Oracle announced that it has enhanced its Oracle(R) Projects suite of applications and added a new module, Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis. The upgraded suite, part of the Oracle E-Business Suite, will help new, as well as Oracle’s 3,000 plus existing Oracle Projects customers better control project work and finances through integrated work execution and financial management, improved budgeting and forecasting and better visibility into project performance and billing.
Better Project Prioritization with Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis
The new Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis module enables project-centric businesses and departments to more easily plan, execute and control their portfolios of projects, no matter how complex. Managers can view all proposed projects through a common filter to see which most closely match the organization’s goals, available funding, ROI targets and other key criteria. “What if” scenarios can be used to assess the impact on project funding with various portfolio mixes. By having a view of the entire portfolio, businesses can optimize the mix of projects they undertake and reduce risk. In addition to being a valuable tool for internal IT teams, Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis can streamline service delivery in other project-centric departments, such as marketing, research and new product development.
Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis was recently selected as one of four finalists (out of 23 evaluated solutions) for the Project & Portfolio Management 2005 Awards in the category of Best Technology & Service Provider. The finalists were chosen by a select group of IT executives and presented at a ceremony on June 28 at the Seaport Boston Hotel in Boston.
“Analysis of the impact of adjusting strategic priorities on the mix of proposed tactical projects has traditionally not been well supported by tools,” said Matt Light, Research Director, Gartner Inc. “Recently, though, reviewing alternate scenarios — supported by a realistic view of resource capacity and progress on current key projects — has been increasingly enabled by integrated project and portfolio management applications.”
Increased Project Management Visibility
The new release of Oracle Projects streamlines project delivery across many project-centric industries including professional services, engineering and construction, asset intensive and public sector. The release provides an integrated project management and control solution that enables the seamless integration of the work execution, financial control and enterprise operations of global projects, and provides powerful insight into project performance, targeted to the project and program managers with a simple to use, configurable interface.
Project managers must manage project performance to plan with accurate forecasts in order to anticipate and quickly address potential problems that cause overruns in time and cost. With this release, project managers can monitor project performance and review and update current project completion estimates based on data automatically generated from the work plan, resource plans, actuals, progress, commitments and change orders. Other key stakeholders, including operations managers and executives, also have visibility into project performance, thus increasing financial visibility and control while reducing risk.
Additional enhancements to Oracle Projects include:
-
— Program management support, enabling program managers to view the
program schedule and financial performance, rolled up the hierarchy
of projects; -
— Earned value metrics delivered out-of-the-box, to enable greater
insight into project performance; -
— Support for contingent workers, who can now be assigned to project
and tasks, validate timecards against purchase orders and process
hours and labor costs and bill directly to customers; -
— Streamlined resource planning with resource rollup from detailed
work plans; -
— Greater visibility and control for project billing, with task level
billing methods and simplified invoice review for project managers.
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd, a Korean firm that designs, produces and builds power plants, desalination plants, material handling equipment, and casting and forging both in domestic and global markets, has been using Oracle Projects since July 2005.
“Our success depends on our ability to manage large, complex long-term projects in the most efficient way possible, with minimal risk” said Mal-Ho Song, Vice President of PI, Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co., Ltd. “Oracle Projects and Oracle E-Business Suite greatly contributed to our Process Innovation for redefining our business processes, which will, we expect, enhance process capability significantly.”
“This is a significant release which extends our solution to streamline the project and portfolio selection process and raises the bar for our project management and control capabilities, built upon the strength of our project accounting applications and enterprise integration and scalability,” said Jeanne Lowell, vice president of Oracle Project Applications Development. “We are excited to deliver benefits derived from the solution’s integration and insight, enabling portfolio managers and decision boards to optimize their project portfolios, and project managers to successfully deliver their projects with less effort. We are working with many customers across diverse industries in their deployment of the solution.”
The new release of Oracle Projects is available now.
