tion would yield a clear and accurate picture of every customer,
every product, every service, and every transaction. Additionally,
having a standard set of business applications, deployed on top
of a standard data management platform, would simplify IT
administration, maintenance, and upgrades—enabling his team
to respond more effectively to the needs of the business.
The bet paid off. In 2003, when BREG standardized on
Oracle E-Business Suite, the company’s annual revenue was
US$50 million. Today, BREG depends on Oracle software
to manage a US$80 million company. The software has also
smoothed its merger with Orthofix, which had revenues of
US$300 million in 2006. BREG’s orthopedic products are sold
through a worldwide network
of more than 100 distributors in
36 countries, and the company
is extending its global reach.
“Implementing a single global
instance of Oracle software has
given us incredible leverage to stand
out in the medical device field with
our products,” says Romeo.
“We’re not making mistakes
on the front end when we
make commitments to our
customers. That’s a real
strategic advantage for us in
the medical device market.”
—Steve Romeo, IT Director,
BREG
RAMPING UP, SCALING OUT
Oracle has decades of experience
working with midsize businesses
such as BREG. The technology and
expertise from these engagements is
now bundled into a program called Oracle Accelerate. As part
of this program, Oracle has identified industry-specific business requirements and system preferences to help companies
ramp up quickly with the software, according to Mark Keever,
group vice president of Oracle’s Application Business Flows
and Oracle Accelerators division. “Oracle Business Accelerators
incorporate vast amounts of industry and regional best practices into a set of tools, wizards, and templates that get
our customers up and running quickly.” Keever adds,
“Business accelerators are a standard part of every Oracle
Accelerate solution.”
As part of Oracle Accelerate, Oracle has also offered a database that is simpler to use and more self-managing, so it works
right out of the box. “A self-managing database is particularly
attractive to midsize companies because they don’t have to hire
a battery of technical people or pay a systems integrator to set it
up and take care of it for them,” Keever points out.
Oracle Accelerate includes implementation services from
Oracle partners or Oracle Consulting, backed by those groups’
expertise in specific industries. For example, BREG hired Abaris,
a systems integrator and Oracle partner with a focus in life sciences, to help with its implementation. Working with BREG’s
in-house IT professionals, Abaris used the Oracle software to
create a global chart of accounts and to help BREG share manufacturing information around the globe. “Our business requires
real-time data for picking and packing,” explains Romeo. “The
same products are manufactured in different countries, and we
use Oracle software to control the flow of raw materials.”
Achieving this same type of supply chain automation is what
motivated HOPPE to deploy Oracle software. Volume is everything in the industrial and building equipment supply industry,
where HOPPE develops, manufactures, and markets door and
window hardware systems in the European market. The manufacturer has nine factories in four countries and produces nearly
all its products in-house.
HOPPE began evaluating Oracle software almost 10 years
ago. At the time, the company had an annual revenue of €194
million and was in the process of
expanding into several new countries.
“We had to invest in IT to expand the
business,” recalls Norbert Mayr, CFO
of HOPPE Holding AG.
According to Mayr, HOPPE’s nine
factories were essentially operating
as independent companies, with
little cohesion when it came to pro-
curing raw materials, taking orders,
or managing finished inventory. In
an effort to rectify the situation,
Mayr and his colleagues evaluated
several enterprise software pack-
ages, but most of them appeared to
be designed for larger companies. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
software, now part of Oracle, stood apart. It appeared to have
excellent horizontal capabilities for general business management, along with the specific vertical domain expertise HOPPE
was looking to automate its manufacturing operation. They
decided to give it a try.
OPENING NEW DOORS ON EFFICIENCY
Full Speed Systems AG Group, an Oracle partner operating in
Europe, helped HOPPE develop companywide applications for
production planning and inventory control. “They taught us
how to use the JD Edwards software to modify our core business processes,” says Mayr. “After a couple of months together,
we were able to complete the implementation by ourselves.
The JD Edwards applications use a Windows-type interface,
which helped us gain immediate acceptance of our new business applications.”
Creating a single source of data as the foundation for production activities quickly sped up HOPPE’s production cycles
and improved its reporting capabilities. This enabled production managers to improve quality without increasing manufacturing costs. Consolidating its data has unified the corporation
in other ways as well. For example, HOPPE can specify prices
and determine gross proceeds quickly and easily among all
its factories. Additionally, its sales representatives are more
