Ready to Go!

Continued

Zadig says any midsize company that expects to grow should consider moving to an enterprise-level software program. It just makes sense. “If you believe you’re going to build a large company, you’re going to be prepared,” he says. “By installing Oracle E-Business Suite, our basic financial accounting, tracking, and manufacturing system will be mature and in place. We won’t be playing catch-up or have any risk to our potential growth based on that. It’s a matter of confidence.”

And the idea that this can be done in less than 12 weeks? That’s just a bonus, says Zadig. “Oracle Business Accelerators helped us meet certain timelines. [Using] Oracle Business Accelerators is a disciplining process. It forces you to make decisions. It forces you to turn things on and learn through experience. That, I think, is the fundamental advantage.”

Help Me Help Myself

When Telegent set out to migrate from QuickBooks to the new system, Zadig knew which vendor he was using—Oracle—but he didn’t have the internal resources necessary to facilitate such an installation. So in stepped USJade, a San Jose, California-based system integrator.

“USJade provided back-office services, which helped us in translating over our historical files and in helping map our activities and the data into the Oracle software,” explains Zadig. USJade is one of the more than 175 Oracle partners that are specifically trained to implement Oracle Business Accelerators, with approximately 5 to 10 new companies added monthly. That training makes an already simple process even more seamless, says Oracle’s Keever. Finding the right partner is a fairly simple process too, he notes.

“Every quarter we train and announce more partners, because we want to make sure there are plenty of partners in every country and every industry,” he says. “We’ve got a search tool where someone can go to the Oracle site and say, ‘I’m in XYZ country and ABC industry, and what solution do you have for me?’ We’ve also got the Oracle sales team out there that can help connect a customer with a partner.”

Working with an Oracle partner speeds the process because partners aren’t just installing the technology; they’re helping their clients figure out what they need to better accomplish their goals and which business flows they require. “Partners ask customers questions about their business, including what competitive challenges they face,” says Keever. “Then they take the Oracle Business Accelerators and overlay it. Now, instead of needing weeks and weeks or months and months, everything happens very quickly. And when you shrink time, you shrink costs.”