Oracle Gives JD Edwards a PIP of an Upgrade

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) is giving users of JD Edwards -- one of the myriad enterprise software suites the company has acquired over the last decade -- a new set of tools to leverage through its value chain planning applications.

It's upgrading the JD Edwards offering with a bundle of supply chain management (SCM)-related applications and best practices that Oracle developed for its own products over the years. JD Edwards users will be able to access the tools through a new integration service, Application Integration Architecture Process Integration Pack, or PIP.

Oracle designed PIP so that a user can deploy one of the applications, and then go back and deploy the others in the bundle using the same install, said Lenley Hensarling, Oracle group vice president and general manager of JD Edwards and Applications Unlimited.

Oracle's value chain planning applications include features and functions found in its trade management, demand signal management, risk management, supply and distribution planning, demand management, advanced forecasting, sales and operations planning, inventory postponement, collaborative planning and corporate-wide planning performance management.

Value Chain Planning

"Oracle's overall app strategy is based on a completely open integration to an umbrella we are calling 'value chain planning,'" Hensarling told CRM Buyer. "Under that umbrella, there are a number of advanced supply chain planning products to which we have rationalized the data model."

The fact that a user effectively only has to do one major integration to leverage all of the apps, "makes this approach a very cost effective integration," he said.

Users of JD Edwards, with its emphasis on advanced supply chain functionality, are likely to focus on the collaborative supplier planning and inventory optimization, which works in concert with strategic network optimization, Hensarling noted.

There is also a set of dashboards -- dubbed the "Advanced Planning Command Center" -- for the JD Edwards user base.

Bigger Picture

Besides building up the supply chain acumen for users, these PIPs also deliver cost certainty, Rebecca Wettemann, principal with Nucleus Research, told CRM Buyer.

"With PIPs, Oracle is making investments so its technology is faster, easier and more predictable to deploy," she said. "That is important for companies that don't want to take on much risk right now."

It also allows the company to get a better sense of when it will realize an ROI on its investment, she added.

"Oracle's investments in process integration packs means faster time to value and a better ability to predict exactly when change management will occur," said Wettemann.