Special Report: Risk Management

It’s getting harder and harder to predict what’s just over the economic horizon. But executives that reject or mismanage risk may find their businesses stagnating—and slow to start when global markets recover. Successful executives manage risk effectively, protecting their firms with good information and judgment and not overreacting to hype and hysteria. Read about Oracle solutions that measure and mitigate risk—like predictive modeling or the Oracle Governance, Risk, and Compliance platform—and register for a peer-to-peer conference that will help you safely navigate in today's market.

Business Analytics Guru Douglas Hubbard Looks Into Oracle Crystal Ball—and Likes What He Sees
In this Q&A, Hubbard discusses his new book, his confidence in Monte Carlo models, and why he endorses Oracle Crystal Ball. Find out why Hubbard says, "If your risk management is flawed, that is the biggest risk of all."

Podcast: Managing Risk in an Economic Downturn
Find out how energy companies can use Oracle to handle uncertainty and improve project success.

Risk Management Takes on New Importance in Volatile Times
"Risk management should be holistic, so organizations can manage all categories of risk throughout the enterprise," says Stephanie Maziol, Oracle product marketing director for GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) applications. "It should also be predictive, to foresee the onset of unacceptable levels of risk, and relevant, so risk management is embedded into strategic and operational planning."

White Paper: Managing Risk and Uncertainty (pdf)
In the face of unprecedented change and volatility management has to respond even more quickly to the shifting sands of consumer demand and market uncertainty as well as the burgeoning requirements of the networked economy. Traditional approaches based on business functions working in isolation and supported by inappropriate spreadsheet technology place management at a severe disadvantage in terms of robustness, accuracy and timeliness of decision making in response to changed circumstances. Enlightened companies are seeing the benefits of a cross-functional capability in which the planning effort is aligned with core business processes and integrated so that planning assumptions are normalized across the enterprise.

White Paper: Smart Decision-Making in the New Era of Financial Challenges (pdf)
In a time of major crisis, such as we are experiencing today, people become frightened, confused, and hesitant. They may make decisions based on emotion; or on precedents that are no longer relevant—or they may make no decision at all. At such times, Monte Carlo modeling is a beacon of financial sanity and reliability. The need to quantify risk and support courageous decision-making is critical, and the right course may not be obvious under extreme conditions.

White Paper: Risk Management From Strategy to Success (pdf)
In today’s global business world, a broad spectrum of economic, political, social, legal, and regulatory changes are continually taking us to a new level of strategic and tactical complexity and creating commensurate pressures on business performance. We continue to see exponential growth of requirements (often conflicting and overlapping) that organizations must satisfy, and these become even greater as we expand global operations. The “Big Picture”we must keep in mind is the desire to achieve business objectives while overcoming obstacles, yet staying within the mandatory legal requirements and the voluntary organizational values and limits that each organization establishes for itself.

^{Five Ideas:
Public Sector}

^{Expert advice for
dealing with a swiftly changing landscape.}

“The Obama administration is saying there are going to be more eyes on you than ever before, and you are expected to take seriously your responsibility to be accountable”— Wayne Bobby, Oracle vice president of the Oracle Public Sector solutions in North America, on stimulus tracking.

“Federal, state, and local government agencies and departments also need to view the long-term or strategic needs. President Obama has been a long-term advocate of greater transparency in government and was a co-sponsor of the 2006 Federal Financial Accountability and
Transparency Act. Therefore, jurisdictions need to be looking beyond the initial requirements toward continuous solution development to meet evolving needs..”—from Oracle white paper: Oracle Solutions for Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

“We are in a conflict – some would say a war. Let’s call it what it is. Given the diversity of potentially hostile entities building cadres of cyberwarriors, probing our systems for weaknesses, infiltrating U.S. government networks and making similar attempts against American businesses and critical industries – including our defense systems – is there any other conclusion to be reached? Whatever term we use, there are three obvious outgrowths from the above statement. One is that you do can’t win a 'conflict' – or war – if you don’t admit you are in one. The second is that nobody wins on defense. And the third is that we need a doctrine for how we intercede in cyberspace that covers both offense and defense and maps to things we value in the real world.”—Oracle Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidon's testimony to Congress

“Changing citizen demographics, budget constraints, and complex regulations make it more difficult than ever for government agencies to process entitlement application...Although new for social services agencies, [Oracle's Policy Automation has] been widely used in financial services and other highly regulated industries to address rapidly changing policies.”—Dominic O’Hanlon, Oracle senior vice president and general manager

“A proliferation of government information is available on the Web and so are many transactions with government. But many transactions are not and it's still all to common to download a form, fill it out and mail it in. And once that form is sent in, it's still handled in the old way. Thus we still have a lot of back office manual processing And we still have citizens waiting in line ”—Juan Rada,Senior Vice President, Public Sector, Education and Healthcare Industry

^{Special Report:
Human Capital Management}

Business leaders often say their staff is their most important asset. But with people-related costs averaging over 60 percent of total corporate expenditures, executives need to pay more than lip service to this concept. Of course, improving HR efficiency, grooming your organization's talent, and keeping your employees happy and productive can be a challenging task. In this special package, you'll get advice for making smart HR objectives, and learn what Oracle products can help you meet them.

Three Strategies for HR Success
What’s one of the best ways for HR departments to cope with today’s tough economy? Begin planning now for the next 10 years. Find out which key moves HR departments should make today to maintain a committed workforce and reduce operating costs in the years ahead.

“Connected” Employees Boost Efficiency with Social Networking
Social-networking tools to facilitate group communications and collaborations aren’t only useful for forging personal relationships. Now they’re becoming integral to workplaces and creating “connected” employee environments.

Downsize HR and Cut Costs without Reducing Services
Spurred by the promise of wide-ranging cost savings, a growing number of HR departments are replacing their multiple Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) platforms from a variety of vendors with a single, enterprise-wide HRIS. A single HRIS can provide a foundation for efficient HR services that are shared corporate-wide.

Webcast: Driving Success Through Integrated Talent Management
Boost profitability and efficiency by aligning HR processes, practices and strategies with business objectives. Plus, how to leverage HR best practices in attracting, recruiting, rewarding and retaining the best employees.

White Paper: How Workforce Management Impacts the Bottom Line (pdf)
Workforce Management systems can be used to match business demand with appropriate labor by using a combination of budgeting, planning, analytics and/or an optimization tool to reconcile data with the availability, skills, and eligibility of personnel to work to support them.

Five Ideas: Human Resources
As organizations strive to achieve more with less, managers must pay particular attention to keeping their workers engaged and achieving. It can be a challenging task, but improving HR efficiency, grooming your organization's talent, and keeping your employees happy and productive is essential to the bottom line.

^{Oracle Enterprise
Manager Delivers 124% ROI}

An independent multi-customer study conducted by Forrester Consulting reveals customers gain significant benefits and cost savings from Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Management Pack and Oracle Enterprise Manager Provisioning and Patch Automation Pack.

The sample organization in Forrester Consulting's study was shown to achieve the following benefits (all figures are risk-adjusted, over three years):

· Positive 124% ($4,916,781) return on investment (ROI)

· 20% ($862,500) reduction in capital spending on servers

· Business productivity savings of $2,555,556 from a reduction in system downtime avoidance and a corresponding increase in availability.

Download the Forrester Consulting "Total Economic Impact™ of Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Management Pack, and Oracle Enterprise Manager Provisioning and Patch Automation Pack" whitepaper today.

Learn how Oracle's comprehensive industry leading configuration management and provisioning automation solutions help you reduce application management costs while delivering greater control and compliance.

^{The Finer Arts of
Golf and IT Management:}^{Smart Strategies for Both}

In golf as in business, success comes through mastering fundamentals and executing on strategy. In both pursuits there are variables you can't control, and every move you make needs to secure a short-term win and set you up for long-term success.

On the golf course that means making decisions that lower your score. For IT execs, it means creating smart technology strategies that drive the most business value. Apply the following golf fundamentals to your technology strategies to turn high-impact opportunities into significant match wins.

Know the Course
Before you take your first swing, know what you can about the course and how it matches up with your capabilities. Some courses play more to your strengths or the strengths of your team—like driving the ball long or putting with precision. Look across your organization to identify your top opportunities as well as the challenges affecting your stakeholders, your processes, and your IT operations. You may need to help boost worker productivity or increase customer profitability and satisfaction. You may discover that your business processes require better efficiencies by reducing exceptions. Or you may need to contain costs in your data center. These are your high-impact opportunities—the holes that you are most likely to win.

Overcome Obstacles
Next, calculate the distance to the pin by estimating strokes and planning for obstacles like doglegs, sand traps, and water. This is the planning phase for tackling your high-impact opportunities. Course conditions and club selection are key. Effective managers are skilled at prioritizing projects by estimating benefits and how soon they can be achieved. Look at the resources, roles, skill sets, and technology that may be required to support your programs.

Any type and number of technologies may be involved. Look within your organization to leverage existing products in new ways. Connect the dots among the technologies and the high-impact opportunities you've prioritized. For example:

· Are you experiencing a growth in the number and type of compliance exercises at your business? Consider identity management or content management to streamline and reduce the cost of your compliance efforts.

· Is your business declining because critical applications go down or are not meeting service-level agreements? If so, application grid solutions can optimize resources and keep your systems running to meet your business needs.

· Are you looking to boost worker productivity in light of recent downsizing measures? Look to portal and enterprise 2.0 solutions to connect workers in new ways, empower users, and reduce the burden on IT.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

The advantage of a great drive may be eliminated if your chipping and putting aren't up to par. Keep score and refine your game throughout the 18 holes. If it's a team match, discuss your strategies and plans every hole. Executing a smart technology strategy requires communication across business and IT, measuring against your goals, and continuously improving and adjusting where needed. Long drives are satisfying, but don't underestimate the importance of chipping and putting. Continually practice and refine all three disciplines to win rounds. Remember, you drive for show and you putt for dough.

Enjoy your golf game this summer, and keep your golf fundamentals in mind as you practice the fine art of leading a smart technology strategy.

Learn More

Webcast: Portal Customer Success Series

SOA Executive Roundtable: Top 5 Insights for Maximizing Returns with SOA

Video: Wipro Improves SOA Service Levels with Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle.com: 16 Ways to Cut Costs and Save

^{Oracle Buys
Virtual Iron}

Adds Advanced Virtualization Management Technology to Enhance Oracle VM

Oracle has agreed to acquire Virtual Iron Software, Inc. (Virtual Iron), a provider of server virtualization management software that enables dynamic resource and capacity management in virtualized data centers.

The combination of Virtual Iron’s technology and Oracle VM’s scalable, high performance and highly available server virtualization product is expected to provide more comprehensive and dynamic resource management across the full software stack.

Customers are expected to benefit from better capacity utilization, streamlined virtual server configuration, and improved visibility and control of their enterprise software.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close this summer.

Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Industry trends are driving demand for virtualization as a way to reduce operating expenses and support green IT strategies without sacrificing quality of service,” said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle Vice President of Linux and Virtualization Engineering. “With the addition of Virtual Iron, Oracle expects to enable customers to more dynamically manage their server capacity and optimize their power consumption. The acquisition is consistent with Oracle’s strategy to provide comprehensive enterprise software management and will facilitate more efficient management of application service levels.”

For additional information click here!

^{CIO Magazine Interviews CRM’s
Anthony Lye}^{“The challenge, of course, is knowing who the customer is. CRM really
provides a series of applications to crossmarketing, sales, and service to
record not just the interaction that you have with customers but to establish
a definition of that customer."

Listen to it
now...}

^{The Ottawa Hospital Transforms Procurement and
Spend Management with the Oracle® E-Business Suite}

Leading Canadian Health Center Enables End-to-End Integration for More than $60 Million in Purchases Annually, Allowing It to Cut Administrative Costs, Accelerate Purchasing, Optimize Vendor Spend and Reduce Paper Use

The Ottawa Hospital, a leading academic health center in Ontario, Canada, has implemented the Oracle® E-Business Suite applications, including Oracle Purchasing, Oracle iSupplier Portal, Oracle iProcurement, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Inventory Management, Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications, Oracle Business Intelligence and Oracle Financial Management, to help automate its supply chain.

The Oracle E-Business Suite is helping the hospital accelerate procurement; reduce costs through improved terms, optimize vendor relationships and administrative efficiency; and reduce paper use.

The hospital worked with GHX, which provides services and solutions to automate the healthcare supply chain and improve business processes, to integrate GHX’s technology platform with the Oracle E-Business Suite, enabling end-to-end integration between the hospital’s procurement systems and those of its largest suppliers.

To date, the hospital has linked 52+ of its largest medical and surgical supply vendors, representing annual spend of more than $60 million and 80 percent of the hospital’s medical and surgical supply budget, to its e-commerce system built on the Oracle E-Business Suite.

The hospital projects that the system will help save more than $1 million annually once it is fully implemented.

The Ottawa Hospital launched its automated supply chain as part of an Ontario Ministry of Finance (Ontario Buys) initiative designed to introduce e-commerce technology to the healthcare supply chain to ensure high levels of care and efficiency.

The hospital’s e-commerce supply chain initiative uses electronic data interchange (EDI) through GHX to enable integrated processing of orders placed with virtually all vendors, eliminating the need for staff members to phone in or input daily orders and create paper-based purchase orders (POs) and invoices.

The new system accelerates the hospital’s requisition and purchasing process through automated transactions, which eliminates the need to manually enter orders each morning for the 52+ vendors on the platform. This initiative saves the procurement department time and frees the team members to focus on more value added activities including procurement exception cases and contract management services.

End users also gain increased visibility into their purchase requests. With the Oracle E-Business Suite self-service applications, managers can check the status of a purchase request from their desktops, eliminating the need to contact the purchasing or logistics department for status updates.

The Ottawa Hospital recently automated delivery of supplies to surgical suites by integrating the Oracle E-Business Suite with the hospital’s operating room clinical systems and its carousel picking system.

To further extend visibility into its complex supply chain, The Ottawa Hospital has deployed Oracle Business Intelligence — enabling spend and vendor performance analysis to optimize the hospital’s supplier relationships and enterprise cost structure.

The hospital also plans to build a centralized warehouse, supported by Oracle Warehouse Management that will consolidate inventories across The Ottawa Hospital’s six sites into a single facility and facilitate swift replenishment of the hospital’s more than 1,000 supply carts.

“The Oracle E-Business Suite is fundamental to our ability to enable end-to-end integration with our largest medical and surgical supply vendors, helping to reduce costs and drive new efficiencies across our organization. Oracle Applications will also play an important role in our newest supply chain initiative ― our consolidated warehouse. Through our e-commerce initiatives at The Ottawa Hospital, we are pioneering leading practices in supply chain automation that we hope will serve as a model for other healthcare organizations across the country as we pursue our shared goals of enabling high levels of care as well as improved operational efficiency,” said Cameron Love, Vice president, Planning, Support Services and Clinical Programs, The Ottawa Hospital.

^{Oracle BI
Applications Release 7.9.6 Improves Business Insight and Drives Lower Cost of
Ownership}

With two brand new products, Oracle Project Analytics and Oracle Loyalty Analytics, in addition to pre-built integrations with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6 includes a range of new and enhanced tools to realize fast time-to-value at the lowest total cost of ownership.

Other Oracle BI Applications with significant enhancements include Oracle Human Resources Analytics, and Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics.

“The new capabilities and enhancements provided by Oracle BI Applications will arm businesses with the information needed to take steps to help improve cash flow, enhance revenue and profitability, control spend and maximize efficiencies across the enterprise," says Paul Rodwick, Vice President of Product Management.

New Applications Help Control Costs, Gain Deeper Customer Insight

Release 7.9.6 includes two brand-new products: Oracle Project Analytics and Oracle Loyalty Analytics.

Oracle Project Analytics offers organizations a comprehensive analytics solution that delivers insight into project-based data throughout the project lifecycle, to control project costs and improve project performance and profitability.

Oracle Loyalty Analytics provides comprehensive visibility into customer loyalty programs, including the ability to identify the most profitable members and to measure the effectiveness of programs and promotions.

New Tools for Recruiting, Learning, and Leave and Absence

Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6 includes enhanced recruitment analytics, which provides greater visibility into the recruiting pipeline, vacancy aging, recruitment stage selectivity, candidate sourcing and quality of hire.

Release 7.9.6 also includes additional enhancements for learning and leave and absence management.

Enhanced Procurement and Spend Analytics, Price Analytics

"Organizations are under pressure to maintain, if not improve, performance while enacting broad cost-cutting measures,” said Paul Rodwick, vice president of product management, Oracle Business Intelligence. “Oracle Business Intelligence Applications deliver insight into workforce, procurement and pricing performance to help organizations take decisive actions to improve their execution enterprise wide."

Enhancements in Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics content include: increased ability to understand spending patterns and savings opportunities; complete view of employee expenses including approval cycle times, expense report status and analysis of travel spending; and enhanced ability to identify and mitigate procurement bottlenecks.

New enhancements in Oracle Price Analytics help organizations track and improve pricing and margin performance. These include: expanded deal life cycle and price waterfall analysis; new pricing variance alerts and pricing KPIs; and the ability to ‘close the loop’ on pricing segments and strategies.

Certified with Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6 is now certified with Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (releases 8.11SP1, 8.12 and 9.0).

Specifically, Oracle Financial Analytics is integrated with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Financial Management to help front-line managers improve financial performance with complete, timely information on their department's expenses and revenues.

In addition to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle BI Applications is certified with the Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Oracle’s Siebel CRM.

Learn more about Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6.

Public Sector Knowledge ZONE

Public Sector Knowledge Zone
Connect with your peers, participate in a variety of social networks, and collaborate on business opportunities, all within the Oracle ecosystem. More…

^{UPCOMING
EVENTS}

Users groups provide a forum to discuss, share information and learn more about Oracle's products and services.

Please visit the Global User Group Meeting Calendar for an up to date schedule of events.

___________________________

CONFERENCES

Healthcare Industry User Group Conference

Scottsdale, Arizona

June 7-10, 2009

Listen to keynotes from Oracle and Industry leaders. Learn from over 50 unique sessions focusing on Healthcare. Discover solutions at the annual HIUG vendor fair. Interact with hundreds of Healthcare professionals facing the same challenges you are.

Oracle expects to certify the latest version of the browser, Microsoft IE8, on all recent Siebel CRM Applications code lines during the course of 2009. Certification will occur in phases, with certain new features of IE8 supported earlier than others. This article outlines what Siebel customers can expect with IE8, and how to prepare for it.

Oracle HCM Users Group (OHUG) Annual Conference
June 14-18, 2009

Las Vegas, Nevada

This unique and exciting conference addresses the needs of the human resource professional. In addition to the regular sessions, the 2009 conference includes special vertical sessions for retail, education, compensation and benefits, and Canadian users on Sunday, June 14, and Thursday, June 18.

Oracle Developer Tools User Group Kaleidoscope Conference 2009
June 21-25, 2009
Monterey, California

The Oracle Developer Tools User Group is a real-world user group for real-world technologists, providing community, technical resources, and support for a wide range of technologists working with the Oracle platform.

ADVISOR WEBCASTS

Upcoming schedule below:

PeopleSoft Enterprise
11-Jun	Overview of General Enterprise Integration Points between Enterprise PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management 9.0 and PeopleSoft Human Capital Management 9.0
18-Jun	Integration Broker Under the Covers: How messages traverse the PeopleSoft System from start to finish
23-Jun	PeopleSoft Enterprise: Campus Solutions Update on IPEDS Race/Ethnicity Regulations
25-Jun	Tutorial On Using E-Mail Collaboration For eProcurement 9
7-Jul	Application Server Cache, Shared Cache and LOADCACHE AE
7-Jul	PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions 2009-2010 Financial Aid US Regulatory 4
8-Jul	Introducing PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Feature Pack 1
9-Jul	PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions Student Financial 9.0 Bundle 13
21-Jul	Customer Data Flow between PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management and PeopleSoft Financials

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
2-Jun	Dispelling Configurator Setup and Processing Myths
4-Jun	Understanding JD Edwards World Migration to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
4-Jun	Preparing for Australian Payroll Year-End 2009
11-Jun	Pay on Consumption
16-Jun	JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and System i: Journaling, SQLPKGs and SQL Server Mode
17-Jun	AR/AP Netting
23-Jun	Location Billing - An overview of the equipment billing set up and execution process
30-Jun	Product Packaging and Object Packaging
30-Jun	Package Build under the cover changes in 8.12 and 9.0
15-Jul	JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: Using EDI 810 Invoice Match
25-Aug	JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: Manufacturing Work Order Lead Time and Backscheduling Calculations in Release 8.10 and Above
15-Sep	JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: Understanding P41203 – Lot management workbench.(8.11 SP1 and higher)

JD Edwards World
4-Jun	JD Edwards World: A9.2 Electronic Document Delivery (EDD)
13-Aug	Advanced Pricing: Formulas and Variable Tables
18-Aug	It's almost 2010. How is your #YR Data Dictionary Item Set?

Siebel/Hyperion
None at this time

Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS)
3-Jun	The Key to Optimizing Demantra Worksheet Performance
16-Jun	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Financials Release 12.1
16-Jun	Oracle E-Business Suite Release R12.1: Delivering Value in Uncertain Times
17-Jun	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Warehouse Management Release 12.1
18-Jun	AutoInvoice: Critical Setups and Order to Invoice Flow
23-Jun	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Projects Release 12.1
24-Jun	Introducing Oracle E-Business Suite Landed Cost Management in Release 12.1
24-Jun	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Procurement Release 12.1
25-Jun	AutoInvoice: A Technical Deep Dive
9-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Site Hub Release 12.1
14-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Manufacturing in Release 12.1
14-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Order Management Release 12.1
16-Jul	Introducing Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center Release 12.1
22-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Human Capital Management Release 12.1
23-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Performance Management Release 12.1
23-Jul	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Configurator Release 12.1
19-Aug	Introducing Oracle E-Business Suite Secure Enterprise Search in Release 12.1
20-Aug	What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Sourcing Release 12.1

Oracle Communications Apps (CGBU)
	None at this time

Oracle Database
9-Jun	Community: Overview of AWR Reports
8-Jul	Migrating Oracle Rdb Databases between Versions and Platforms
12-Aug	Analyzing SQL Traces with Binds and/or Waits Generated by EVENT 10046
7-Oct	Community: Overview of the Performance Diagnostic Guide (PDG)

Oracle Fusion Middleware
	None at this time

Advisor Webcasts: Support Tools and Processes

The following table provides a summary of the available Advisor Webcasts about the Oracle support tools and processes and the links to the detailed schedule for each Advisor Webcast:

Working Effectively with Support (WEWS)

Introduction to MetaLink 3

Software Configuration Manager (SCM)

Support Assistant for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

JD Edwards: Change Assistant

PeopleSoft Enterprise: Change Assistant

PeopleSoft Enterprise: Change Impact Analyzer

PeopleSoft Enterprise: Setup Manager

To learn more about the method of our Advisor Webcast or the interpretation of the schedule please read:

Advisor Webcasts: User Guide for participants

Advisor Webcasts: How to find the right session for my time zone

REGIONAL USER GROUP MEETINGS