rushed out. However this is NOT the case today.

Certus has personally implemented or is implementing the Oracle Cloud suite at Financial Services Organisations, Telecos, Utilities, Media, Sports Bodies, Local Government and most recently we have started at the Office National Statistics - the very “first UK Central Government implementation”. If it didn’t work we would know about it! So for those that say it doesn’t work – prove it! – My challenge is direct - how many Oracle Cloud implementations have you undertaken yourselves? where and when? Show us where is doesn’t work and demonstrate it.

Are there gaps in the product – yes there are? This is also true in competitors’ products and in Oracle's on-premise legacy products. Oracle are pumping $6 billion dollars a year into R&D and the gaps over time are being closed. For business processes that are so bespoke to an organisation, Oracle has Platform as a Service (PaaS); as set of tools that allows you to build and execute these processes, integrating them into the primary SaaS suite if you need to.

CHALLENGE: For those spreading doubt and misdirection I say to the decision makers of organisations to challenge, come and look at what we have done, and more importantly who we have done it with. Reach out and talk to Customers of the Oracle Cloud directly. No power-points or canned demo’s this is real! For Certus our Customers are our advocates not only of the product but also of us as an organisation. A partner that implements well and has a happy customer has nothing to hide.

#002 - Oracle Cloud is Just as Expensive to Implement than On-Premise Solutions

False – Oracle Cloud is Faster and Cheaper to Implement than On-Premise Solutions. The caveat however is you need an implementation partner that knows what they are doing though!

From our experience Oracle Cloud is 40-50% cheaper in regard to Oracle legacy on-premise implementation costs. The primary reasons being that numerous best practice processes are already embedded in the Cloud product and gone are the days of writing many bespoke workflows for what amounts to standard functionality. As a consequence the Cloud can be implemented quicker than traditional Oracle legacy on-premise packages, thus it is cheaper.

Time to value is achieved faster, by adopting phased implementations – build and deliver your overall Cloud vision one step at a time. Remember your paying subscription charges as soon as you sign the Oracle Cloud Services agreement so it is in your interest to go-live as quickly as possible – however this must be realistic! You still have to configure, develop interfaces (if required), test and transition. Also you have to be aware of the upgrade cycle and where this falls. All of this impacts your deliver plan.

Equally the product has incredibly powerful embedded Management Information capability. No more 200 days of report writing effort, try 5-10 days of training instead ensuring that the customer is totally self-sufficient and understands that they are part of a wider community where they can share reports they build with others.

CHALLENGE: Beware of the Consultancy that’s puts forward an 18 month implementation plan for a single big bang approach, or wants to spend 12 months designing your Target Operating Model and mapping “as is” to “to be” business processes and wanting to use the legacy Oracle Application Implementation Methodology (AIM) to document requirements. You should be live with the core modules in and around 20 weeks maximum and your implementation partner should be standing YOUR system up within a week or two for you to move into prototyping! Also if they cannot articulate the upgrade process – you need to question why not? Its fundamental in relation to Oracle Cloud Operations.

#003: We Can Get You Live in 6 Weeks

Really??? I mean Really??? Unless you are running an operation that is so small, probably less than 100 people, in one county in one location, has no back office processes and you are not integrating into the payroll or anything else then yes it’s probably possible, if you also minimise your testing cycles down to nothing.

CHALLENGE: STOP and THINK! - “No one gets a gold medal for achieving an implementation that transforms your back office in ridiculous timescales”. Just what are you getting in 6 weeks? It may look cheap (and it will be!!!), but get ready for the Change Requests, especially if it’s Fixed Price, a lot pain and an upset user base. Remember hearts and minds need to be won over in any business change project. Cloud is an application “People Want to Use, Rather than Being Told to Use”, so don't get sold purely in regard to speed. Challenge what  you think you are really getting?

#004 - Ridiculous Low Cost Implementation Prices

If you bought an expensive car for £50K and then was told the servicing cost was £1 per year – wouldn’t you raise an eyebrow? What really happens when it breaks down? The questions you should be asking fundamentally is how is this possible? and even more importantly what exactly am I getting?

Oracle’s sales strategy is one of “buying” market share by offering heavily discounted prices, which as a customer you should take advantage of. However that doesn’t mean the implementation price should or will be any cheaper. Just because they have offered high discounted rates doesn’t mean the effort to implement got less overnight? In fact this type of cost cutting goes to such an extreme that if encouraged to ridiculous amounts by the customer, all they will be guaranteed is a poor implementation as the partner who wins the contract will want to be out as quickly as possible.

Any such Implementation Partner adopting such pricing tactics will obviously be using “cheap” offshore resource and all of us have seen functions being outsourced and moved to the location that facilitates the lowest cost delivery point. This is nothing new (Michael Porter – you’re still my hero!).

However where the customer gains on price, they will always lose on quality and also miss the opportunity that is afforded to them through leveraging the asset once implemented. Cloud isn’t a technical implementation, it is a business implementation and therefore this means the Consultants must be knowledge-able about the underlying business operations, whether they be Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain, HR or Payroll as well as the Cloud system (which is constantly changing and innovation is made available for every 6 months). If the Consultants don’t know the product – how can they consult on it? and how can they advise you the Customer on your journey?

CHALLENGE: So ask – What are you getting? Who you are getting? Where is it getting delivered? - keep in view the majority of security breaches around loss of customer data happen from the inside and not someone penetrating an Oracle Data Centre from the outside, so keep in view the risk of offshoring. What is the experience of the Consultants? – Remember from a market perspective this is still a new and rare skill, so don’t be paying for a Consultancy to learn on the job at your expense!

#005 – Anyone Can undertake an Oracle Cloud Implementation

If you believe this, you really are in trouble before you begin!

Cloud is not Oracle E-Business Suite, Peoplesoft or JD Edwards. Whilst IPR has been taken from these legacy products and re-engineered, with best practice processes included, we are talking a different product. Twenty years of implementing on-premise systems isn’t going to help you, whilst some of the activities are exactly the same, the approach to the build is completely different if done right. In addition we are talking about a service that due to the rate of Oracle’s constant innovation is constantly moving forward every 6 months. It only seems like yesterday we were just talking about R10, and now R11 is approaching and R12 by the end of the year.

Oracle invest heavily in their partner programme and are just about to announce new Cloud “statuses” to act as an even greater differentiator. Equally the investment required by Oracle partners is significant. Oracle partners have to constantly invest to maintain their status and capability. Look for it! It really does mean something when it comes to Cloud, above and beyond the marketing spin.

CHALLENGE: It’s not the size of a Consultancy, it is the number of trained Consultants you have on the ground that are actually doing implementations that matters. Also look for practices that have a greater employee base in terms of implementation team ratio and not just contractors. The rationale being to do Cloud properly the implementation partner has to constantly invest in its own people with new skills, implementation experience and certifications. Equally what is important are Consultants that can talk the language of business – Finance, HR, Payroll etc…and to do that you need onshore resources that can get close to the business and the customer. 

Good luck trying to do that from offshore and with a contract workforce that is constantly on the move.

…Part II to follow soon…