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…
No comments:
Post a Comment