A Practical Guide to Implement Oracle E-Business Suite

A Practical Guide To Implement Oracle E-Business Suite book is a blue print to implement Oracle E-Business Suite of applications to achieve the goals and vision of the company with optimum resources and efficiency. With fast changing application technology environments and the cost involved in implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) package, it has become a priority for most companies planning to implement an ERP package that cost remains under control while getting the most out of their ERP package.

Introduction
A Practical Guide to Implement Oracle E-Business Suite book is about implementing Oracle E-Business Suite of applications in a practical way while achieving the goals and vision of the company with optimum resources and efficiency. With fast changing application technology environments and the cost involved in implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) package, it has become a priority for most companies planning to implement an ERP package that cost remains under control while getting the most out of their ERP package. Most of the companies today have a set agenda of what application suites they plan to implement, what their budgets are, and what integration they need to function better than they have been doing in the past.
Let’s talk about the two critical factors for implementation – Time and Cost.
Time has become a critical factor as business changes over a period of time and so does the process to do business. If the implementation is not completed within this time frame, there is a likelihood that people and processes can change as well as environment; that is servers, database, technologies and other applications integrated with Oracle may change adding complexity to the project and driving projects out of schedule and budget.
There have been implementation projects that have been prolonged for various reasons. Some of these are controllable; others uncontrollable. These can include:
• Inconsistent goals within different teams
• Inaccurate project planning
• Insufficient project control
• Project scope being changed during implementation
• Project team being replaced
• Different implementation methodology used at different times
• Team commitment to project
• Changes in technologies
• Budget restrictions have all added to the quality and success or failure of implementation.

Cost has played another challenge, as most of these projects are funded based on budgetary funds available and the fact that the implementation is treated as an investment. The ERP package cost consists of two components – Software/ Hardware and Consulting. Software/ hardware costs include servers for hosting application, software licensing and support fees. This most likely will not change significantly whether the project is implemented in six months or two years; however consulting costs will change as it is directly impacted by the team size and duration of the project as most of the projects are implements based on time and expense. Some are implemented on fixed bids with specific deliverables and caveats.
It is more difficult to justify the investment in software implementation if it is prolonged beyond a certain timeframe. Most companies evaluate an ERP package as a return on investment or ROI in financial terms, which in laymen’s terms is financial and often non-financial benefits generated by the new process, while evaluating cost of current process compared to implementing the new package. Analyzing the cost of implementing new software will provide a ROI to help the decision making process.
With all the factors deciding the course of implementation, we still need to have an up and running application. So the question is how do you do it? To answer this question, I have put together this book that lists the factors that need consideration and the tasks that need to be completed for a successful on time implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite. The purpose of this book is to help people who are part of the team to identify all that is necessary to implement the Oracle E-Business Suite including scope, schedule, deliverables, project control, risk management and more.
Having stated that time and cost are critical for implementing Oracle E-Business applications, we need to have a strategy and clear plan to implement the applications. This book covers important pieces of implementation that will impact the success, including methodology, applications selection criteria, project teams, project management, implementation tasks, customization, software integration, printed documents, communications, and tools.
This book is organized into two sections. The first section provides high level features and functions available within Oracle E-Business Suite of applications to provide the project managers and team members’ guidance on the possible usage of the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications. ...This is a high level flow and there may be additional flows depending on the business process and how the system is configured to address those needs.

The second section describes the implementation process, things that need consideration for an implementation project, starting with the implementation goals, building a team, defining success criteria to implementation lifecycle, methodology, documentation, monitoring and controlling progress, resulting in a path to deliver a successful project.
This book is not going to describe the setup steps for implementing Oracle E-Business Suite application features or how to use the application; that is already very well documented by Oracle. These are generally organized in two sets – Implementation and User Guides. The implementation guide documents set up steps in detail including mandatory and optional setup steps. User guides describe how each form, functionality, or report can be used. The documents also lists various business scenarios and how these can be met with various setup configurations. In addition there are other useful documents sets from Oracle including Technical Resource Manuals (TRMs), which provide technical details including tables and views within the application schemas, Application Programming Interface (API) and Open Interface guides are also available, these documents provide information on how Oracle can integrate with other applications and use built in Oracle functionality to handle integration, these guides are used for development and customization purposes.
At the end of each chapter I’ve provided some high level key takeaways, this will help you define the scope by starting your thought process. These are generic guidance questions, you may want to have a deeper conversation to get ready for implementation.
This book should help with planning an implementation, defining the scope, building the right team, identifying the critical tasks for successful implementation, executing these tasks and controlling the project.
“Excellence lies in making end use simple”. This is true with everything we do every day from making a smart phone to writing an application code and so does this book!