Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Customer Hub 8.1, the latest version of its master data management solution, which enables organizations to consolidate customer data from disparate systems, cleanse, master, govern and share this information throughout the enterprise.
"The major theme of this release is integration," Pascal Laik, vice president, Master Data Management Products, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing. A key objective is to reduce the cost of integration with consuming applications, says Laik, observing that this is really "the heart" of the cost of MDM implementations.
The latest release provides a new set of composite web services to help speed SOA enablement and supports out-of-the-box integration with Oracle's Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the Oracle E-Business Suite through Oracle Application Integration 2.3 (AIA).
Moreover, Siebel CRM and Oracle E-Business suite have been updated to become "MDM Aware," enabling these applications to interact with outside sources of master data. In this release, as well, Oracle Customer Hub's AIA composite application user interface enables non-Oracle applications such as web and legacy applications to become "MDM Aware" and pre-integrated with the hub, to reduce the cost related to modifying and connecting these systems to Oracle Customer Hub.
Oracle Customer Hub also features a new set of usability and fast implementation features-including a new account hierarchy capability; enhanced application deployment manager; and integration and enablement of Oracle Identity Management and Oracle Virtual Directory-helping speed time to value for MDM projects.
While in the past, conversations with customers about MDM revolved around "what is MDM and why do I need it," Laik says there is now a growing appreciation of its benefits in efforts to drive efficiencies and reduce costs, and more effectively target sales and services.
For more information on Oracle Master Data Management, go here. For more on Oracle Customer Hub, go here.