3 Most Useful Oracle Products For Project-Driven Businesses

Oracle – who hasn’t heard that name, right?

Oracle is still one of the largest enterprise software players across the globe. It might compete with SAP, Microsoft and IBM in this arena, but it’s still the most trusted name in the market, especially if you are a project-driven business. A big brand today, it offers a gamut of products that help businesses collate, analyse, monitor, and manage all their data needs.

Beyond simple data storage, Oracle now offers a plethora of applications that help large enterprises manage their financial data, employee records, payroll data, sales records - the list is endless.

However, if you are a project-centric business, Oracle has a wide variety of applications and software solutions to automate and simplify most requirements of any growing enterprise.

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We are sure you have heard of the big names like Primavera, E-Business Suite, Fusion Applications Portfolio, Hyperion, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, PeopleSoft Enterprise and more. Honestly, the list is endless!

However, today we are going to discuss the 3 most useful Oracle products that work brilliantly for project-driven businesses. In our experience, these applications are best suited to support various kinds of project and portfolio management requirements and are worth exploring.

1. Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Projects Suite

Oracle EBS Projects Suite has been in the market for a very long time and still happens to be one of the most trusted Project management applications worldwide.

Image courtesy: oracle-patches.com

It supports the full lifecycle of a project and acts as a single window to view all project-related activities. Some of the key features that make Oracle EBS Projects so popular are –

· Ability to integrate and control Global Project Finances

· Seamlessly integrates with other applications in the Oracle EBS family such as Financials, SCM, HRM, CRM, Sales and Advance Procurement

· Flexibility to accommodate unique industry needs such as those in Energy, Engineering and Construction, Professional Services, etc.

Oracle EBS Projects covers most business processes found in any project-focused enterprise, providing specific solutions that help maximize resources and time for more effective and efficient management of projects. It comprises of 7 different sub-modules to address different stages of the project lifecycle and business needs.

1. Oracle Project Billing

2. Oracle Project Contracts

3. Oracle Project Planning and Control (aka Project Management)

4. Oracle Project Resource Management

5. Oracle Project Collaboration

6. Oracle Project Costing

7. Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis

To know more about each of these submodules, refer to our blog on Introduction to Oracle EBS Projects Suite

2. Oracle EPM Planning Cloud - Projects

Oracle EPM Planning also known as PBCS/ ePBCS /Hyperion Planning has been a go-to tool for financial and operational planners for years now; however, there is this new tool offered as part of the EPM Planning Cloud solution called EPM Projects that caught our attention.

Project Planning has become critical for the success of modern-day organisations to survive the cutthroat competition and ever-so-rapid pace of change. EPM Projects addresses these very needs and many more by providing a comprehensive and robust toolset. Here are some examples –

1. Aligned Corporate and Project Priorities – Identify and prioritise projects using metrics such as NPV, Payback period, IRR, ROI, etc to align project investments with the strategic goals of an organisation.

2. Right Investment Decisions– By leveraging the out-of-the-box integration between project planning and financial planning modules, you can see the impact of project investment decisions and their performance on the organisation-wide financial statements such as balance sheets, P& L and Cash flow statements.

3. Projects Planning for All - Provides capabilities to manage financial and resource planning for all kinds of projects such as contract, capital, and internal.

Image courtesy: mindstreamanalytics.com

Opting for EPM Projects does not mean you need to compromise on the other key features, which have made Oracle EPM planning so popular and a market leader in planning and budgeting. For example -

· Connect every aspect of your business across finance, operations, and other lines of business.

· Optimise the financial close with more accurate insights

· Streamline and improve account reconciliation

· Drive accurate and agile forecasts for better-integrated plans

· Create decision-oriented plans with interactive dashboards and reports

· Manage and boost profitability

· Align tax reporting with corporate financial reporting

· Address all your reporting requirements with a single software

· Manage change with enterprise data management by ensuring data accuracy and integrity

· Do freeform modelling at scale for complex financial and operational scenarios during large-scale projects

To know more about EPM Projects, refer to our blog on Project Planning in Oracle EPM Cloud.

3. Oracle Project Management Cloud

Part of the Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP, Oracle Project Management Cloud helps you deliver a project from start to finish and gives you total control of your projects. You can optimise resource utilisation across your organisation by mapping the right resources to the right projects, further supporting your strategic goals with a clear view of the financialrformance of your project portfolio.

Oracle Fusion Project Management has been designed to address the needs of all project managers ---- regardless of their level of experience and can be adopted by all organizations for any type of project work. Think of it as a complete and integrated solution that drastically improves the way project-centric businesses work, enabling effective plus efficient management while ensuring smart, agile, calculated business decisions at the same time --- all based on a single source of project truth.

Image courtesy: oracle.com

Some of the key features of Oracle Project Management Cloud are:

· Planning, Scheduling and Forecasting – Using inbuilt simplified planning, budgeting, and forecasting capabilities you can streamline your project financial planning processes and extend planning and scheduling to the ‘Occasional’ Project Managers as well.

· Resource Management – Using resource management functionality you can optimise the allocation and utilisation of your most precious resource – the People.

· Cost Management and Control - The fully integrated solution allows project-centric organizations to capture and account for project time, expenses, costs, and commitments from across the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, or through third-party integrations

· Billing and Revenue Management – With the Fusion Project Management cloud you get a sophisticated customer billing solution to comply with customer contract terms and conditions, invoice project clients promptly and streamline project revenue recognition.

Oracle Project Management Cloud is a complete solution delivering exhaustive support for project-driven organizations, designed for constant innovation with fewer resources.

So, these are some of the most useful Oracle products for project-driven businesses, though Oracle has a lot more to offer. If you are interested in any of these, do reach out to us for a detailed consultation.

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About Projects Expert

Projects Expert is the first-of-its-kind Oracle partner that specialises in Project Centric Enterprise Solutions. We aim to deliver sustainable, robust, and business-friendly Oracle solutions for Projects driven organisations.

To know more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.projectsexpert.com. Reach out to us on +44 330 330 5154 or drop a note at info@projectsexpert.com