Regularly I write about the developments in the field of Oracle Applications. One of the changes that I foresee in the coming years is that the traditional activities of a functional or technical consultant will change dramatically.

Oracle Fusion Middleware is now a accepted product and is increasingly being used by our customers. It forms the technical basis for the next generation application: Fusion Applications. In my view this means a whole new playing field for the traditional ERP consultant. Fusion Applications consists of processes (with BPM and BPA Suite), services developed with Java and integrated with Fusion Middleware, service bus and BPEL. To keep it simple I leave IDM/SSO, BI, MDM out of the equation. Striking is that on the playing field for instance PeopleTools or Siebel tools are not mentioned. The focus is no longer on the ERP application but more on processes and services. Integration is the key word.

In a number of my blogs I raised the question where to focus on with our competence development. How to react to the (niche) acquisitions by Oracle, the coming or if you would like the delayed Fusion Apps etc.

With my team I decided to focus for the Dutch market on Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft HR / Financials and eBusiness Suite Financials / HR.

On Tuesday March 31, 2009 the annual Oracle Benelux User Group will be held in Antwerp. Logica will be present as one of the gold sponsor. Our key presentation is focused on Flexible employee Benefits in Oracle.

Employee benefits are of increasing importance in today’s labor market. The relationship between employer and employees is more mature than ever, and employees are keen on making individual benefit choices. Facilitating those individual choices is becoming increasingly challenging, and costly, for HR departments. Giving employees freedom of choice by means of self service and showing, in real time, the financial implications of individual choices is both highly motivating for employees and highly efficient for the HR department. Logica will explain her vision on this development and will, based on the Tasper Benefit Shop explain how this can be supported in an Oracle / PeopleSoft environment.

In our stand we will present a running demo of the Tasper / PeopleSoft solution. We are also providing information on Famous, our conversion and migration factory and Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA).

The last event, held in Utrecht in 2007, attracted around 800 visitors. I’m wondering how the economic situation will affect the number of attendees and the topics presented. Focus should be on cost saving solutions. Also I’m looking forward to the presentation by José Lazares on AIA. Maybe not directly a cost saving solution, but certainly the way forward in embracing the future Oracle applications.

About a year ago I raised the question how to prepare for Oracle Fusion Applications. Within Logica we had chosen to focus on creating awareness for the changes Fusion Apps would bring. In this so called Tour de Fusion programme we focused on several topics like SOA, BPEL and BPM. Topics which not only existed in theory, but already were supported with tools by Oracle. For instance the Oracle SOA suite or Oracle BPA suite. This allowed our consultants to work (‘to stand with their feet in the mud’) with these products in our skill centre environment. Examples are interfaces between PeopleSoft and eBusiness Suite based on BPEL. A rudimentary way of application integration.

At Openworld 2008 Oracle delayed the launch of Fusion Apps until end 2009 / beginning 2010. What is the impact on our competence development in general and the Tour de Fusion programme in particular?

Recently I had a discussion with some participants of the OBUG on how to prepare for Fusion Applications. Their views were that it is still more technology driven and from an Applications perspective they should not be involved at the moment.

It’s true that momentarily the focus from Oracle is on the SOA suite and other more technical components. Still it’s my opinion that as a customer or a system integrator you already should start preparing for Fusion Applications.