Oracle Corp.
announced Monday
the global availability of its FastForward program, enabling mid-sized
companies
to put together e-commerce solutions in rapid time with minimum risk.
The announcement was one of several made by Oracle in Paris at its
Applications User
Conference Europe.
Other announcements included the unveiling of complete euro conversion
functionality
for its e-business suite, and the news that no less than 59 organizations in
the
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region have purchased Oracle Internet
Procurement
to streamline their procurement processes and reduce costs.
More than 30 companies in the EMEA region are already using FastForward,
according
to Oracle. Among them are Swedish media company Carat, French alarm
manufacturer
Atral, and Dutch-based Duijvelaar Pompen B.V.
The FastForward application and service packages are fixed-price,
fixed-time,
fixed-scope bundled packages intended to take the complexity and risk
out of e-business. Instead of a large-scale implemention, FastForward
enables
small but fully scalable implementations — a step beyond the
“toe-in-the-water”
approach which is often doomed to failure.
Oracle launched seven FastForward packages in Europe on Monday — including
applications for Financials, Process Manufacturing, Manufacturing, High
Tech,
Distribution, Procurement, and Budgeting.
“With the Oracle FastForward program, mid-sized and growing companies in
Europe
can leverage robust application functionality, previously only available to
large enterprises, quickly, cost-effectively and with minimal risk,” said
Sergio
Giacoletto, senior vice president, Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Enterprise functionality, coupled with the power of the Internet, will
enable
mid-sized companies to compete alongside global multinationals, said
Giacoletto.
Among several case studies offered by Oracle at its Paris presentations was
Tele Danmark’s use of Oracle Internet Procurement to gain control over
what it called “maverick buying.” Tele Danmark’s Vice President Leif
Petersen
said in an industry where companies prefer to purchase complete IT
solutions,
it is essential to have an integrated and open procurement system.
The added complexity of euro adoption has prompted Oracle to introduce a
three-stage approach, starting with initializing euro records and creating
a euro accounting history. A second step enables companies to report in
multiple currencies, while a third completes the switchover entirely to
the euro.
