Oracle Corporation - Case Study Example

Running Head: ORACLE AND SAP Topic:  Lecturer: Presentation: Oracle Overview of Oracle Oracle Corporation was founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison and has developed in to a multinational corporation with its software products being the third in terms of usage globally after those of Microsoft and IBM. It has its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California in the United States of America. The organization has experienced an exponential growth and has acquired several companies such as Silver Creek, SOPHOI and Sun Microsystems among others. The Oracle database has made the organization to be known globally as well as its other products such as the ERP, CRM and SCM that are significant in for business solutions. It supplies software useful for information management in businesses, which have made the company to establish a good name in the market as one of the leading suppliers. It offers software which are internet-enabled which are incorporated with database, enterprise business applications and application development (Harper, 2003).  The annual revenues for Oracle have been recorded as more than 10.9 billion USD. It is among the large multinational companies and has operations in not less than 145 countries. The organization uses strong marketing strategies with highly differentiated products ranging from its database tools to application products, from consulting services to support services. This has been made possible through the acquisition of other companies as well as collaboration. It applies a strong support for its products through the use of the Customer Support Identifier codes, which are useful for the customers who are registered with the organization. The CSI allows customers to make requests through the web. Oracle has made a global presence for the past 30 years by providing their customers reliable, secure and integrated technologies to manage their information and processes. Oracle’s competitors such as Microsoft, IBM and Informix among others are highly innovative, with many new products entering the market each year (Harper, 2003). The organization therefore has to develop strategies to maintain competitiveness through customer satisfaction. Implementation of Oracle Oracle implements efficient global e-business solutions that manage the front office CRM as well the back office procedural operations. Customer relationship management is a significant strategy used by organizations to enhance communication between the management and customers in a bid to maintain customers and attract more to the business, thereby increasing the prospects of sales (David, 2007). Oracle Corporation utilizes technology to ensure that its operations are automated for maximum output especially in regard to the maintenance of customer satisfaction. The strategy helps the company to minimize the costs of marketing and advertisement.   Oracle has always been involved in innovating ideas in the field of software development and implementation. Lee et al. (2003) observes that innovativeness is a strong strategy for maintenance of competitiveness. “Cloud Computing” is one of the innovative concepts that is targeted at facilitating the delivery of software and hardware as service on the internet. It will give its customers the choice of running the business software in private clouds or public clouds. Such flexibility is significant for the customers to have diversity of choices. It is a form of product differentiation that gives customers a competitive advantage.   Customization of Oracle Oracle forms are some of the tolls that can be used for the customization of Oracle. Oracle reports are also used for this purpose. They are usually preferred due to the fact that they do not interfere with the structure of applications. Users are advised to avoid customizing through the use of techniques that can interfere with the Oracle database objects or operation suits. The rates of productivity of human resources are important in determining the customization plan, and they are inter-related with the human resources experience as well as the application tools for the project (David, 2007). Complexities of Oracle Oracle is user friendly, and the businesses that apply Oracle software modules are usually successful only when they follow the recommendations of Oracle, such as matching the schemas with the names of the objects when they need to create materialized views. While applying crystal reports, it is usually complex and difficult to accomplish even for the skilled users of Oracle. There usually lacks a clear mechanism to separate the name of the schemas from the crystal, which generates difficulties for the users. Oracle Software Modules Oracle has various software modules designed for various business applications. They allow effective communication between businesses and their customers whereby clients can directly contact customer care in the business and receive feedback in an efficient way. The modules include; AHL that is an online module, BIM that is a marketing module, CE that is a financial management module and many other modules that businesses use for various uses in their operations. Advantages of Oracle Even though Oracle products are usually highly differentiated and often come in new versions, the original versions are maintained in other words, the new versions of Oracle are compatible with the older versions, meaning that the older aspects can be maintained and hence the users do not have to be retrained any time a new Oracle database is purchased. The new versions are usually user friendly because they are released with the features arranged in a list that can easily be understood. Data is maintained permanently in the system and consistency and security is maintained until data transactions are complete. Disadvantages of Oracle Oracle requires users to be trained due to its complexity, while on the other hand there are few people in organizations who have skills in it. It is costly for organizations that do not provide for downtime outlay. SAP  Overview of SAP SAP was founded in 1972, and is one of the principle providers of software for businesses, which are significant for improving their capability of innovativeness for better service delivery to clients. SMEs as well as organizations in the international market are major clients of SAP. The company can be considered the world’s leader in providing business software as it offers a wide range of solutions and services for companies of all sizes. The customers can find solutions for more than 25 types of industries.  The organization has acquired competitiveness in the global market through establishment of subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, where over 48,500 employees work for them. SAP has been capable of penetrating the market through providing business solutions, which has been strengthened by the mergers and acquisitions that the company has engaged in locally and internationally. Through the aid of their ERP platform- mySAP, companies around the world are able to improve their customer and partner relationships, streamline operations and achieve significant improvements in planning their supply chains (Nolan, 1995). The vision of SAP is for companies to become efficient and best-run businesses, irrespective of the size of the company. The company’s SCM enables businesses to undertake their essential operations with a software module that is capable of working with even other software that does not belong to SAP. The SAP business suit can be used by any type of business or organizational unit to deal with difficulties encountered in operations at the organization’s convenience with minimal costs of upgrading. Moreover, the SCM of SAP has the capacity to change the order of the supply chain to an open one whereby companies become more consumer oriented, and strive to satisfy the market demand (Padmanabhan et al. 2009). Implementation of SAP The use of SAP products helps customers to reduce costs and maximize performance. They are useful in scheduling and implementing applications that are combined through design. SAP SPM (sustainability performance management) is a new product that is significant tool that facilitates reporting in business while on the other hand helping organizations to accomplish performance management, which is significant for organizational productivity. The SPM helps businesses to collect accurate information regarding the organization’s performance indicators from a number of sources and also allows elimination errors as well as long and tedious processes in data collection and recording (Noveck, 2000). SAP also provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) among other sustainability products that are significant for organizational productivity. The ERP comprises the supply chain management, CRM and supplier relationship management. SAP solutions provide the customers with the aid to close any gap that might exist between strategy and thus execution of their business.  Customization of SAP SAP provides business solutions through various modules with distinct design, which means that the settings are different and each has its unique options. For that reason SAP customization is not similar for all the modules and is also different in different organizations. Each configures the SAP modules to match specialized business needs. Customization of SAP is kept minimal by many of the deployment projects for the purpose of ensuring that the completeness of the core code is maintained. However, users enjoy the flexibility of upgrading SAP and enhancing the software operability in the business. SAP is usually customized in a tabular manner to make future references easy (Padmanabhan et al. 2009). Complexities of SAP Once organizations begin using and customizing SAP, the systems continue to develop especially if the user applies them substantially in the organizational operations. Over time, the system’s response time worsens making the cost of operation to increase. The complexity increases with any customization or adjustments that are carried out. Moreover, the more the number of users, the more complex the SAP systems become. The fact that organizations have to undertake extra costs of training the users and specialists in SAP makes it even more complex for businesses. The various combinations of new and old versions of applications as businesses try to make the system to work according to their desire are also a factor that contributes to the complexity of SAP. SAP software modules There are various SAP software modules that are applied in businesses. Each organization buys the module that suits its operational needs. For example, SAP all in one is one of the modules that are significant for small and medium businesses. It is used for financial and human resources management as well as maintaining stock and production. It is also used in the development of new products, commercial services as well as customer care. The CRM software module is also significant in the maintenance of a strong market share through customer retention. It is also used in managing and developing new brands. The HRM software is important in the maintenance of personnel records, recruitment, and performance management as well as benefit and reward schemes among more than 15 software modules (Lee et al. 2003).   Advantages of SAP SAP has the benefit of integration, with ERP helping in the improvement of teamwork among the users. It is also reliable due to its high efficiency, with the ERP concentrating on integration. It is also cost effective and does not require too many personnel for implementation. The ERP promotes accuracy in organizational operations. Disadvantages of SAP The purchase of the required hardware and software for the implementation of SAP are expensive. Even though it can be customized to suit the organization’s specialized needs, some of the software modules are not flexible. References David, Z. (2007). Alan Greenspan: The Oracle Behind the Curtain. Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 2, pp. 67-95 Harper, M. A. (2003). Crystal Reports 9 on Oracle, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. Lee, J., Siau, K. & Hong, S. (2003) “Enterprise Integration with ERP and EAI,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 46(2), pp 54-60. Nolan, R.L. (1995). “Reengineering: Competitive Advantage and Strategic Jeopardy,” Harvard Business School, Vol. 9(2), pp 196-109 Noveck, B. (2000). “Paradoxical partners: Electronic communication and Electronic democracy”. Democratization, Vol. 7(1), p 18.  Padmanabhan, P. Hochwarth, C. Wolf Newton, S. Bharathan, N. Parthasarathy, M. (2009). 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