Thoughts from the JD Edwards Summit Paris

JD Edwards ERP Sustain AND Innovate 

“Since 2000, 52 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired, ceased to exist, or dropped out of the Fortune 500. In fact, the pace of change has increased, competition has intensified, and business models have been disrupted. Digitalization of business is a key factor in this accelerated pace of change. Information flows faster.”
Ray Wang, Constellation Research

“Customers want us to help them become more agile, to help them speed their time to value and make it easier for them to innovate….Certainly we’re always looking for efficiencies and cost reductions, but we also want to make it increasingly possible for our customers to create new value, whether they are offering new products or services.”
Lyle Ekdahl, GVP Oracle JD Edwards, Interview Profit Magazine
 

The theme of the JD Edwards Summit in Paris was Sustain AND Innovate. It was a fitting theme for the end of the year, a time when we look back at what we have achieved, but also a time when we look forward to the year ahead and start thinking about how we can build on previous achievements.  

Lyle Ekdahl spoke of duality, about the need to be disruptive and innovative but also to ensure that the current “traditional” business continues to be optimized and flawlessly executed. In technical jargon, the term for this is bimodal. 

This bimodal approach to IT is not easy but as we see from Ray Wang’s quote above, a bimodal approach is no longer a "nice to have". 

Industry “Secret Sauce”

Lyle suggested that when looking at innovation, JD Edwards customers focus on what differentiates them in their industry. Of course, customers must innovate across the general commoditized business processes, but where you can really build competitive advantage is in the deep line-of-business industry requirements. It is this sectorial knowledge that has helped to build your business. Customers choose your company because of this knowledge and expertise. Innovation here will be much more difficult to imitate, helping you to build real competitive advantage.  

Cows, Data & ERP

Ok, so ERP, data and cows are not three words we often hear together, that was until yesterday. Bob Monahan and Lyle told us the great story of how Australian Agricultural Company use wearables, mobile and real-time data to help radically transform their business. 

What’s New in JD Edwards ERP?

As well as the “big picture” Bob Monahan & Lyle spoke about some of the great new functionality in Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2. I’ll go into more detail on these over the coming weeks but, in the meantime,  just to give some high-level information: 

JD Edwards Internet of Things (IoT) Orchestrator
The Internet of Things Orchestrator allows JD Edwards to natively communicate with the outside world of sensors and devices, translating signals into key information for your business.  Temperature, pressure, consumption, vibration, and geographical location are just some of the variables you can measure in real-time and leverage to make your business more agile and productive.

The out-of-the box orchestrations are extensible, and each customer can build new ones in order to respond to specific industry requirements. The key takeaway: leave the data collection to the machines, and free up people to do the high value added tasks.

Cloud
The theme of duality was also addressed when talking Cloud, it doesn’t have to be either/or. Because “one Cloud does not fit all”, JD Edwards provides a full choice of deployment methods: public, private or hybrid Cloud. Bob & Lyle also showed us a preview of what will soon be available on Oracle’s public Cloud: provisioning a full JD Edwards dev/test instance in just a couple of hours!

Mobility
For the JD Edwards team Mobility is now at a “tipping point” and that is why JD Edwards continues to invest in developing mobile applications. JD Edwards also acts as a platform to help clients to develop their own mobile applications. 

New Modules 
Some great new modules have been introduced 

• Advanced Job forecasting.
• Outbound Inventory Management
• Work Center Load Review

As always, at any JD Edwards event there was a real sense of community and an openness to sharing experience and knowledge. There was also a real feeling of excitement at the innovations offered in 9.2 and at the many possibilities opened up by Mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT). Another great piece of news was that the JD Edwards product roadmap is now extended until 2024.

So, Happy New Year to all in the JD Edwards Community, we know it’s going to be busy but a rich and exciting year. I look forward to meeting some of you at our 100 Days upgrade workshops in 2016 and at Oracle and Redfaire International events over the coming months.

In the meantime, please “stay tuned” to our blog where I’ll be writing more detailed posts on some of the new functionality and modules and, of course, the simplified upgrades!