Long the bane of retailers, manufacturers, and distributors, end-to-end supply chain management took a giant step forward October 26, when Oracle announced major extensions and enhancements to Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud during Oracle OpenWorld 2015.
“What we’re announcing today is the complete supply chain cloud,” said Richard Jewell, Oracle senior vice president of application development. Oracle’s solution stretches from product lifecycle management through the procurement functions through manufacturing (either in-house or outsourced), through the complete order management capability on through the logistics of delivering the products to customers. It also includes inventory, cost management, and an overarching supply chain planning capability and master data management.
“All of this is built on the Oracle Public Cloud platform, which enables social everywhere, mobile everywhere, and embedded analytics and embedded integration capabilities,” Jewell said.
Source: iStockphoto
Source: iStockphoto
He said the new capabilities, many of which are planned for release by the end of 2015, will help companies to:
  • Align innovation to invest in the right strategic ideas from the start so companies can “fail fast rather than back the wrong horse,” Jewell said.
  • Focus on customer segmentation, not just demand—and to do supply chain segmentation so companies can bring the right products to those customers and really understand the profitability.
    • Provide powerful analytics and tools to employees to enable insight. Oracle’s supply chain cloud offerings have a modern user interface that is increasingly critical for the supply chain area where more people are retiring than there are millenials entering the field. “It’s important that we provide the tools to make these new workers productive in their jobs as soon as possible,” he pointed out.
  • Have the flexibility to respond rapidly to market demands and compliance requirements.
Jewell said that companies’ attitudes about putting supply chain in the cloud have shifted dramatically. “Eighty percent of companies that responded to a recent Gartner survey either have a supply chain application in the cloud or are considering one. Four years ago, the numbers were reversed,” he said. “So we believe the time is right to bring supply chain products to market in the cloud.”
Oracle’s initial focus for these capabilities is on high tech and industrial manufacturing, but Jewell said that expansion is planned into other types of manufacturing processes and business needs. “And we intend to iterate on the platform very rapidly,” he added.