This chapter covers the following topics:
Customers can share data from front-end applications (CRM) to back-end applications (ERP) in the Oracle E-Business Suite. The applications leverage Oracle's Common Application Architecture.
The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications encompass:
Marketing suite
Sales suite
Contracts suite
Service suite
eCommerce suite
The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications include:
Oracle Order Management
Oracle Supply Chain Planning
Oracle Manufacturing
Oracle Financials
Oracle Human Resources Management System
Companies use Oracle's CRM suite of applications to acquire, maintain, and enhance customer relationships, by assisting companies with marketing automation, sales force automation, contracts management, customer service and support, and business intelligence, in a multi-channel environment.
The Marketing suite provides campaign planning and execution, budget management, list creation, reporting, and analysis tools. Marketing professionals use the Oracle Marketing applications to drive quality leads to sales, to expand reach, and to maximize marketing effectiveness by using a comprehensive set of marketing automation, analysis, and multi-channel execution capabilities. The Marketing suite offers seamless integration with sales, service, and operations.
The Sales suite provides integrated tools for all players in the sales process, including field salespeople, telesales agents, distributors and resellers, sales executives, and Internet customers.
Armed with up-to-the minute information regarding customers, leads and opportunities, as well as forecasts and compensation plans and projections, executives can proactively and effectively manage a sales force while providing the sales people with the information needed to close sales. Using this information, the field sales force, telesales teams, resellers, and web storefronts can collaborate in closing more business together as one sales team.
The Contracts suite enables authoring, executing, and managing contracts, warranties and extended warranties, providing visibility to contract entitlements and the ability to proactively act upon contractual commitments. Whether a buyer or a seller, issuing contracts or receiving them, the Contracts suite automates the full contract life cycle.
The Service suite manages service activities with the goals of profitability, employee productivity, and enhanced customer satisfaction by comprehensively addressing service and support activities from initial contact with the customer through issue resolution. Automating service efforts can potentially transform an area that has historically proven to be a cost center into a revenue generator.
This suite of applications provides customer support, field service, and depot repair functionality. In addition, Oracle Service offers complete visibility into spare parts availability, logistics, service billing, and customer contract entitlements. Oracle Customer Care provides full access to customer information from each touch point in the enterprise and to each customer care agent or other employees who interact with the customer. All of the Service products can be deployed across web, call center, and mobile field channels.
The eCommerce suite of products aid in establishing profitable long-term relationships with customers through Internet availability, one-to-one marketing and personalized shopping experiences, as well as proactive support and self-service capabilities. Oracle eCommerce synchronizes all customer interactions and transactions by integrating web-based channels with traditional channels.
Companies use the ERP applications to control their back-office operations. For example:
Oracle Order Management applications feature advanced configurator functionality, global available to promise, flexible pricing support, efficient delivery, high volume transactions, and the flexibility to adapt to changing business conditions.
Oracle Supply Chain Planning applications provide the tools required to optimize flow of material, cash, and information across the extended supply chain.
Oracle Manufacturing applications support all styles of manufacturing - engineer-to-order, discrete, process, flow, lot based, and project based manufacturing.
Oracle Financials provide solutions for strategic planning, accounting, treasury, project management, and travel management.
Oracle Human Resources Management System is a comprehensive solution for managing a company's human resources, allowing organizations to attract, retain and develop critical skills and knowledge on a global basis.
Oracle's Common Application Architecture includes functionality that supports both CRM and ERP applications. For example, Oracle's Trading Community Architecture (TCA) consists of a database schema and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that enable the modeling of complex business community relationships and the ability to enter business community data consistently throughout the enterprise. Because TCA is not hierarchical, Oracle applications can model complex B2B2C relationships and not be limited to either a B2B or B2C implementation.
Oracle Proposals allows users to generate dynamic proposals using templates. With Oracle Proposals, businesses can:
Shorten the sales cycle by reducing from days to hours the time needed to generate a proposal
Project a consistent and high quality professional image
Free sales representatives to work with customers by automating the proposal process
Oracle Proposals streamlines proposal creation by automating time- and resource-consuming tasks. Users can generate proposals from templates that package recurring proposal elements such as cover letters, executive summaries, and product descriptions.
Central template administration guarantees standard and professional corporate proposals.
Oracle Proposals also allows proposal administration through:
Template management
Dynamic field administration
Oracle Proposals is a part of the Oracle E-Business Suite, an integrated suite of enterprise applications designed to transform a traditional business into an e-business.
Oracle Proposals includes the following features:
Users can create a proposal from a quote, opportunity, lead or for a customer. Users can also create a standalone proposal in which the user provides the customer and/or contact name. Users select a master proposal template from a list of possible templates and can specify the proposal name, description, customer, and due date. From the opportunity, lead, quote, and customer, the customer name is automatically carried over with a contact, if one is available.
Users can create a proposal based on a quote in Oracle Quoting. When a proposal is created from a quote, relevant quote information is automatically pulled into the proposal.
Oracle Proposals is integrated with Leads in Oracle Sales. This integration allows a Oracle Proposals user in the Self-Service mode to create a proposal from a lead in Oracle Sales, where information from the lead is pulled into the proposal during the proposal creation process. If the lead is associated with a campaign activity, the proposal template associated to the campaign activity is automatically used.
Oracle Proposals is integrated with Oracle Content Manager (OCM). This integration allows Oracle Proposals administrators and users to store and reuse content when constructing their templates and proposals, respectively. Users can access files stored in either the OCM Folders or the OCM Library and add it to their proposal. Users can also store files from the desktop to a proposal in an OCM folder. Administrators can store and reuse files in OCM. OCM integration is determined by the setting of a profile option that allows flexibility in the level of integration.
Oracle Proposals is also integrated with campaign activity in Oracle Marketing. This integration allows association of a proposal template to a campaign activity in Oracle Marketing.
Oracle Proposals is integrated with Opportunity in Oracle Telesales and Oracle Sales. This integration allows Oracle Proposals users to create a proposal from an opportunity in Oracle Telesales or Oracle Sales, where information from the opportunity is pulled into the proposal during the proposal creation process. If the opportunity is related to a campaign activity, the proposal template associated to the campaign activity is automatically used.
Oracle Proposals is integrated with Customer in Oracle Telesales and Oracle Sales. This integration allows Oracle Proposals users to create a proposal from a customer in Oracle Telesales, where information from the customer is pulled into the proposal during the proposal creation process. If the customer is related to a campaign activity, the proposal template associated to the campaign activity is automatically used. Oracle Proposals users can also view proposals from Customer Business Activities in Oracle Sales.
Oracle Proposals enables users to track their progress while building a proposal, so they can see at a glance whether proposal components are complete. Users can determine the order of proposal components, and include or exclude optional components. Dynamic fields in the components capture required information from objects specified by or entered by the user.
Administrators have the ability to specify if a proposal file created for a template can have files added to it. Users can then add external files from their desktop, the Oracle Content Manager Library or Oracle Content Manager Folders.
The Proposals Page lists existing proposals and enables users to initiate proposal creation. Proposals are displayed across languages.
The Proposal Update page enables users to update an existing proposal and displays tabs that contain overall proposal information, generated documents, correspondence related to the proposal, notes and tasks, and sales team members who can work on the proposal.
Oracle Proposals enables you to save searches for future use. These saved searches, called views, control the display of data in the Proposals page. You can use the views provided with Oracle Proposals or you can create your own views. You can display the results of searching with a view by selecting a view name from the view menu and clicking Go. To create a view, click Personalize to access the Personalize Views page. On this page you can create, edit, or duplicate views by selecting the appropriate button.
Users can perform searches on criteria such as proposal name, customer data, and creation or due date and can save searches. Oracle Proposals is integrated with Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA). The Data Quality Management (DQM) functionality in TCA allows for expanded customer and contact search capabilities and minimizes the creation of duplicate parties. When DQM is enabled, the fields that you see in the Simple and Advanced Search: Person or Organization pages, are dynamically generated based on system settings.
After users have built the proposal content, they can generate a proposal document in RTF or PDF format. This document is the physical file that is shared with the customer. Users can regenerate documents as often as needed. Each regenerated document exists as a new version and is stored in the database.
Users can add supporting documents to their proposals. These documents are optional, and can be of any file format. These optional documents can be added from the desktop, from the Oracle Content Manager library or folder, or from suggested content based on the proposal components.
Using Oracle Proposals, users can send proposals by e-mail, including supporting documents, to customers and other recipients. The user selects the appropriate proposal document version, specifies customer contacts, and then sends them to the contacts and other recipients. A record of the e-mail delivery is also recorded under the customer name in Interaction History.
Oracle Proposals uses proposal templates, which are predefined, standard documents from which proposals are created. Templates outline a proposal's structure. A template is made up of components such as cover letters, product descriptions, and collateral.
Administrators define template categories, create templates, create components, and determine component order. The template category and name help users select the most appropriate template for each proposal.
When an administrator uploads an updated proposal template component, users are notified that the component has been updated when they access the proposal using the updated component.
Proposal components are pieces of standard content that are included in templates, such as cover letters and executive summaries. Administrators can define components and create multiple documents for each component, since the style and content required can vary from one proposal to another. For example, the component Cover Letter can include the documents Simple Cover Letter and Professional Cover Letter.
The documents are RTF (Rich Text Format) files that store content such as standard text, graphs, tables, or dynamic fields. Users can create these RTF files using Microsoft Word, use them in proposal components, and store them in Oracle Content Manager for reuse.
Also, Oracle Proposals enables the user to add suggested content. The suggested content choices are based on the components associated with the proposal, or the associated quote, opportunity, or lead. For example, if a proposal contains a component pertaining to a server, suggested content might be a data sheet for that server.
Administrators can include dynamic fields in the component documents to reference information from various sources. For example, a cover letter, where the customer name and address changes, can have dynamic fields inserted into the locations where the customer name and address would be. The user can then personalize the cover letter for a particular customer.
Specifically, values for dynamic fields can come from the user (such as proposal title), database objects (such as items and pricing), or custom Java programs, retrieving data from various objects and object sources, including images. Images can be of the types JPG, JPE, JPEG, JFIF, or PNG. Images can be uploaded from the desktop, OCM folder, or OCM library.
Dynamic fields for values from Oracle E-Business Suite Quote and Proposal objects are seeded with the application. Administrators can create user-defined and custom dynamic fields.
A large or complex opportunity might require several team members to work on a proposal for that opportunity. The Sales team tab on the Proposal Update page enables users to manage this team effort, containing a table listing the sales representatives and sales managers who are collaborating on a proposal. Sales team members can have full or read only access to the proposal.
Link trail: As you navigate through Oracle Proposals, the links to the pages you have visited are shown at the top of your current page. For example: Proposals > Proposal Update. Use these links to navigate back through the product.
Partial page refresh: This feature enables you to see the changed portion of a page without waiting for the entire page to refresh. For example, if you are viewing a table of proposals, you can select a radio button next to a proposal and details about that proposal are displayed below the table. When you select a different proposal, the information shown below the table is refreshed with details on the newly-selected proposal.
Sortable table columns: Many table columns are sortable in Oracle Proposals. Clicking the column heading sorts the data in ascending or descending order.
Tabs: Access the various features from the tabs in the interface.
< Previous and Next >: Links that enable you to view the next available group of items in a table, or to navigate back to the previously listed group of items.
Show/Hide: Click Show to expand a region and display further information. Click Hide to compress the information.
Back button: Use your browser back button for navigation to a previous page.
Asterisks (*): Fields with asterisks denote required information.