Managing Automation - May 2008 - (Page 31)

[ SPECIAL REPORT ] The Accelerator online configuration tools, for example, allow Oracle’s reseller partners to quickly document a customer’s business processes and workflows and to determine what software modules they will need. The tool also allows for the quick, automated configuration of an application suite for a specific customer. The configurations can include vertical industry extensions created by Oracle resellers. So far, Kender says, 92 resellers have created such Accelerate extensions. The Accelerate program enabled Oracle reseller DAZ Systems Inc. to configure Oracle’s E-Business Suite specifically for JR286 in a week and a half, Inofuentes says. And that allowed the company to meet its plans to go live with the product within three months and before the start of its busy season in May. Oracle’s applications sales to SMEs grew 41% last year, and the Accelerate program was a big reason why, Kender says. In February, SAP responded to Oracle’s Accelerate program with a similar initiative of its own. SAP’s Fast Start program allows resellers and users of its All-in-One product for midsized companies to assess a company’s application needs and configure the applications quickly online, incorporating pre-integrated business workflows and scenarios. The Fast Start tools also provide resellers and customers with an estimate of what a configured deployment will cost, including hardware and database management system. In addition to the Fast Start program, SAP in March announced an enhanced partnership with Intel Corp. that will see the two companies offer pre-configured, low-cost technology bundles for mid-sized companies that will include Intel-based systems, the SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system from Novell, SAP’s MaxDB database, and All-inTo get closer to SME customers and One applications. Like Oracle, SAP is relying on rereduce the cost of sales, both Oracle and sellers to provide vertical-industrySAP are using networks of independent specific extensions to its SME-tarvalue-added partners to sell to SMEs. geted products, par ticularly All-in-One. In this regard, SAP may pendent value-added partners to sell to smallhave an edge with 2,500 reseller partners, and medium-sized customers. compared with Oracle’s 200. But both are attempting to go much further “SAP’s strength is that it has a great partner in making their applications easier for SMEs to network,” Forrester’s Wang says. “Partners configure and deploy. Oracle has made the are encouraged to build their own intellectual most progress in this regard, experts say, with property into the products, so they feel like its 2-year-old Accelerate program, a combinathey own the business.” tion of applications, industry-specific extenSTRATEGY DIVIDE sions, and online configuration tools that, Oracle and its partners say, make it much easWhile SAP and Oracle are taking similar apier and less expensive to configure, price, and proaches to making the implementation of deploy enterprise applications for SMEs. their applications more SME-friendly, other May to realize a positive ROI on their deployments. Sixty-three percent of Oracle SME customers said they had stayed on budget, and 93% said they had realized positive ROI. At Loram Maintenance of Way Inc., a small, 20-year-old maker of railroad maintenance equipment, for example, Director of IT Gregg Harcus didn’t even consider SAP as a possible vendor when, last year, the company decided to replace its aging DataWorks ERP system. “All of the consultants we talked to said the same thing: that the SAP implementation would be much harder and more expensive,” says Harcus, who ended up deploying IFS applications. SAP and its partners, however, are working hard to overcome the “too complex and too expensive” label. At Kilfrost Ltd., a $50 million United Kingdom-based maker of aircraft de-icing fluids, SAP’s Business One was on the short list of vendors last year when the company decided to replace a collection of homegrown systems and manual processes. However, many at Kilfrost had their doubts. “Of the three we strongly considered [Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sage 1000, and Business One], I had vowed in the past never to use SAP,” says Chris Blaxall, Kilfrost’s CFO. “I had put in R3 at another company years ago, and it had been a complex, bad experience.” Kilfrost, however, was won over by Business One’s simple, Windows-like user interface and by the willingness of SAP’s implementation partner, DGM, to dig into Kilfrost’s business processes and configure Business One to meet the company’s needs. In the end, DGM implemented Business One in less than four months, Blaxall says. In order to get closer to SME customers and reduce the cost of sales, both Oracle and SAP are primarily using networks of inde- 31 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - May 2008

Managing Automation - May 2008 Contents Take 1 Award-Winning Shoe-Maker Otabo Alters Course, Shifts Production to China IBM Partners with Universities for Cloud Computing Getting Noise in Production Under Control Incuity Embarks on a Vertical Market Strategy Foundation Intensifies OPC Standard Testing Mailbox Notes PM Roundtable Cover Story: The Business of Going Green Special Report: Night and Day Delivering on Promises Finding the Right Fit for Wireless Driving RFID Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - May 2008

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