The key to success in an ever-evolving software market is the constant reinvention of technology, said Oracle president Charles Phillips, in a keynote address on Monday, at Oracle OpenWorld 2007.
Technology is needed to solve customers` information needs by seeing the emerging trends, defying the trends and coming out with products well ahead of the rest of the market, to reduce the complexity that customers face in their business systems, he noted.
"Oracle`s aim is to develop products that are more complete, have better integration and are based on open standards. We believe this is how the industry will evolve, how applications will be built in the future, what the architecture will look like, what skill sets will be needed and what standards will be dominant."
According to him, companies today need applications that offer unified business intelligence and business processes, and unified security and governance. "These applications need to be built on open standards, offering support and an extensive ecosystem."
Integrating applications
Phillips said the CEO`s challenge is to integrate applications: "Oracle Application Integration Architecture provides an open standards-based framework for creating cross-application business processes that pave the way for your long-term, strategic business transformation plans."
He noted its application-independent framework enables users to utilise the applications of their choice to create composite business processes specific to their business, on a flexible service-oriented architecture.
"[For] customers looking to rapidly deploy integrations between Oracle applications, Application Integration Architecture also offers packaged integrations, or Process Integration Packs, allowing for rapid implementation of business processes."
Managing risk
CFOs and business executives are constantly searching for better ways to manage risk, he stated. "Similarly, financial managers are tasked with regulatory compliance; legal officers struggle with discovery and records retention; and IT directors have to manage multiple governance, risk and compliance project requests."
Phillips said Oracle has developed an integrated suite of applications to help business manage risk and ensure compliance. "Oracle GRC Manager can reduce cost and complexity by managing multiple GRC requirements with one platform. Combined with applications such as database vault and audit vault, users can create realms and define access, security and compliance rules."
For example, he said, audit vault collects log information, checks on problems and violations and has the ability to follow up on them.
Keeping records
According to Phillips, engineering and manufacturing executives face the challenge of managing the product life cycle, from conception through to manufacturing. "Oracle Agile PLM allows them to do this."
The application lets them integrate activities through the entire product life cycle, he added: "This includes development, production and even the retirement of a product." The application has hooks to integrate with the underlying systems, including CRM, ERP, and supply chain management.
The application keeps a "product record", defining the product from engineering to manufacturing, including records such as quality control, environmental issues and compliance, he said.
"Oracle Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence allow businesses to set goals, plan, monitor, analyse, report and align processes."
In this way, problems can be defined, and the system can either take action itself, or make recommendations for the user to do so. "Built-in alerts can advise if a promotion is running below forecast, for example, and drill down further to identify whether it`s an issue of inventory shortage or something else," he concluded.
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