Why should I choose packaged business applications?

Do your business processes flow from organization to organization without interruption? If you can't answer yes to both of these questions, your business applications might not be serving your needs. This guide explains what packaged business applications are, how they differ from alternatives, and why and when to consider buying them.

Packaged vs. Homegrown Applications

Business applications are windows into the facts, figures, numbers, pictures, and other data stored in your database. A software application is simply the interface to that data, the thing that helps you dig up, organize, and present it so that it becomes actionable information.

A packaged application, unlike a custom or homegrown application, simply reflects the fact that some business processes are universal. So it makes a lot more sense to create a single application that covers most of the needs of most businesses than it would for every business to spend the time and money to develop such applications from scratch.

Chances are, you'll need to customize your packaged business applications here and there to cover processes unique to your industry or business, but most will give you the functionality you need for the majority of the business situations you encounter—at a much lower cost than creating it yourself.

Why Do I Need Packaged Business Applications?

• Support and connect key business processes, such as financials, purchasing, inventory management, customer contact, and more.
• Establish a foundation for better decisions; improved customer service; and lower operational costs with applications that help you extract, sort, analyze, and present critical information about customers, products, and services.
• Raise the productivity of your employees by giving them the information they need, presented right on their desktop computers.
• Set performance parameters and program your applications to alert employees when corrective actions are needed to maintain efficient operations.
• Take advantage of built-in workflow, rules, and security features to help maintain information integrity and control the flow of information from checkpoint to checkpoint across your business.
• Packaged applications utilize best practices gathered from a variety of industries and companies of all sizes, so you benefit from built-in experience and technical expertise and avoid overburdening your own technical resources with the complex and costly task of creating something from scratch.

Requirements Checklist

If your business meets most of these criteria, you should consider purchasing packaged applications to help maintain and grow your business:
• You need easier access to basic metrics and corporate-wide information about your organization. And you need to be able to drill down to consistent, accurate transactional information whenever questions arise.
• You're experiencing rapid growth and need to maintain productivity or standardize and connect business processes—without additional resources.
• You need expanded functionality but you can't afford to add new people.
• You need a more reliable, accurate way to track information as it flows through your business.
• You need your business information systems to "talk" to the information systems of other organizations, such as customers and suppliers.
• You need to comply with evolving regulations and financial reporting guidelines.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Aren't packaged applications expensive? No, especially when compared to the cost of creating your own. Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition—a suite of applications for supporting key business processes— is available at prices appealing to any size business.
• Won't I be forced to buy more applications than I need? No. Oracle E-Business Suite is available as a fully integrated suite and in modular form.
• Won't an application server lock me in to a single vendor? Not necessarily. Oracle E-Business Suite is engineered for integration utilizing industry standards to simplify connections with non-Oracle systems.
• Will I need specialized personnel to manage my applications? Not always. With Oracle, for instance, you can reduce IT staff through automated management, and train quickly and easily.

Next Steps

For more information on Oracle E-Business Suite business applications, please visit oracle.com/applications