Getting the Most from Oracle: Occam Systems Limited

Like many ISVs, accommodation management software vendor Occam Systems is finding that its customers are overcoming their wariness of e-business and starting to embrace the benefits of web-based applications. This has brought Occam to a watershed moment, where it has decided to replace its old client-server applications, built with Oracle Forms, with brand new Java-based versions. Occam turned to Oracle for help with the migration.

Founded in 1998, Oracle Certified Partner Occam Systems Limited is the largest supplier of accommodation management systems to the UK Higher Education sector. From Dundee in the north to Plymouth in the south, universities and colleges across the country use Occam's software to manage every aspect of student accommodation; from initial enquiries and applications to booking and contract management, invoicing, rent collection, and rooms management.

It's a sector that has some aspects in common with hotel management, but in other ways is completely dissimilar, according to Occam's director of sales and marketing, David Wilkes. "Like hotels, our software helps our customers to manage their bed stock, but it is on a much larger scale. A typical Occam customer has 3,000 beds to manage" he says. "But unlike hotels, where there is a fast turnaround in guests, students are generally booking in for 30-40 weeks. This requires functionality such as contract management and payment plans that are not a feature of the hospitality industry."

From its base in the student accommodation management, Occam has branched out to provide applications for another key area of Higher Education business - the conference market. "When the students are on holiday, many institutions make their accommodation and lecture facilities available for conferences," explains Wilkes. "We provide software to manage event bookings, catering and audio-visual facilities as well as short-term conference accommodation.

Occam is currently marketing this same event management module to NHS Medical Training Centres and plans to take it into other new market segments shortly. For instance every large corporate typically has meeting and training rooms in many locations and our software can provide an excellent solution to managing and maximising the utilisation of such space.

Occam's most recent business venture has been into the private accommodation sector, which is a natural extension to its work with Higher Education institutions. "There is a government mandate to have 50 per cent of all under-30s attend a Higher Education institution," says Wilkes. "There is not enough university-owned accommodation to meet this influx. Increasingly private sector property companies and housing associations are working either independently or with universities to supplement the existing halls of residence, so we have started working with these suppliers to provide them with the software they need to manage this new accommodation. The largest provider, UNITE Group plc, now has over 24,000 beds across 35 locations, all managed by Occam's software"

"In a half-day meeting with PTS, we learned enough to bring forward the release date of our AS 10g version by six months" - David Wilkes, Sales and Marketing Director, Occam

In total, Occam offers three main applications families: PAMS for large-scale student accommodation management, Room Service for providers of less than 3,000 beds, and a new e-business suite which lets students apply, contract and pay deposits and rental instalments online.

The e-Payment solution is an indicator of the direction Occam is now headed. Like many ISVs, Occam is finding that its customer base is at last overcoming its cautiousness about e-business and starting to embrace web-based applications and the clear benefits that these bring. The rising popularity of e-business applications in the Higher Education market has brought Occam to a watershed moment, where it has decided to replace its old client-server applications, built with Oracle Forms, with brand new Java-based versions.

"One of the key drivers for our customers is the need to deliver online self-service to their own customers," says Wilkes. "Students now expect that they should be able to apply for accommodation online, check the status of their allocation online, and make rent payments online by credit card or other means. This means that universities are having to embrace e-business, and are also finding it benefits them in terms of reduced administrative overhead and greater visibility of their operations, particularly when combined with the need to grow their operations to provide more bed space for an increasing student population."

To help with the transition, Occam drew on its long-term relationship with Oracle, which has always been the technology underlying its applications. Occam was one of the first ISVs in the UK to gain Oracle Certified Partner status, and the two companies have enjoyed a productive working relationship, including a number of successful joint bids. It was therefore natural for Occam to look to Oracle to help out with the migration of its applications from Oracle Forms to a modern e-business architecture based on Oracle Application Server 10g and Java.

Help came in the form of Angelo Santagata, Principal Consultant with Oracle Development's Product Technology Services (PTS) team. Angelo made several visits to Occam's development centre in Ludlow, Shropshire, where he was able to advise on the best use of the latest Oracle technologies. Crucially, according to Wilkes, Angelo was able to explain which aspects of Oracle Application Server 10g and the latest Oracle development tools would be helpful to Occam, and which aspects were not so relevant for the migration project. "Angelo cut through all the marketing hype and enabled us to understand exactly which elements of the technology would work for us," says Wilkes.

As a result of Angelo's attention, Occam has been able to reduce the duration of the migration significantly. "In a half day meeting with Angelo, we learned enough to bring forward the release date of our AS 10g version by six months and at the same time removed plans that would have taken us down a blind alley," says Wilkes. "The Java version of our applications is now due out in November 2004, and will bring our customers the cost benefits of e-business deployment combined with far greater ease of use and flexibility."

Angelo is pleased that his involvement has been helpful to Occam. "Occam has been keen to take advantage of the technical services that are available to Certified Partners, and I'm delighted that we have been able to give them a clear technical advantage over other suppliers," he says.

"Our customers are benefiting from our collaboration with Oracle", concludes Wilkes. "Our reputation as being the best in our field has been built on our capabilities in creative technology solutions that exceed customer expectation. As a Certified Partner and with Oracle's leading technology and expertise we are able to continue to offer customers complete solutions and improve overall quality of our service."

For more information about how Oracle Development's Product Technical Services team can help your organisation, contact isvnewsletter_ww@oracle.com.