Enhancements to Oracle's E-Business Suite

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Mar 2002

2002

Customer Interaction Solutions

Editor Choice

E-commerce has certainly been a boon to the way business is conducted, but it has also led to a vast proliferation of customer data collected from around an enterprise, but which has been essentially locked up to all but a few. Oracle's E-Business Suite is aiming to put an end to this unobtainable information in that it is built upon Oracle Information Architecture, which is an open, standards-based architecture that consolidates data from Oracle and non-Oracle applications, which allows the consistent definition of customers, suppliers, partners and employees, no matter where in the enterprise the data resides. This gives all E-- Business Suite applications access to a single, unified database, and allows access through any device, anywhere in the world.

Oracle recently introduced a new application of the E-Business Suite, Oracle Customers Online. Oracle Customers Online is designed to enhance the gathering, cleansing and enhancing of customer data, no matter where in the enterprise it entered the system. Oracle Customers Online provides a configurable tool to import and load customer data from legacy systems and other third-party applications, as well as tools to identify and merge duplicate records and prevent the creation of further duplicates. Oracle Customers Online can also integrate with third-party data providers, compare that data with existing customer records, and amend or enhance records in real-time without leaving the Oracle Customers Online application.

Oracle also recently added the Oracle Partners Online application, which is designed to give companies a portal through which they can offer their partners sales opportunities, sales and technical content, and support. Companies can define criteria for qualifying, rating, channel selection and opportunity matching, allowing them to pass opportunities to the proper sales channel or partner, manage and track joint marketing funds and budgets, as well as giving partners added visibility.

Also new to Oracle is the Daily Business Close, which capitalizes on the Oracle E-- Business Suites information architecture to provide consolidated, up-to-date business information such as daily sales, satisfaction, monitoring, etc. According to Lisa Arthur, vice president of CRM Product Marketing Strategy at Oracle, the Daily Business Close "tells you everything you need to know about your leads, sales, inventory and revenue," all summarized and available when it is needed. www.oracle.com/650-506-7000