QUESTIONS AND @NSWERS
Within Your Power
HOW EXISTING ORACLE SOLUTIONS DELIVER ENERGY AND COST SAVINGS
ccording to Jon Chorley, vice president of
supply chain and sustainability product
strategy at Oracle, savvy business leaders
can green their operations by looking at
Oracle solutions they already own—products
that manage reverse supply chain, transpor-
tation, product development, and account-
ing. “If you look at the solutions you already
have from Oracle, we have already added
many capabilities that help you address your
requirements in the sustainability space, and
we continue to add more,” he says.
Here, Chorley answers questions submitted by Profit readers via Twitter about
building a smart sustainability strategy—
including where to look for quick payoffs
and how new Oracle solutions can help your
company grow greener and stronger.
@damienreilley: How do you measure
green success? What are your benchmarks and metrics?
CHORLEY: There are many dimensions
to consider. There’s the perception of your
brand in the market; also, your compliance with various governmental regulatory
requirements. But here’s the key measure:
a company that is successful in terms of
sustainability will see improved efficiency,
reduced waste, expanded market opportunities, and a long-term ability to grow
in an increasingly sustainability-conscious
business climate.
Now, how does Oracle view its own
success in this sector? For one, Oracle sets
an example. We have consistently driven
down our energy consumption with
state-of-the-art datacenters, and we run
as a true e-business to reduce our use of
physical materials as well as save money.
However, Oracle’s biggest impact is
to drive benefits to customers through
its products. While IBM seems to think
the route to a “smarter planet” is through
high-priced consultants, Oracle’s route is
through the delivery of actual hardware
and software solutions that can dramati-
cally improve sustainability performance
and compliance.
@eco_center: What ecological metric do
you feel has the most leverage in bringing
about business-scale transformation?
Jon Chorley, Vice President of Supply Chain
and Sustainability Product Strategy, Oracle
CHORLEY: Energy is the most obvious.
The cost is going up, so savings will
have an ever-increasing business value.
Also, energy is a good surrogate for
greenhouse gas production, which will
be subject to more regulatory scrutiny.
Additionally, the cost of housing and
running servers now exceeds the cost
of acquiring the servers. So changing
to energy-efficient hardware is good
business sense. But it’s good for IT performance as well. For example, Oracle
Exadata and Oracle Exalogic series
servers have a far lower environmental
impact than the hardware that they
replace, and they perform much better.
Also, we’ve just acquired intellectual
property from a company called Ndevr
related to tracking, analyzing, and report-
ing on greenhouse gas production. We’ll
be delivering standard Oracle versions
of those products in the coming months.
They will have the huge advantage of
integrating with the related enterprise
systems and business processes and so
will deliver this capability at the best pos-
sible costs of ownership.
@capriprakash: Is Oracle’s SSDM solu-
tion relevant for operations at energy-
intensive manufacturing companies?
CHORLEY: SSDM stands for sustain-
ability sensor data management, and
yes, it is extremely relevant. Last Oracle
Open World, we introduced the sustain-
ability sensor data management solu-
tion as a major extension to Oracle
Manufacturing Operations Center. It lets
business leaders directly track, manage,
compare, and analyze energy expendi-
tures across any operating equipment or
at any facility under their management.
Thanks to @damienreilley (Damien Reilley, Eminent
Group, Inc.), @eco_center (Evan Marks, the Ecology
Center), and @capriprakash (Prakash Singh) for submitting questions to Jon Chorley through Twitter.
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