November 19th, 2008
Giddyap - Oracle Mid-market apps team with Wells Fargo
A Treasury Solution to Save Money (not cost more of it)
I got a briefing from Oracle’s Tony Kender and Wells Fargo’s Brad Stewart concerning their new joint plug-in adapter product for Oracle’s E-Business Suite. Basically, this adapter allows users of Oracle’s mid-market applications to directly connect with Wells Fargo systems and automatically transfer bank reconcilation, payment and receipt information without re-keying, errors or time delay. Moreover, this solution should be easily implemented by Oracle users with a minimal outlay of capital and time delay.
Once installed, this solution permits finance or treasury users to download an immediate and data-rich flow of information from a business’ bank accounts at a Wells Fargo institution. Lockbox receipts, cleared checks, electronic funds transfers, account balances and other information are available in real time.
Wells Fargo has built the adapter and will license it to Oracle’s and Wells Fargo’s mutual customers. Like a licensed software product, the adapter software also requires an annual maintenance fee be paid so that customers can continue to receive product updates, upgrades, etc. Pricing information was not made available to me.
The real story here is that this is a mid-market solution that has a short time to value and makes the treasury function in mid-market firms easier to perform, less expensive and error-free. In light of other software firms that are raising maintenance rates and ignoring the current economy, this briefing was an interesting one to hear. Wells Fargo listened to its mid-market customers and discovered that many were bothered with a time-consuming and inefficient process. The adapter they built takes (according to Wells Fargo) about a week to implement (not 2-3 months).
A subsequent release of the adapter will support P-cards.
For more on this announcement, see this Oracle announcment.
This blog explores the intersection set between services and technology. If it impacts either space, it will be covered here. Brian Sommer is a former Accenture partner. He did an 18-year tour of duty there and ran three small practice units (Finance Center of Excellence, HR Center of Excellence and Software Intelligence). He’s sold service projects in almost every continent and remains just as current on both services and technology today as ever before. Brian is currently CEO of TechVentive, a strategy consultancy servicing technology providers, and a research analyst with Vital Analysis. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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