POWERING
NEW GROWTH
TO EXPLORE GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES, MIDSIZE COMPANIES NEED GOOD INFORMATION.
BY DAVID BAUM
hen it comes to information technology (IT), many
organizations walk a tightrope, as they con-
stantly balance the need for automation
against the responsibility of maintaining
complex information systems. Equilibrium is fleet-
ing. Often, managers implement new software
functionality only to be confronted with another IT
challenge, and the cycle begins again. Companies
merge, markets evolve, and customers demand new
products and services—all of which require changes
to the information systems that keep the business
moving steadily forward.
Midsize businesses are particularly vulnerable to
these upheavals. They might be expanding into new
geographies, streamlining supply chains, consolidating operations, or embarking on an acquisition strategy—and they need new business
systems to make it happen. In all these
scenarios, IT is critical, but business owners
worry that enterprise-caliber software
applications are too costly, too complex,
or too general for their needs.
But Oracle is proving them wrong
with a new suite of industry-focused
solutions that are simple enough
for midsize businesses to deploy,
yet sophisticated enough to
turn those businesses into
some of the world’s most
valuable companies.
PETER STEMBER
Consider BREG, a
rapidly growing medical
device company that produces knee braces and other
Steve Romeo,
IT Director,
BREG
orthopedic products. BREG’s acquisition by Orthofix in 2003
marked a major turning point for the company—a
logical point at which to upgrade its information
systems. “We wanted to adopt new business pro-
cesses and not try to recreate what we already
had,” recalls Steve Romeo, BREG’s IT director
and a member of the national board of directors
of the Oracle Applications Users Group. “We
realized we couldn’t get where we wanted to
go by using yesterday’s technology. But we were
leery of big software applications and the cultural
changes that these upgrades would cause.”
It’s a familiar quandary, particularly for
manufacturing companies such as BREG.
Until recently, midsize companies in
this sector mainly catered to local
markets because they didn’t have
the resources to reach much
further. But today any company
can compete with the industry
leaders—if they can efficiently
connect and exchange informa-
tion online.
Romeo and his colleagues
were well aware of these business
dynamics, which is why they made
a strategic decision to deploy a single
global instance of Oracle E-Business
Suite. Romeo says the primary moti-
vation was to standardize production
processes, centralize key back-office capa-
bilities such as order entry, and create a
more-nimble supply chain. He believed
that consolidating organizational informa-
