In a year representing clear vision in its numerical representation, 2020 proved to be very uncertain in many areas.  However, at this years’ InFocus Virtual conference, Paul HoutkooperKeith Sholes and Jeff Ericksondiscussed trends, innovations and product roadmap to meet the ongoing needs of JD Edwards customers. Here are some highlights and a link to be video presentation. 

The three major trends driving JD Edwards customers include:

  • Investing in Continuous Innovations
  • Deploying Application Standards
  • Adoption of Cloud Infrastructure and Adjacent Applications

Currently, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2 has been adopted by more than 75% of the customers with 65% of the customers planning to stay current at a 12-month upgrade cycle and 84% at an 18-month upgrade cycle.  I believe this represents the JD Edwards customer’s support and confidence in Oracle’s continuous improvement strategy and commitment to support the application through 2031.

Why do JD Edwards customers continue to stay on and invest more into EnterpriseOne?  To me the answer is simple based on working with JD Edwards customers every day.  There are three primary reasons why customers continue to invest:

  1. The application features are extensive and proven
  2. The underlying technology continues to stay modern
  3. The total cost to acquire, maintain and enhance are hard to beat

Over the past 24 months, we have sold and implemented a half dozen new companies and double that in upgrades, migrations to a private cloud and process improvements on EnterpriseOne and have several more companies evaluating this option.  We find this particularly true in the manufacturing, wholesale distribution, mining, agribusiness and professional services industries.

To learn more about the key areas of investment for EnterpriseOne to help customers optimize business processes, adopt digital transformative technologies, and extend automations, check out the InFocus video presentation on JD Edwards Strategy and Vision at https://vimeo.com/questoraclecommunity/review/475891258/e5b634a7a5.  To learn more about GuidewireSI and our complete set of Application Managed Services to meet all of your JD Edwards needs, visit us online at https://guidewiresi.com.  

If you have any specific questions for me, drop me an email at [email protected].

Michael

For most companies running JD Edwards, the answer has been an internal team of 3 to 4 JD Edwards support staff with an occasional hiring of an independent consulting or a systems integrator to support a project or upgrade has worked just fine.  

However, the JD Edwards landscaped has quickly changed over the past two years. Today, companies are facing new market conditions.

  1. CIO’s are being asked to reduce capital expenditures and operational expenses.  They are looking for less expense alternatives to support legacy technologies. 
  2. IT organizations are focused on new technologies such as AI, IoT, and Security Vulnerability and have limited availability to focus on maintaining their ERP application.
  3. Changing workforce skills.  The career path of a JD Edwards resource is closer to retirement then not. Next generation IT workforce is focused on next generation technologies.
  4. Product maturity of JD Edwards is maximized. R&D spend from Oracle is going to its suite of Cloud applications.
  5. A fast reduction in the number of dedicated JD Edwards consulting services organizations are reducing and eliminating their JD Edwards practices in lieu of Oracle’s new Cloud Applications or other technologies.

Let’s review the Pros and Cons.

Internal JD Edwards IT Staff

Pros:

  • Extensive knowledge of the company’s version of JD Edwards, related technologies, people, and processes.
  • Ability to have daily in person support.

Cons:

  • High employee personnel cost to support JD Edwards.  A typical JD Edwards customer spends between $200,000 – $500,000 per year supporting JD Edwards.
  • Difficult and expensive to find, hire, train and retain JD Edwards support staff.
  • Limited exposure and knowledge to best practices or new capabilities.
  • Limited ability to provide support after hours or on PTO.

GuidewireSI’s JD Edwards Application Managed Services

Pros:

  • Access to a team of JD Edwards application, development, system administration experts averaging 16+ years of experience.
  • Flexible pricing structures from consumption based to prepaid plans with rollover hours.  Only pay for what you need when you need it.
  • 24 x7x365 availability with SLAs with one-hour guarantee response time, currently averaging less than 8 minutes.
  • Visibility and accountability with online portal and ticketing system providing real-time monitoring, ongoing reporting and oversight by a dedicated JD Edwards team.

Cons:

  • Limited on-site availability.
  • Concern related to knowledge transfer from in-house resources to application managed services team.
  • Skills and knowledge to find and qualify if GuidewireSI is the right company to meet your specific JD Edwards needs. 

To schedule a 30-minute Assessment to determine the potential value of GuidewireSI’s On-Demand Application Managed Services, Click Here.

We are proud to announce another new customer to the GuidewireSI and Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne family. HES Facilities, LLC (HES) is a full-service facilities management company based out of Knoxville, Tennessee.  “HES selected JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP software due to key functionality that is able to meet our critical business requirements,” explains John Devall, […]

If your organization is struggling to find the right balance of fulfilling priority customer orders, reducing back orders, and improving allocation of inventory, check out this ten-minute video from one of GuidewireSI’s consultants, Zach Jennings. Zach reviews JD Edwards Fulfillment Management set up requirements and demonstrates how the combination of Auto-Fulfillment and the Fulfillment Workbench provides JD Edwards customers with a solution to prioritize demand, improve customer service and decrease administrative costs. Learn more about GudiewireSI Application Managed Services.

Over the past five months, senior leadership everywhere has been working to manage rapidly changing and dynamic business conditions. This unpredictability requires flexibility in managing customers, employees, vendors, processes and technologies.  

GuidewireSI is dedicated to providing JD Edwards’ customers with flexible end to end Application Managed Services to support constantly changing JD Edwards needs with flexible, “pay only for what you need” plans – just what is needed in the current business climate. 

“Guidewire’s on demand application managed services gives us access to a team of consultants to help us resolve issues or help us make improvements to our JD Edwards solution when we need it and without having to hire full-time staff,” explains Brian Peagler, Director of IS, goldbug.  “We also use Guidewire for our system administration and maintenance, which eliminates my need to think about it. The combination of their services reduces the cost of managing our JD Edwards solution so we can invest in other initiatives to support our business.” 

There are three key components to supporting JD Edwards with Application Managed Services:

  1. Extensive knowledge and experience working with JD Edwards software
  2. End to end services to meet every need of a JD Edwards customer
  3. Service offerings and payment options that are tailored to meet each customer’s unique needs

For the past 10 years, GuidewireSI has been focused on helping customers purchase, implement, support and optimize their JD Edwards software deployments. Customers partner with us on two key service offerings to enhance their use and support of JD Edwards solutions, while reducing the costs associated with internal teams and independent contractors.

  • On Demand Application Support ranging from tier two to complete support
  • Planned System Administration (CNC) support

To learn more, visit our Application Managed Services page, Contact Us or email me personally at [email protected].

Most JD Edwards customers are telling us they are not. As business grow and expands, the needs and usage of your JD Edwards applications are changing with you.  Even with the EnterpriseOne 9.2 Tools to track usage, there is not a way to determine license compliance.

“Geospace wanted to understand the companies risk profile with Oracle from a detailed technical perspective and did not have a competency to understand the license agreements from over the years. GuidewireSI performed the License Review Program and provided us with the comprehensive understanding of our risks and several options to remedy the areas of risk.”  

– David Witt, CIO Geospace Technologies.

 There are two key benefits from performing an internal license audit:

  1. Risk Prevention
  2. License Optimization 

There are five common license compliance challenges:

  1. Mapping Usage to Licensed Applications
  2. Numerous Order Documents and varying licensing models
  3. Prerequisite Applications and Indirect Usage
  4. Custom Programs and Reports
  5. Security and Roles not aligned to Licensed Applications 

JD Edwards customers have turned to GuidewireSI to:

  • Understand Compliance by knowing what JD Edwards Applications are being used by specific users to ensure compliance or you to be prepared for an upcoming meeting with the Oracle License Audit team.
  • Are considering migrating from one License Model to another – most often from the “Enterprise” to “Named” to mitigate the annual true up payments.
  • Believe they need to add users and want to make sure they license the correct number of users by application.
  • Purchase the additional users and applications from a trusted advisor and the best possible pricing.

Check out what a recent CIO has to say about his experience in a Customer Video Success Story on YouTube

Contact us to learn how the GuidewireSI 360License Review Program can provide you the facts and confidence to understand what applications are being used, the specific number users, and the roles providing the access to the applications.

Our team has 20 plus years of experience with the JD Edwards licensing models and a unique tool and approach to support you from understanding to compliance.

Private companies have until January 31, 2021 to meet accounting standards for the reporting of leases in accordance to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Update ASC 842 and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) IFRS 16. At a high level, lessees must recognize leased assets on the balance sheet for both property (office space, retail space, industrial warehouses, and so on) and non-property (office equipment, vehicles, and so on).

If you have not set up JD Edwards or manually managing the calculations and GL postings, watch this 10-minute YouTube webinar below to understand the four key steps to enable this functionality.

To learn more about how JD Edwards addresses the standards or Oracle License requirements, CLICK HERE.

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