In my previous post, I described how to convert a global zone to a non-global zone using a unified archive.  Since then, I've fielded a few questions about whether this same approach can be used to create a master image that is used to install Solaris regardless of virtualization type (including no virtualization).  The answer is: of course!  That was one of the key goals of the project that invented unified archives.

In my earlier example, I was focused on preserving the identity and other aspects of the global zone and knew I had only one place that I planned to deploy it.  Hence, I chose to skip media creation (--exclude-media) and used a recovery archive (-r).  To generate a unified archive of a global zone that is ideal for use as an image for installing to another global zone or native zone, just use a simpler command line.

root@global# archiveadm create /path/to/golden-image.uar

Notice that by using fewer options we get something that is more usable.

What's different about this image compared to the one created in the previous post?

• This archive as an embedded AI iso that will be used if you install a kernel zone from it.  That is, zoneadm -z kzname install -a /path/to/golden-image.uar will boot from that embedded AI image and perform an automated install from that archive.
• This archive only contains the active boot environment and other ZFS snapshots are not archived.
• This archive has been stripped of its identity.  When installing, you either need to provide a sysconfig profile or interactively configure the system or zone on the console or zone console on the first post-installation boot.

As we have discussed before, it can be a challenge to quantify how well your database is meeting operational expectations and identify areas to improve performance. Database health checks are always important and the more critical your databases are they become even more important.

Oracle health check is now available as ORAchk version 12.1.0.2.1, with versioning aligned with and following the same format used by the Oracle 12c Database Patch Set Updates (PSUs), as always aiming in proactively scanning various layers of your stack.

In summary, ORAchk investigates and analyzes which known issues present a risk, generating high level reports that show your system health risks. It’s also now even easier to update ORAchk across multiple machines.aims to proactively scan for various layers of your stack.

New Features in 12.1.0.2.1 include  easier to stay up to date, Windows Support, Role separation and execute as Root, Faster Results & Enhanced Comparison with lots of newlly added checks and Custom Naming of reports.

It’s also now even easier to stay up to date for one or across multiple machines (see $RAT_UPGRADE_LOC), with ORAchk automatically checking for a newer version.

• As of ORAchk release 12.1.0.2.1 the tool is now supported on Windows when run within a Cygwin environment. Instructions for configuring Cygwin can be found from Document 1268927.2. ORAchk now includes hundreds of database and application checks which will run on Windows. There are even more Windows specific checks in the pipeline.
• Even easier execution for environments with role separation, as you no longer need to have different users execute different ORAchk profiles to workaround your company’s implementation of role separation. ORAchk can now be run once as root to execute all checks. Prior to executing checks that do not require root access, ORAchk will switch user to the lower level accounts. 
• Faster execution time, especially when running against multiple databases, as ORAchk now runs database checks in parallel by default. Parallel execution allows database checks to complete in a fraction of the time as previously.
• Quickly find out what has changed on your system between two ORAchk runs.When ORAchk is run with the –diff command on a RAC system, it will now not only compare check results but collection data too. Quickly compare and understand differences in kernel parameters or database initialization parameters.
• Over 70 new EBS checks: ORAchk support for EBS has been enriched and broadened, with even more checks for Oracle Payables (R12) and Oracle Workflow and now with release 12.1.0.2.1 introduces new support for Oracle Order Management (R12) and Oracle Process Manufacturing (R12).

Even more new features coming with  ORAchk 12.1.0.2.3 (now in Beta) including Broader Linux support (Linux on System Z and Oracle EL 7), Deeper product support (ASM, Goldengate, Enterprise manager agent), Warnings of problems ORAchk can’t get full visability for , Improved Health Score calculation and adding another 50 new Health Checks for some of the most impactful problems seen to Oracle Customer Support specifically in the areas of:

• Database performance
• Cross stack checks for Oracle Applications running on Solaris & Oracle Hardware
• Enterprise Manager Agents
• Oracle EBS Accounts Payables

For more details and to download the latest release of ORAchk see Document 1268927.2. Please make sure to always check ORACHK availability in your platform in order to avoid any errors. User guide is also avalable for download with specific instructions on how to configure and run ORAchk. 

I was inspired by recently published WorkBetter application with ADF 12c Alta UI demo (you can read more about Alta UI and download WorkBetter application from here - Oracle Alta UI). I have decided to create my own application, using the same guidelines as described by Alta UI. While WorkBetter application is based on EJB, my application is using regular ADF BC model. Right now it displays a list of employees from HR schema and allows to edit selected employee data. In the future, I plan to add CRUD support and more advanced UI features. I would recommend to watch a video from Shay Shmeltzer, he describes how to build your first Alta UI application in ADF.
Here you can download my sample application, implemented with Alta UI - ADFAltaUI.zip. This application implements ADF task flow with employees data. By default, employees data is displayed as a list (you should see how it differs comparing to pre-Alta ADF UI, now UI is much cleaner and only essential data is displayed):
According to Alta UI guidelines, user should be given an option to switch to a grid view. This is useful and gives different perspective for the data view: Read the complete article here.

WebLogic Partner Community

For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

BlogTwitterLinkedInForumWiki

Reach new customers and build brand awareness by promoting your events using Oracle’s Partner Event Publishing Service. Qualified partners running live or virtual stand-alone events can publish to both Oracle.com/events and on Oracle’s internal facing events calendar.

This service is available to partners that have achieved at least one Specialization. To find out if your company is eligible for this service, please visit the Solutions Catalog to check your company's achievements. Start to promote your event here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

BlogTwitterLinkedInFacebookWiki

:

Recently we've been looking more at Expression Language and its use in Page Composer for customizing UI component properties. Increasingly we're seeing more customer requirements and so we ran a Oracle Customer Connect session entitled "Expression Language (EL) and Cloud Applications" that was open to all.

The session started with a discussion about several presubmitted questions, continued with a quick demo of EL in page composer, exposed some hints-and-tips, and finished with some addition use-case demos from Tim Warner of Certus Solutions. Whilst you can replay the whole content from here (streaming video or ppt), I thought it might be interesting to take a few points from the session and highlight them here.

EL Documentation

We were asked beforehand if we could verify the documentation available for use with Expression Language. This currently comprises the following recommended resources, although of course other specific articles and web pages may cover specifics:

• Our Page Composer whitepaper: Using Page Composer with Fusion Cloud Applications - Tips, Tricks and Best Practices
• Our whitepaper specifically giving examples of expression language statements you can use for common requirements: Using Expression Language in Fusion Applications
• The Oracle Webcenter documentation has some material, although not everything applies to Fusion Applications (i.e. Page Composer alone): WebCenter Expression Language Expressions
• As a industry standard language, there is some basic documentation under the JavaEE Tutorial – Chapter 6 Expression Language
• In addition, if you have a specific questions not covered above, then please leverage our forum.

Interesting Q & A

From the questions we saw (both presubmitted and taken online), the following information was acknowledged as being helpful:

What data can I use on the pages?

Currently there is no documentation which lists out all the fields and attributes available for use in Expression Language for each-and-every page. This is because what you see as pages are part of  underlying ADF code artifacts which are built specifically for each use-case. The recommended approach is to investigate the pages where your customization would apply and use this to understand the component property values in use. We offered to provide some additional cheat-sheet type documentation if our community can help us identify pages which are most commonly customized - please use the comments below.

Can I use more programming language features?

The use of Text Resources (i.e. resource bundles) is strongly recommended when writing EL to customize your labels. You should use these predefined texts inside your expressions, such as the following examples:

#{row.FlowTemplateName == adfBundle['oracle.adf.view.page.editor.resource.
ComposerOverrideBundle']['RT_S_NEW_HIRE'] ? 'color:#0000FF' : 'color:#000000'}

#{facesContext.viewRoot.locale.language = = 'en' ? adfBundle['oracle.adf.
view.page.editor.resource.ComposerOverrideBundle']['RT_S_XXXComp'] : 
[HcmCompTopGenBundle['OLabel.Grade.SalaryGrade'] } 

When does the EL fire exactly, and can this be controlled?

Generally speaking the EL fires as part of the page rendering process, normally upon initial delivery. It may re-fire upon an implicit partial page refresh (PPR - done by the product code), such as when a child region  is updated based on the parent region, however it does require communication with the server for the execution to take place. As such you will need to ensure your EL complements the page usage. Setting one field based on another will work fine upon first display, however if you expect dependent fields to change dynamically all the time then often this is not possible.

At this time you cannot add EL or a script (such as JavaScript) to a page which causes it to automatically reload or redirect based on specific EL condition.

Can I combine EL conditions?

Yes, you can have multiple conditions inside your EL expression delimited by the #{...} characters. Obviously the result still applies to just one component property. For example the following returns True if various fields are the values given:

#{pageFlowScope.pGoalEditMode != 'CREATE_GOAL'&& 
(pageFlowScope.pShowPageReadOnly == 'Y' || 
backingBeanScope.GoalInformationBean.keyAttrReadOnly || 
bindings.StatusCode.inputValue == 'CANCEL' || 
bindings.StatusCode.inputValue == 'OVERDUE' )} 

In addition, if you want multiple expressions within the response for setting a value property, then you can have multiple #{} sections, as illustrated by this example which adds both the username and Person ID into the returned string:

http://www.yourcompany.com/#{securityContext.userName}.pdf/personImage
?personId=#{pageFlowScope.personId}

Where can I use Expression Language?

We demonstrated how the Desktop UI exposes more component properties against which you can add expressions compared with the Simplified UI that commonly exposing just the Label and Shown properties.

In addition Tim from Certus gave a demo of the Navigator Menu which also allows EL to govern the Rendered property of each menu item, allowing you to specify conditional display rules. It was mentioned that of course this does not replace the standard security role/privilege configuration features. A video demonstration of doing the menu customization is available from our YouTube channel here:

What's Up Next?

We're considering delivering more in this series, and would love your suggestions or feedback on the following proposals:

• More on Expression Language with further discussion and more examples
  
• Using Page Composer to change page layouts and add custom content
  
• Dashboards: combining BI Composer with Page Composer for custom analytics

Please use the comments below, or Customer Connect.

Integrating cloud applications with in-house legacy applications, or integrating different cloud-based solutions, can be a challenge. Oracle recommends best practice data and application integration methods.

As a first guideline, customers should always evaluate first the prebuilt data connectors offered by Oracle. Oracle offers data and application connectors to Oracle applications. One lesson that has proven itself to be true over the last 20 years of software integration is to avoid rigid, unique, point-to-point connections between application providers and clients. Instead create logical connections to a service bus or virtualization later, so that you don’t have to continually re-code each interface as their information systems change and evolve. Oracle Cloud Applications offer a rich set of Webservices to achieve that.

Let us look at Oracle Innovation Management Cloud as an example. We can think of required integrations in various directions of the Business Process from Ideation to Product Development and Commercialization, at the integration points indicated in this diagram.

While Innovation Management Cloud Service includes an Ideation module, some customers might be interested to connect it to an existing Ideation solution, or a portal for collecting ideas. This is a simple task using the provided Idea Web Services. The Innovation Management Cloud Service provides a full feature of Idea Web Services to Create, Read, Update and Delete Ideas programmatically.

Customers can use Idea Web Services to create, read, update and delete ideas. The SOAP based provided Web Service supports the following operations:

• createIdea: Create a new Idea based on the provided Idea informations. This Web Service allows to create an new idea, an Idea object should be provided with at least an Idea Name, and additional information such as Description , Name, Status, and IdeaType can be added. Other attributes as CreatedBy or CreationDate are computed from the user id requesting the Web Services and the time of the request.
• updateIdea: Update an existing Idea using the provided information including the Idea ID.
• deleteIdea: Delete an existing Idea using the Idea ID. This Web Service allows to delete an Idea object identified by its IdeaId. The method accepts one input parameter: the IdeaId. Calling the Web Service will return an empty message.
• getIdea: Retrieve an Idea object using it’s Idea ID. This Web Service allows to retrieve an Idea object identified by its IdeaId. The method accepts one input parameter: the IdeaId. Calling the Web Service will return the corresponding Idea object (or an empty message if an unknown IdeaId is provided).
• findIdeaFindIdeaByName: Retrieve a list of Idea objects based on the provided search criteria (Name, …). This Web Service allows to retrieve one or more Idea objects based on the provided search query. findCriteria object. Allows to define a complex search request based on the attributes associated to the Idea object. Calling the Web Service will return the corresponding a collection of Idea objects (or an empty message if the search is un-successful).
• deleteIdeaByName: Delete an existing Idea using the Idea Name.

The Idea Web Services are documented in the Oracle Enterprise Repository available on-line at https://fusionappsoer.oracle.com/oer/.

The same type of Web Services as for ideation integration are available for proposals, concepts and requirements. This clearly shows the openness of the solution and its capacity to be integrated to enterprise solutions hosted on premise or in the cloud.

Specifically relevant in the context of Requirements Management and Concept Design, it is a good practice to have a close alignment and integration of the Innovation record (in Innovation Management) and the Product Record (in PLM). Accordingly, Oracle provides an out-of-the-box integration with Agile PLM, and these integrations really work well. By a simple mouse click, users can even choose if they want to integrate Innovation Management with Agile PLM, or the new Oracle Fusion Product Development Cloud service. But also other 3rd party Applications such as any other PLM System could make use of the Webservices that we provide with Innovation Management.

An excellent Oracle white paper describing how to simplify Cloud Integration is available on http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/cloud/cloud-integration-wp-1873149.pdf. It is the Oracle Product Value Chain Mission Statement to be a Leading Supplier of Comprehensive Product Value Chain Solutions across all deployment options: On-Premise, Managed Cloud Service or in the Cloud, and our customers can choose their degree of Control, Visibility and Adoption Speed. Oracle provides committed and dedicated solutions for all deployment options.

Multiple data sources, splintered views consumer profiles and inconsistent messaging across multiple channels are common challenges faced by marketers trying to manage vast amounts of data without a data management platform.  But how do you know if your business would benefit from utilizing a DMP? Do you:

• Manage multiple online campaigns across different ad networks, exchanges, publishers, and devices?


• Want to ensure you have control over your data assets, maximize segmentation, prevent leakage and monitor partner usage of data?


• Want to improve campaign response rates, conversions and brand lift?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of these questions, check out this webinar from the American Marketing Association featuring David Wiener, VP of Product at Oracle Data Cloud and Cathy Gribble, Director of Digital Strategy at Team One Advertising.

In this one hour session, they expose how Team One - a full-service advertising agency that specializes in luxury and aspirational brands  - used Oracle Marketing Cloud Data Management Platform to help them to drive better informed marketing decisions by:

• Connecting data and audiences across the disparate data sources into centralized location.


• Creating a unified view of their audiences by augmenting their 1st party data with 3rd party data to get a deeper view of their customer.


• Activating data more easily across multiple channels to deliver consistent messaging to audiences across all touch points.


• Operationalizing data for activation and analytics to share insights across all internal departments.

Wie die technologische Umsetzung in der Praxis aussieht, erläutert Jacob Borup, CRM & Omnichannel Development Manager bei Top-Toy/BR-Spielwaren. In seinem Vortrag am 18. März 2015 um 11.40 Uhr erfahren Sie, wie Nordeuropas größter Spielwarenanbieter seine Strategie an das veränderte Konsumverhalten seiner Kunden angepasst hat. Nach 50 Jahren im stationären Geschäft hat Top-Toy sich erfolgreich zum Cross-Channel-Retailer entwickelt und nutzt nun das gesamte Potenzial eines sowohl online als auch offline präsenten Unternehmens.

Darüber hinaus möchten wir Sie zu unserem Roundtable „How to be successful in Omni-Channel Retailing” am 19. März 2015 um 14.50 Uhr einladen. Hier haben Sie Gelegenheit, mehr über das Potenzial einer Cross-Channel Kommunikation mit Ihren Kunden zu erfahren. Anhand aktueller Beispiele diskutieren wir Quick Wins und Best Practices, die Sie auf Ihrem Weg zu einem Cross-Channel-Unternehmen unterstützen.

We are pleased to announce the initial launch of theOPN Website's mobile responsive interface. This design refresh aligns the website with Oracle.comand theOPN Solutions Catalogsupporting an“Anywhere, Any Device” user experience for tablets and smartphones.

Phase one of this rollout includes four key content areas:

• OPN Homepage
• 6 Category Pages (comprised of 40 pages)
• Get Started
• Get Trained
• Differentiate Your Offerings - New
• Develop Solutions
• Market & Sell
• Manage Membership
• Searchable Product Resource (Knowledge Zone) Directory
• New Header Design Cascaded Across Entire Site

Content structure / processes remain unchanged with this update. The initial release is in English, translated content will move to the new templates over the next two weeks.

L'outil qui permet de mettre en œuvre l'ouverture automatique de Service Request auprès du support Oracle pour le matériel de Stockage s'appelle SDP2 (Service Delivery Platform 2).
Il supporte les équipements suivants :

• Librairies Oracle StorageTek SL8500, SL3000, SL500, et SL150,
  
• Tape drives Oracle StorageTek T9x40 et T10000,
  
• VSM 4/5.
  

En cas d'incident sur une librairie, un VSM ou un drive, SDP2 créé automatiquement une Service Request auprès du support Oracle, et transfert les logs décrivant le défaut. Vous êtes notifié par e-mail.
La liste des évènements couverts par SDP2 est très étendue : voir ici.

Du point de vue architecture, SDP2 est un outil constitué d'une partie serveur et d'une partie interface client.
Le serveur SDP2 s'installe sur un serveur Linux Red Hat, dans l’environnement client, et communique avec les équipements stockage via le réseau de service.

Le client s'installe sur un poste client (Windows, Linux, Solaris). Il permet de se connecter au serveur, et de le configurer pour la surveillance des équipements.

Du point de vue sécurité, le serveur SDP2 communique vers Oracle au moyen d'un flux sécurisé (HTTPS), uniquement sortant, via le proxy d'entreprise. Les données transférées vers Oracle ne contiennent aucune donnée client, et ne diffèrent pas de ce que le support Oracle peut vous demander d'uploader pour résoudre l'incident.

SDP2 est une évolution d'un outil qui s'appelle MD-VOP (Multi-Drive Virtual Operator Panel). Dans la littérature, le serveur SDP2 peut aussi apparaitre sous la mention MD-VOP server. Il s'agit du même produit.

Si nécessaire, n'hésitez pas à demander de l'assistance auprès du support Oracle pour l'installation et la configuration de l'outil. Pour cela ouvrez une Service Request en utilisant un des matériels que vous souhaitez surveiller par SDP2 (une librairie, par exemple), et utilisez le "Problem Type" suivant : "ASR Installation and Configuration Issues".

Plus d'informations :

SDP2 Introduction : DocID 1965625.1.
SDP2 - Information to Setup SDP2 : DocID 1627251.1 (Best practice, Install Guide).

The short answer is: never!. I have seen several nasty (so called) "bugs" caused by this feature so that i felt like sharing this little advice via blog post:

Never ever use JAX-RS class-path scanning feature in a production environment

Class-path scanning looks like a handy feature. Let say you do not want bother with enumerating all the components you would like to include in your JAX-RS application. Then your JAX-RS application class could look like:

import javax.ws.rs.ApplicationPath;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Application;

@ApplicationPath("rest")
public class EasyToConfigureJaxRsApplication extends Application {
}

The above example works great. When started, the application just scans the actual class-path, and adds every single JAX-RS component class found there to the actual runtime configuration. Isn't is great? Frankly, this kind of configuration could work just fine. Until someone changes either the system configuration (system class-path) or the way how you application is being packaged (a new 3rd party component could be added/removed from the application class-path then). These changes could be out of your control and if one of them happens, you application configuration could break. For this reason, it is not wise to use this kind of configuration in a production environment.

One could think that for development purposes, using this cool feature would be fine. I think otherwise. You either develop an application targeted for production use, and then you want to stick with whatever will be used in production eventually (where class-path scanning is a no-go) or you just want to look around and play with things. In the latter case you still want to keep control and avoid any nasty surprise.

To end up in a positive way. Here is another advise: Should you need to use any kind of scanning (for any reason), check out Jersey package scanning feature that allows you to control the scope of scanning. See the following links for some more details: https://jersey.java.net/apidocs/latest/jersey/org/glassfish/jersey/server/ResourceConfig.html#packages(java.lang.String...), https://jersey.java.net/apidocs/latest/jersey/org/glassfish/jersey/server/ServerProperties.html#PROVIDER_PACKAGES

Never used or heard about ORAchk? Then it's time to give it a try! 

ORAchk 12.1.0.2.3 is almost ready to get released. You can already give the beta a try. I'm not recommending this to make you beta test but ORAchk 12.1.0.2.3 has so many great features, especially more than 50 new health checks, OL7 Support - and is now aware of Oracle Restart environments.

New features include:

• Linux on System Z (RHEL 6, RHEL 7, SuSE 12)
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 7
• Single Instance ASM Checks
• Upgrade Validation checks for 12.1.0.2
• Enhanced Golden Gate Checks 
• Enterprise Manager Agent Checks
• Enhanced Reporting to highlight checks that ORAchk cannot gain full visibility for
  (checks that require manual validation)
• Improved health Score Calculation (you can now hit 100%)
• Over 50 new health checks
• Bug Fixes

Download the most recent version via MOS Note:1268927.1.

Learn more about theUpgrade Readiness Assessmentwith ORAckh in MOS Note: 1457357.1

--Mike 

¿Cómo impulsar el crecimiento y adaptar las ventas a una generación de clientes más informada que nunca?

Ahora mismo, todos nos hacemos esta misma pregunta.

Aunque el ciclo de compra ha cambiado, muchas empresas siguen utilizando el mismo proceso de venta: los comerciales no actúan hasta que el departamento de marketing les dice a quién dirigirse y “echan balones fuera” si no logran vender nada.

En realidad, es inútil buscar culpables entre los empleados. En la era digital, lo que no favorece el crecimiento es la resistencia de muchas empresas a modernizar los procesos de venta.

El proceso de venta ya no es el que era

En la actualidad, cuando un cliente se pone en contacto con un comercial, ya ha completado el 57 % del ciclo de compra. Para evitar dejar este proceso en manos del azar, el personal de ventas debe ser más activo y colaborar estrechamente con el departamento de marketing. Con este enfoque, sabrá antes a qué clientes conviene abordar y podrá influir en sus compras.

Hoy en día, se dan una serie de circunstancias que dificultan las ventas:

+ No se detectan suficientes oportunidades de venta.

+ Los comerciales dedican menos tiempo a vender porque están ocupados con otras tareas.

+ No siempre se dispone de métodos de análisis eficaces.

Para reavivar el crecimiento en toda la empresa, es preciso adaptarse a los cambios en las necesidades de los clientes y utilizar técnicas de ventas innovadoras. En la era digital, estas cinco recomendaciones resultan muy eficaces.

Para saber más sobre las soluciones de Ventas de Oracle y descargar información útil, haga clic aqui. 

Join us on March 18, 2015 for a FREE Webinar on "Software In Silicon" hosted by Oracle experts, Angelo Rajadurai and Mike Mulkey.

Oracle ISV Engineering is offering an exciting opportunity to learn about the NEW offering for developers who want early access to the revolutionary Software in Silicon technology in the forthcoming Oracle SPARC M7 processor running Oracle Solaris 11.

What Will You Learn? 

By listening to this webinar, you'll learn how to:

• Use the NEW Software in Silicon Cloud to dramatically improve reliability and security.

• Accelerate application performance in today’s market. 

• Software in Silicon implements accelerators directly into the processor to deliver a rich feature-set that enables quick development of more secure, robust, reliable, and faster databases and applications.

With the Oracle Software in Silicon Cloud, developers can have a secure environment in which to test and improve their software, as well as exploit the unique advantages of Oracle's Software in Silicon technology.

Angelo Rajadurai, Software Engineer with ISV Engineering, will provide an explanation of the technical details of the Software In Silicon features. He will also conduct a demonstration illustrating how developers can use the Software in Silicon Cloud to test these features on their applications today.

JOIN US ON MARCH 18, 2015

Register Now >

A few weeks ago, Oracle hosted the 3rd Annual Oracle Value Chain Summit in San Jose, during which more than 2,500 value chain experts from 425 companies in 31 countries attended, networked, and took advantage of amazing learning opportunities. It was an energetic and inspiring three days and a great opportunity for Oracle to honor the six winners of the 2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management (VCM).

Did you miss it? The Oracle Excellence Awards recognize customers and partners who have excelled in driving business value together with Oracle. Here are some of the inspiring stories about how a strategic relationship with Oracle and a forward-thinking approach can generate impressive results.

2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management for Manufacturing. Joan Stevens, USDP

The USDP, United States Distilled Products, Co./Phillips Products Co, a leading producer and distributor of high quality, specialty alcoholic products throughout the US, is very lucky to have Joan Stevens as the Director of Information Technology. Under her leadership, the manufacturing process has become more efficient due to new business processes and applications improvements. She has implemented Oracle’s Demantra Demand Management to improve forecast accuracy and has plans in the future to use business intelligence to drive quality and lean manufacturing initiatives.

 _____________________________________________________________________________________ 

2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management for Maintenance. Scott Gorsuch, Alcoa. 

Alcoa was the original development partner for Oracle eAM and has since been an exemplary user of Oracle eAM, showcasing maintenance best practices. Over the years, Scott Gorsuch has continued to refine and optimize the company’s use ofthe product. It has been implemented at 46 locations and affects 9086 users. Scott was active on the Oracle eAM Customer Advisory Board and as a leader on the eAM Special Interest Group, so his vast knowledge base will be greatly missed – his last day at Alcoa was during the Summit!

______________________________________________________________________________________

2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management for Value Chain Execution. Brian Frohardt, Panasonic Avionics Corporation.

The Executive Sponsor for the Panasonic Avionics Corporation’s Operations Improvement Project, Brian Frohardt, took home the Value Chain Excellence award for Value Chain Execution this year. Panasonic Avionics is the world leader for in-flight entertainment and communications, and because their facilities are spread around the world, there was a lack of integration between demand generation and forecasting, planning, manufacturing execution, shipping, logistics, and delivery. Brian successfully guided the Operations Improvement Project to success as Oracle Value Chain Planning, Oracle Value Chain Execution and Oracle Customer Relationship Management solutions went live in the middle of last year and achieved all of their expected results. 

______________________________________________________________________________________

2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management for Procurement. George Zullo, NBTY. 

Under the direction of George Zullo, NBTY, the largest nutritional supplement manufacturer and distributor in the US, has embarked on a sourcing and procurement transformational journey to better analyze its spend and classify data so as to develop a strategic roadmap for its direct and indirect spend categories. With the help of our sponsoring partner, Enrich, Inc., and Oracle’s Sourcing and Spend Visibility modules, NBTY has identified over $40MM in savings and is running 100+ RFx events annually.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Congratulations again to the 2015 Oracle Excellence Award in Value Chain Management winners!  Using technology to build enterprise excellence requires leadership. The leaderswho use technology to improve the experience of the organization, the experience of customers and partners, and the organization’s bottom line are all worthy of recognition.

 For more information about Oracle Supply Chain Management applications please visit www.oracle.com/scm.

by Michael Meldeau, Director - Oracle Consulting

I recently read an interesting post that explained how public sector agencies are using social media to help build brands that reflect the true value of their services and counter the perceptions created through high profile "worst case" news stories found in traditional media.

The article explains how the average U.S. citizen has a rather limited understanding of the child welfare system. The understanding they do have is most likely based on “worst case scenarios” played out in local and national news; often lacking context. This lack of context leads to public misconceptions and stereotypes that can be damaging to the agency and the system. Just as social media allows the private sector to bypass traditional media to build and shape public opinion and brand, so too does it work in public sector.

The article is entitled Social Enabling Child Welfare Agencies to Engage Community to Strengthen Families and explains how social media allows the child welfare system to connect, educate and strengthen communities by leveraging these modern social media vehicles. It is a great read, especially for those who are responsible for managing government agencies that offer citizen services in local communities. Click HERE to read the complete article.

As Mobile World Congress is taking place this week in Barcelona, there’s a lot of focus around mobile in the news. Mobility is now essential for consumers and companies, and incorporating it into a digital strategy that also includes social, cloud, and analytics is an important part of digital innovation.

While most of the focus for mobile is on the edge of the infrastructure and delivering apps to users, you still need a backend that can support the front-end– response time and relevant data are ‘must haves’. An infrastructure that can power the complex queries of a data-driven strategy is part of a mobile strategy that will allow business data to flow across the enterprise. As consumers, we don't think or care about the backend, but as providers you need to ensure it will support the service levels required.

You can read more about this topic in last week’s Forbes article titled, “Here's Why Mobile Shouldn't Stand Alone” in which I discuss this issue with my colleague Suhas Uliyar, vice president of mobile strategy product management at Oracle.

How important is mobility to your customers and what are the most challenging issues that it’s posing to your organization?

Harish Venkat is Vice President of the Global Hardware Systems Business Group at Oracle Corporation. Follow him on Twitter @hvenkat1.