For many companies around the world, JD Edwards is the ERP that keeps their business running. It supports various value chain processes, including critical financial activities. When combined with the latest cloud technologies, applications, and applied AI platforms or tools, JD Edwards can extend and empower many additional internal and external capabilities, making it a source of continuous evolution and transformation.
In this post, I share four ways that organizations can adopt, integrate, and evolve JD Edwards to become a platform for reinvention.
4 ways to power your reinvention with JD Edwards
- Transform and optimize business processes through applied AI and process mining
Traditionally, business process analysis and transformation redesign were executed manually, through workshops, interviews, and process/application document reviews. These activities were subject to human bias, and they also rarely captured the full scope of operations across the business – which in some cases, can reach millions of transactions, spanning multiple geographies and many different operational/organizational units.
By using an AI-enabled tool to conduct process mining for all business transactions executed in a given period, organizations can get a more accurate and complete view of their actual business processes. They can also apply machine learning (ML) to identify bottlenecks, reworks, and delays. Finally, these technologies can enable teams to benchmark the best processes and practices among business units, operational sites, and teams or against any other best practices model.
These technologies, when combined with process management and JDE application expertise, can help companies identify clear and compelling areas of improvement and the expected impact on business KPIs.
For example, Globant developed an AI process transformation platform, Navigate, that captures the footprint of millions of JDE and Oracle Cloud Applications transactions. It then creates a digital twin of the company processes and its interactions with JD Edwards
Transactions, documents, and other applications. Navigate applies a process mining engine and AI ML algorithms to analyze those processes and compare them to a benchmark, identifying points of inefficiency, redundancy, or rework or even evaluating compliance against a set of business rules.
Navigate is also supported by expert services, which enable clients to gather and analyze end- to-end business processes, helping teams select and design the improvements or process transformations that will create more value for the business in a measurable way quickly and accurately. Teams can also confirm the achieved value with automatic metrics once the new process or application configuration is implemented.
For example, Globant implemented Navigate in a global life sciences organization to strengthen their order management and logistics fulfillment processes and assure on-time in-full (OTIF) delivery. In a very short period, we were able to identify future stock-out cases that would occur in critical distribution centers; we also created alerts to identify and address any supply chain issues well in advance. This helped increase the company’s OTIF level and its customer satisfaction index.
- Extend the value of JDE with Oracle Cloud Applications
JD Edwards users are some of the most passionate I’ve encountered. And while the platform is indeed rich in functionality for many business processes, there are other applications within the Oracle Cloud suites that enable companies to get even more value out of JDE, be it through transforming the customer experience, improving supplier relationships, and empowering employees and enhancing internal operational and management processes.
For example, companies can leverage Oracle CX Cloud solutions, including the commerce, CRM, and marketing platforms, to reach target markets better and enhance the client experience. On the supplier relationship side, these solutions can be applied to manage RFI, RFQ, and RFP, negotiate with suppliers, qualify vendors and proposals, and manage the contract process, including technical and legal reviews and approvals. Navigate can also track and manage the end-to-end processes inside JDE and through the Oracle Cloud applications.
That said, many companies need clarification about how to identify the right applications to deploy and how to integrate them with their existing JDE system. As a transformation partner, we help clients identify the best process transformation opportunities and focus on the improvements that will drive higher business benefits. We can also help companies select, implement, and integrate these solutions in a way that optimizes outcomes and achieves business value.
For example, a client, a global manufacturer, and distributor of medical devices, extended their JDE processes with Oracle Commerce Cloud, both in the BTB and BTC environment. This was done to help the team offer a differentiated client experience and improve the connection of the eCommerce orders with their logistics and supply chain delivery processes. In this way, when a customer reserves or purchases equipment or spare parts through the e-commerce platform, the request is automatically synched with the back-end systems that manage inventory and fulfillment. As such, the company is able to extend the value of the JDE system by using cloud-based tools, thus increasing sales and customer satisfaction and better managing their ATP (available to promise) stock, delivery dates, and fulfillment process.
- Optimize JDE with a tune-up
JDE is a functionally rich and mature application and platform. But even the best platform can work better through advanced configuration, customizations, and integration, as well as taking advantage of new features and tools.
A straightforward way to ensure you are getting the most out of your JDE investment is by executing an integral “health check” with a knowledgeable and experienced Oracle partner.
Globant offers a comprehensive assessment that evaluates all aspects of the organization’s current JD Edwards environments, including configuration; custom objects; CNC, and DBA management; security and segregation of duties; integration tools; and approach. The assessment also produces a set of specific recommendations for improvement, which can be implemented as recommended actions to enhance system performance and effectiveness.
Globant’s JDE health-check tool helps to improve JDE effectiveness, reduce incidents, enable upgradability, reduce costs, and enhance business continuity and performance.
- Digitalize Application Management Services with AI-enabled platforms
One key challenge companies have when using JD Edwards and other applications in their landscape is the need to reduce the number of incidents related to the platform. This and reducing the time to resolve incidents and service requests are important drivers of overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Typically, these requests are logged in a ticketing system (ITSM tool) and managed by either the internal IT team and/or an external partner. In a standard Application Management Services (AMS) model, these tickets are solved manually, meaning that a member of the team will analyze the issue and then respond with a solution, sometimes with a low level of knowledge reuse.
However, in the age of AI, it is possible to accelerate incident resolution by analyzing the history of previous tickets and solution documentation to identify similar incidents that occurred in the past and the solutions that scored well. This helps AMS service consultants to reuse knowledge and accelerate resolution.
For many AMS teams, the only thing more important than quickly solving incidents is reducing the number of incidents. This means identifying the root cause and applying problem management to eliminate the source of recurrent issues.
To help companies evolve from a mature ITIL-compliant AMS model to a Digital AMS, Globant has developed an AI-enabled intelligent AMS platform, MAiDA. This platform applies AI to collect and analyze the history of all previous Incidents, scan the document repository for relevant solutions, and then score how different solutions have performed in the past. The system then shares that information with the relevant IT team members or AMS service agents to help streamline their trouble-shooting process for their customers.
Using a tool like MAiDA helps resolve issues faster and allows the IT team to focus resources on higher-value activities or more complex requests. MAiDA can also be trained to recognize patterns in recurring incidents, clustering the most feasible tickets to find the root cause. This helps organizations improve the quality of the JD Edwards system and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Finally, MAiDA also provides a Service Process Mining representation of the service chain, helping companies identify bottlenecks or delays on a statistical base and for individual cases. This helps improve communication with users, IT, and all the service towers or participants in the service chain. It also provides advanced analytics and preventive alerts to avoid high-priority ticket escalation, thus helping teams achieve required service level agreements (SLAs).
Get ready to get more out of JDE
JD Edwards has always been a tool that helps companies run their business – and now, by combining it with intelligent automation and cloud technology, as well as people and process transformation, it can be a source of reinvention.
Are you ready to take your ERP system to the next level? Globant can help. Contact our Oracle Studio to set up a consultation and jumpstart your reinvention journey today.
