Oracle is adding hundreds of new capabilities to Oracle Cloud Applications with Release 13. Enhancements are aimed at enhancing the user experience and supporting business users across the organization through greater personalization, productivity, insight, and collaboration.
An integrated suite of applications, Oracle Cloud Applications includes new capabilities across Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud, Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud and Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud.
A critical advantage of the Cloud Applications Suite is that there is one single database sitting beneath the four pillars so there is no need to replicate data, and there is always one version of the truth, said Liam Nolan, vice president of cloud application development for ERP at Oracle. “The philosophy here is ‘single version.’ Everybody is working to the same end goal on the same raw material.”
Oracle SCM Cloud
One of the biggest areas of innovation in the new release is around supply chain, which includes six new products and hundreds of features within those products, said Nolan.
Additions to the Oracle SCM Cloud Release 13 cover Sales and Operation Planning, Demand Management, Supply Planning, Collaboration, Quality Management and Maintenance. The goal is to help organizations transform their operating models to meet rapidly changing business demands by evolving from traditional supply chain systems to connected, comprehensive, agile, and customer-oriented supply chain management capabilities.
A key area of focus is quality, with the ability to inspect goods as they are produced and to ensure that inspectors and outside agencies can attest to the fact that the right levels of quality have gone into them and then trace back using serial and lot numbers in case of recall. In addition, there is the ability to track maintenance requirements across plants, equipment, and vehicles, and to potentially link that with IoT services to automatically create work orders.
In addition, improvements in the planning area can be broken down into three sub areas, said Nolan: Demand Planning, Supply Planning, and Sales and Ops Planning. The new capabilities help organizations predict demand based on sales campaigns and other factors and determine production requirements across internal and external parties in an iterative real-time manner in order to get the right goods to the right place at the right time. “It’s basically introducing more collaboration,” said Nolan, citing customer feedback showing that the single biggest problem they have is lack of visibility of the full supply chain from start to finish. “We are addressing that head-on with this release.”
Oracle CX Cloud Suite
With Release 13, Oracle CX Cloud Suite introduces the Oracle Engagement Cloud. The new solution combines sales and service capabilities to enable organizations to help increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and up-sell opportunities. “Essentially, what we are doing is bringing together sales and service functionality,” said Nolan.
In addition, the Oracle CX Cloud Suite introduces new innovations to Oracle Sales Cloud, which include enhanced mobile and data visualization capabilities, as well as new capabilities that increase sales rep productivity.
The enhanced mobile functionality supports sales people working offsite even without internet connectivity so they can keep going in disconnected mode and sync later on; the visualization tooling helps users to spot exceptions to the norm at a glance; and prebuilt reporting packs are aimed at the unique requirements for different roles in the organization. More data connectors have also been added to keep the platform open.
Oracle ERP Cloud
Oracle ERP Cloud Release 13 there is a mixture of specific features for specific verticals plus a broadening of the capabilities overall.
Expanded capabilities across Financials, Procurement, and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) help organizations accelerate the pace of innovation via deeper domain functionality including Dynamic Discounting and Multi-Funding.
Release 13 includes greater industry coverage for higher education, financial services, and manufacturing, as well as expanded country localizations for India and Brazil, supporting organizations of all sizes, and from different industries and geographies.
Oracle HCM Cloud
Release 13 also enhances Oracle’s solution for HCM processes by introducing expanded user experience personalization and branding and more than 40 localizations localization. It also includes improved capabilities to support the needs of customers with unionized workforces, such as retail and healthcare with flexible work models
For more information, go to www.oracle.com.