Customers attending a recent JD Edwards user group staged by DXC Technology in Melbourne were given a refresher on the toolsets Oracle has available to move organisations along the path of digital transformation. The session identified components essential for extending JD Edwards and provided use cases DXC has implemented to deliver real business value to its customers.
As IT executives struggle to balance the demand for more user-friendly applications, richer data and automation with the need for cost-effective IT infrastructure, knowing which chess pieces in Oracle’s armoury to choose and how to deploy them becomes critical.
During the in-person gathering, DXC Oracle experts Danny Treffene and Ian Grainger offered practical advice on how to extract the best value from existing investments in JD Edwards. They also provided guidance on extending the solution incrementally to incorporate the flexibility of native cloud applications into an IT landscape. The following are four key takeaways from the event:
1. Conducting the orchestra
Oracle’s Orchestrator solution has been around for several years but recently has multiplied in sophistication. Traditionally, JD Edwards customers have called on DXC to help establish Orchestrator to enable functionality critical in the digital economy.
However, as businesses’ desire to perform automation and business process simplification increases, the argument for establishing an internal Orchestrator capability strengthens.
The session outlined how customers could utilise a five-point capability development plan to deliver valuable, bite-sized components with minimal project overhead. Starting small and iterating to grow Orchestrator’s use within an organisation is sensible, and DXC can augment this approach by providing three levels of Orchestrator training for customers.
2. Get the bottom-up view
Analysing what functionality users are leveraging in JD Edwards is a relatively new capability that can provide organisations with valuable insights. Customers can track which applications and batch programs are used daily over an extended time period.
This provides a bottom-up view of actual usage—which can identify conflicts in how a business process was designed to operate. Applying the power of Object Usage Analysis can reveal surprising results for customers unaware of their high and low use functions.
The session provided some examples DXC has implemented for a customer that analyses load/delivery management and job costing—tracking volumes over time and comparing them to other vital processes. The results led to investigating why certain functions had higher use than others and whether usability could be improved by leveraging Orchestrator and the Extensibility Framework.
3. Extending functionality with SaaS
The presenters also provided attendees with some guidance as to the direction of future releases and why Oracle is spending its research and development in particular areas. The good news is Oracle is doing everything it can to allow customers to stay on JD Edwards long-term. It is making it easier for customers to develop a hybrid architecture and integrate with SaaS or other solutions.
Oracle is also shifting more administration to a web-based format and improving its administration and upgrade capabilities. These changes aim to make upgrades cheaper and more accessible for customers and simplify how they can integrate or extend their existing JD Edwards footprint.
One valuable solution extension approach outlined in the session is to deploy progressive web applications. This is particularly useful for customers wanting to extend their solution into the mobile space or to collate and organise functions into a more user-friendly web interface.
Progressive web applications have a small technical footprint but deliver great time-to-value. They are an inexpensive way to develop mobile web apps that can be integrated easily via API to JD Edwards and any other API endpoint.
4. Packaged cloud solutions at the ready
Many DXC customers have already moved their instance of JD Edwards to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) —an essential first step towards digital transformation. This action paves the way for the adoption of Oracle’s packaged, cloud-based applications that co-exist with JD Edwards and offer specialist functionality across the following areas:
- Procurement and Supplier Management: Reduce risk and cost across supplier management, source-to-contract and procure-to-pay processes
- Supply Chain Planning: Sense, predict, and shape demand for better outcomes. Optimise supply chain resources for service and cost
- Product Lifecycle Management: Innovate, develop, and commercialise products and services faster by standardising product data and processes
- Analytics and Enterprise Performance Management: Gain the agility and insights to outperform in any market condition
- HCM (People and Talent): Plan, manage, and optimise people processes. Attract the best candidates and boost productivity with end-to-end talent management.
Every organisation’s journey towards digital enablement is different, and DXC is committed to using its cross-platform capabilities and insight led approach to help JD Edwards customers transform processes with advanced cloud capabilities.
If you would like to know how DXC can support your organisations’s digital journey, contact us today.
