by Siobhan Kennedy
JD Edwards used the second day of its user conference in Denver Colorado yesterday to flesh out details of its e-business strategy, aimed at providing its customers with all the necessary software and services they need to do business over the web. As previously reported in ComputerWire, the ERP (enterprise resource planning) application vendor’s ActivEra E-Business strategy, consists of three integrated elements: self-service applications that extend its ERP software to partners, employees and customers; the ActivEra portal and Activators to personalize applications and services; and supply chain collaboration and trading communities to allow collaboration among customers, suppliers and partners.
Under the initiative, JD Edwards said it will introduce 60 new front office applications by the end of the year, aimed at providing a user-friendly, customized interface to back office functionality. Customer self service and employee self service modules will be available this summer, with supplier modules following by the fall. The applications will include support for Java/HTML today, with support for XML available by fall.
Like SAP AG’s and PeopleSoft Inc’s portals before it, the ActivEra portal is a gateway for users to connect to ERP data, legacy system data, web content, business intelligence software or any other connected application. In addition, JD Edwards will offer technology it acquired through two reseller agreements last week, with Siebel Systems Inc, for its front office application software and with Ariba, for its web-based procurement product. On top of that, this week’s acquisition of Numetrix Ltd will round out the ActivEra portal strategy by providing technology for companies to optimize their supply chain planning and execution over the web.
The alliances with Siebel and Ariba will also provide integration to the Ariba.com and Siebel.com sales and resource sites. The former is a web site connecting buyers and sellers in an on-line community, integrated with Ariba Operating Resource Management System and JD Edwards’ OneWorld. Siebel’s sales.com is a web site offering access to all Siebel’s sales, marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) applications.
In addition, the ERP vendor also used the conference to introduce its first data warehouse and set of business intelligence tools, along with two partnerships for analytic applications, all grouped under the ActivEra knowledge management strategy. Ted Studer, JD Edwards’ director of product marketing for the division said the company looked at how businesses made their decisions today and then went about filling in the gaps of its own portfolio, either through developing its own technology or by forming reselling agreements with third partners. The resulting products will be integrated into the ActivEra portal and fully accessible over the web, he added. In terms of home grown products, JD Edwards has joined rival ERP vendors, including SAP AG, by developing its own data warehouse product, as well as enhancing its existing report writer, integrated in the OneWorld tool set, to offer more analytic and reporting options.
Also under the business intelligence umbrella, the ERP vendor introduced its own balanced scorecard solution – which enables top managers to align their enterprise’s strategic objectives with individual, departmental and divisional goals as well as an executive information system which provides key management with information on, among other things, gross margin, sales results and inventory delivery time.
To fill out its analytics offerings, the company announced two partnerships. The first, with Cognos Software, will see JD Edwards resell and integrate Cognos’ HeadStart suite of nine analytical cubes, customized for use in specific areas such as sales, gross margin and customer delivery. The tools provide high-level reporting capabilities down to multi-dimensional drill down analysis, pivoting and modeling of data within a cube. And under a partnership with Armstrong Laing, JD Edwards will resell and integrate its Metify activity-based management solution; software which allows companies to better manage their costs by analyzing the activities which staff undertake to attain key goals.
By the end of the year, Studer said JD Edwards will introduce a new content management solution to enable the navigation, search, filtering and prioritizing of data gathered from a multitude of unstructured sources including web sites and office (word processing, spreadsheets, e-mails and so on) documents. It will also release a human capital management solution; a part software, part consultation-based solution which will help companies improve their business practices by leveraging information from past experiences. Now only a nascent market, Studer said the applications will gather and document best practice information from partners, customers and employees and leverage that data throughout the organization to bring about a change in way the business operates, which in turn will help to increase revenues, profits and so on. Both the latter software and the content management products will involve partners, Studer said, and JD Edwards will announce those in the next 60 days.
