Is Prescriptive The Cure For What Ails You?

For decades, we’ve all been looking for ways to reduce the time and cost of complicated software implementations. There has been a lot of progress over the years, but we’ve also seen a lot of empty promises.

For retailers looking to get up and running with Oracle’s suite efficiently, there is a real way to shorten the time and lower the expense: a prescriptive approach. Now there’s been a lot of banter about prescriptive approaches in the retail world lately, so let’s be very clear as to what we’re talking about.

In this model, you forgo the traditional, in-depth discovery that’s designed to understand each retailer’s individual business processes and map them to Oracle’s solution. Instead, your systems integrator shows up with a definitive POV and core set of the foundational project components ready-to-go. Your SI comes to the table with things like a project plan, technology recommendations, project charters and business requirements either complete or 80% complete. The process is laid out, the Oracle stack is identified. Together, you and your SI agree on the final 10 to 20% of these foundational principles, and the process gets underway.

We’ve seen this model turn a traditionally 12- to 13-month implementation process into an eight- or nine-month project. To make it work, you need two things:

1. A flexible retailer ready for some change. From the top down, you need an organization that’s committed to adopting new ways of working instead of being grounded in “the way we’ve always done it” as well as an organization ready to put the resources on the project to ensure it keeps momentum.
2. A seasoned systems integrator that knows the retail business and the Oracle Retail stack inside and out. This approach requires a strong and seasoned hand from your SI, so be sure you find a partner you can trust.

The prescriptive approach is a great model for many retailers. It offers real time and cost savings. But it’s not for everybody. And it’s not the only option. There is a full spectrum of implementation models between the prescriptive approach and the traditional model. So talk with your systems integrator about your company and your needs to determine what implementation approach will work best for you.

The Promises Of The Cloud

By now, we’ve all become simultaneously overwhelmed and engaged by the perpetual drumbeat of “cloud” messaging. From Salesforce.com’s original “Say no to software” pitch to Apple’s iCloud, the evolution of “the cloud” story has been both swift and far-reaching.

So why do we all glom onto this constant cloud conversation? The answer is simple: Because of the promises of efficiency and savings that it offers. If we can just relieve some of the demands on our IT resources, if we can reduce our overhead, if we can save on support…oh, what benefits we’ll reap, right?

Unfortunately, the crushing reality for many IT leaders is these benefits are achievable for the more simple parts of their infrastructure, but far too illusive for core, critical solutions like ERP or our beloved Oracle Retail Suite.

But there is a very real option that brings the promises of the cloud to complex solutions like Oracle Retail: hosting. In a hosted model, a retailer still owns and controls their Oracle license, but they achieve savings by essentially renting the hardware to run the system and the resources to support it from a trusted partner. With this approach, retailers reduce their hardware cost, reduce the number of resources they need to manage the system and eliminate the possibility of those unpredictable costs that always seem to be looming around the corner.

So while we’re working to embrace a true software-as-a-service model for complex solutions like Oracle Retail, there are opportunities to take advantage of what “the cloud” promises. It’s a route to real savings that more and more retailers are embracing every day.