Section 9: Oracle Applications 9.1 OverviewEnabling Commerce for the 21st CenturySet against the backdrop of accelerating rates of change in highly competitive global markets, businesses today struggle to align information management strategies with the renewable business processes. Operational effectiveness and compelling economic performance will increasingly require balanced information access and constant cycle time reduction beyond the enterprise.Overcoming the Impedance MismatchCorporate downsizing and rightsizing efforts of the last ten years have yielded results to enterprises which realized that reengineering was not a project or destination, but, indeed, a journey of constant renewal of the business, its people and its relationship with customer, partners and suppliers. This recognition of constant transformation as a permanent part of 21st century business culture requires business systems, which will not only accommodate change over-time, but will indeed become the foundation to propel change rapidly within the enterprise and beyond the legal enterprise to the supply chain.With the tremendous progress in information management tools and technologies over the past decade businesses are still anchored to applications which have evolved over the last quarter century on computer architectures and operational theories of the sixties and seventies. This phenomenon has triggered the explosive growth of open systems and client/server business computing. A significant global appetite for core business application systems developed specifically for global, distributed operational environments where “one-size fits all” approaches are too cumbersome, too impractical and totally unresponsive to change.THE MISSION OF ORACLE APPLICATIONSOracle, a recognized market leader in information management worldwide, is a solutions leader in business systems which enable continuous processes improvement across the extended enterprise-the supply chain. Information flow throughout the supply chain is as critical to the success of the enterprise as is the flow of goods and services. Oracle is uniquely positioned to assist businesses throughout the world with information systems implementations which address the competitive environment today and tomorrow. Simply, we want to help our customers get ahead and stay ahead.Oracle Applications are suites of business system designed specifically to drive continuous business process improvement. Cycle time reductions can be achieved by eliminating paperwork which accompanies transactions and the elimination of non-value-added, people intensive workarounds caused by islands of automation and ineffective inter-enterprise information access.Oracle ApplicationsORACLES APPROACH: THE ENTERPRISE VALUE CHAINThis Business Process Model provides the framework for understanding the operational challenges of your business. In this context, how do Oracle Solutions advantage our clients with their customers? The key issue is the ability to renew business processes, and the people skill sets which drive them, through technology leveraged business applications at the same time-continuously. Economic leverage will accrue to those enterprises which possess the leadership, the courage and the tools to exploit the challenge of self-renewal in the more complex business environment of the 21st century.ENTERPRISE VALUE CHAINFive customer-centric business processes are focused around the value proposition which connects you to your customers. Constant pursuit of best practices in each of these processes can only be achieved through superior information access at the point of need throughout the supply chain. Oracle Applications are designed to improve these five customer-centric processes and your financial and human resource management requirements. All products are built on Oracles leading information management technology infrastructure.The concept of flexible, extensible business systems which drive process improvement continuously must be engineered on a foundation of rapid implementation in the first place. Oracle has distinguished itself in flexible design and open interface strategies which radically reduce up-front time, effort and cost in implementing client-server applications to either replace or complement existing heterogeneous systems within the enterprise. Today, Oracle Applications operate in more than 4000 customer sites around the world and are the recognized leader in “time to benefit” from rapid implementation experiences in virtually every industry setting. Measurable improvements begin with the measure of time to implement the enabling application systems.The SmartClient 10 Release of Oracle applications extends the standard by which all application companies must now be measured. SmartClient 10 now delivers the most powerful user interface in the industry combining the familiarity of standard desktop tools wit