Wipro Introduces New Tool For Upgrading Oracle Applications

Wipro Technologies introduced a new tool today for upgrading Oracle E-Business Suite business software applications. Wipro Easy-Upgrade helps customer organizations undertake an assessment of their current Oracle landscape, manage their Oracle environment and implement upgrades. Wipro, a global technology consulting and outsourcing company, says Wipro Easy-Upgrade can deliver cost savings of up to 40% on the assessment of the Oracle E-Business Suite, version R12.

Wipro says its Oracle customers spend an inordinate amount of time and effort determining how to upgrade the software to add new features. They need a solution that can expedite assessments and minimize the risk involved in an implementation, says Srinivas Pallia, senior VP and global head of Business Application Services for Wipro Technologies.

The upgrade hassles being addressed by Wipro Easy-Upgrade are unique to Oracle software because it is more apt to be customized by the customer than software from companies such as Microsoft, VMware or IBM Rational, said Langbert Walker, general manager and global head of Oracle applications at Wipro, in an email interview from the company’s headquarters in Bangalore, India.

"These customizations are not supported during an Oracle E-Business suite upgrade process by the ‘patches’ given by the product vendor. In most cases, customers would not have adequate documentation to even understand the level of customization that has been done to the E-Business suite. Lack of information on the customizations and the inability to measure the level of impacts the upgrade will have on the customizations are possibly the top concerns that customers using E-Business Suite face in the context of the upgrade," Walker wrote.

Oracle made a number of significant changes in functionality in the R12 release. This includes changes in the financial modules within the suite for general ledger accounting, accounts payable, taxation and other areas. The changes in functionality make it difficult for customers to understand the impact to their current business processes, the level of testing they need to do and the amount of time the testing will take.

The analysis and reports provided by the assessment tool appear on a business intelligence dashboard that's part of the Easy-Upgrade tool. This helps make the transition to an upgraded application more predictable, efficient and cost-effective, Wipro stated in a news release.

"The tool provides a wealth of information from the enterprise environment, all of which can be related to a step in the upgrade process," Walker says. "The information from the tool helps in the building of the project plan, resource estimates and the overall business case for the upgrade."

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