[Q&A] Webinar: The Costs & Risks of Losing Premier Support: Why you Need to Modernize your EBS Now
A couple of weeks ago we held our first webinar in our series “The End of the Road for Your EBS: Why Act Now & Where to Start Your ERP Modernization”. You can check the recording of the webinar here.
Below you can find the questions that arose in the webinar and their answers.
Q: You talk about upgrading from 12.1.3 to 12.2. What are your thoughts on upgrading from 12.1.3 to Oracle Fusion? (Carmela Abbamonte-Boyko Company: LCBO)
A: There is no direct “upgrade path” from EBS 12.1.3 to Cloud Fusion ERP – it requires a reimplementation project. Because it requires reimplementation, there is no “one size fits all” answer that can be given to the question. It would require specific analysis of the existing EBS solution, pain points, costs, future business growth plans, and other factors in order to come up with a recommendation on a company by company basis. For some companies, the value proposition is very good while for others the picture can be less clear.
Q: We are still on 11.5.10 and no huge complaints from a pure functionality standpoint. With limited capital, it is hard to sell Sr. Mgmt on the high cost to upgrade. Are there any documents on security risks or retirement of Java that might help us build a case for the upgrade to EBS 12.2?
As we discussed during the webinar, each company needs to make its own risk vs. reward determination with regard to the desirability of running older, unsupported software. A quick online search will provide links to dozens of articles and white papers on the subject. I have provided a handful of URLs below. What these articles can do is point out “where to look” for the potential problems that may arise from running unsupported (and potentially insecure) software. What these papers can’t do is determine the potential risk/reward calculation for any given company, as different companies have different downsides that they would incur if certain security breaches took place.
- Thousands of Enterprises at Risk Due to Oracle EBS Critical Flaws
- Oracle Patches Fraud and Fake Cheques Enabling Bugs
- Patch Easily Exploitable Oracle EBS Flaws ASAP
Q: How long does it take to implement ECC and how many command centers exist?
A: There are a total of 30 default “out of the box” command centers with 100+ dashboards across the suite. V5 has 8 new command centers and multiple new dashboards to existing command centers such as Payables and Receivables Close and also ECC Activity Audit. Deploying a few standards “out of the box” ECC does not take much consulting implementation time, perhaps one or two weeks at most. Training a customer on how to customize any individual “out of the box” ECC might take another week of consulting, assuming the customer team has familiarity with PL/SQL and the Oracle EBS database schema. Creating complex ECC (e.g., involving custom schema or combining two existing ECC – such as from Receivables and Order Management) would need to be discussed on a case by case basis.
Q: Do you recommend upgrading and going to OCI?
A: Depending on where you are on your hardware refresh cycle, it should definitely be part of any customer’s evaluation process. OCI can provide far more capabilities at a much better price point than what typical small or midsize companies can afford when building their own data centers.
Q: Does it make sense to implement ECC as part of the 12.2 upgrades, or is it better to wait until after the upgrade is complete?
A: Implementing standard “out of the box” ECC (as mentioned above) can easily be incorporated into a typical R12.2 upgrade without affecting the cost or timeline in any material way. If an IT Director wants to give the user community “something to get excited about” in return for going through yet another upgrade cycle, then implementing ECC is a very cost-effective way to do that.
Q: How long does a typical upgrade take?
A: The answer (of course) is “it depends”. That being said, in surveying the bulk of the R12.2 projects that ITC has done, the vast majority have a duration of between 4 and 5 months, plus another 2 to 4 weeks of the post-go-live support.