Oracle's OpenWorld 2007 event in San Francisco had an abundance of technology showcased that should be of interest to manufacturers in numerous industry subverticals. The challenge many manufacturers had at the show — and most will have in general — is figuring out what solutions Oracle has that will solve their business problems and how to actually deploy them as an integrated solution.

• Oracle has a lot to offer manufacturers from a solution perspective (more than some of its competitors), but positioning, packaging and marketing its solutions has been and will be an ongoing challenge for the company.
• Oracle is still communicating technologies in its go-to-market strategies, although the functionality of its solutions is becoming more business-centric. This leads to a product/messaging gap, which is hindering Oracle from maximizing its potential.

• Oracle application customers in manufacturing should first look inside the portfolio for complementary solutions that will solve their business problems. If they find them, they should deploy them, integrating them with Fusion Middleware.
• Oracle technology customers in manufacturing, even if they are using competitive applications, should also look at the portfolio of solutions Oracle offers, as some match the best-of-breed component solutions. How to tie them into your architecture might be more challenging unless you also buy into the Fusion Middleware path, although alternatives will still enable results.

At the Oracle OpenWorld 2007 event held 11-15 November in San Francisco, Oracle and its customers provided numerous examples in which Oracle solutions were able to address critical business issues in manufacturing. Whether it is clinical study in life sciences, or product life cycle management (PLM) in high tech or food and beverage, or end-to-end business process integration using Oracle middleware, Oracle can actually solve critical business problems in manufacturing. The market perception is that some competitors in the PLM, ERP or manufacturing execution system (MES) space have more functionality. In reality, Oracle has many solutions that offer best-in-class functionality. Oracle's challenge is actually letting the market know what it has and helping customers know how to best leverage the solutions that Oracle brings to the table in manufacturing.

Until Oracle strengthens its ability to show potential process and business integration benefits to its customers, who are using a variety of Oracle's offerings, it is often up to Oracle's clients to figure out how to fully integrate or connect one application with another (for example, Siebel and Agile PLM to better integrate CRM and PLM) in order to maximize the potential value from these applications. So far, Oracle has focused primarily on the technology integration. At OpenWorld, the focus was on technology, with the show floor, the demo center and sessions themselves being technology-centered more than solution-centered, which is what manufacturers are demanding today.

The reality is that Oracle is making progress in key industry verticals by delivering additional functionality and integration capability. Within Gartner's manufacturing practice, we look at several manufacturing industry subverticals such as automotive, consumer goods and life sciences. Within these three areas, Oracle demonstrated it can meet business needs with real examples.

Oracle's automotive-focused offerings continue to expand into all areas of the demand and supply chain as well as emerging segments such as vehicle-centric information and communication technologies (see "Oracle Makes Integration of Vehicle ICT Data a Real Option"). However, the company still has an unexploited opportunity in providing an overall vision for the automotive industry that emphasizes the benefits of deploying an Oracle-centric IT foundation to help achieve business- and IT-related objectives. The current positioning and messaging of Oracle's automotive solutions center primarily on immediate benefits within a specific process area such as CRM (Oracle Siebel CRM), logistics (Oracle Transportation Management) and demand management (Oracle Demantra Demand Management). By developing and emphasizing cross-functional interdependencies between these solutions, Oracle will be able to address automotive organizations' growing desire to achieve agility and competitive differentiation. For example, increased customer lead activities at the automotive retail level can improve demand forecasting accuracies, which have implications on an automotive manufacturer's product schedules as well as logistic requirements. By following such a cross-functional business alignment with its IT offerings, Oracle will also assist automotive IT departments in ensuring that their efforts are more relevant in achieving their companies' business objectives.

One industry segment in which Oracle did show renewed strength is in consumer goods manufacturers. Oracle has reorganized its capabilities to become focused around the consumer, leveraging service-oriented architecture (and the new application integration architecture [AIA]) as a pathway to the full Fusion infrastructure. Three key functional areas of demand creation, demand fulfillment and agility management combine to address more than a dozen application areas in an integrated suite focused on the needs of consumer goods. Oracle has the advantage of a strong customer base in consumer goods as a result of the acquisitions of Siebel, Demantra, G-Log and Agile on top of the broad base of original Oracle customers. The new integrated strategy and vision for the future direction of the consumer-focused solutions send a powerful message. Successful adoption of the new solutions on a large scale across consumer goods will require the field operations (sales, support, marketing) to come to grips with the new message, and migrate from a product technology focus to a consumer-driven solution value proposition.

Oracle is also breathing new life into its life science offerings. During the event, users learned about the recently announced Safety in a Capsule. Safety in a Capsule combines Oracle's Adverse Event Reporting System and the Siebel Call Center with a signal detection solution from DrugLogic and services from Tata Consultancy Services into a solution for safety monitoring and pharmacovigilance. Another improvement to its products for clinical study is a "zero footprint remote data capture" component. Oracle is working with partners (biopharmas and clinical research organizations) to develop solutions for the life science industry, so it appears to be taking the customer input very seriously. It is also working with partners (a la Safety in a Capsule) to extend its own products, which is an intelligent way to get an offering into the market quickly rather than building out the solution itself. The improvements to the clinical study solution offerings could quell rumors that Oracle was pulling out of the clinical space and hint at the notion of using clinical data more broadly as an enterprise asset. Oracle is further behind on producing a solution for track and trace to meet the e-pedigree requirements. It will build a solution on top of the E-Business Suite, using existing components that employ a document-passing paradigm, expected to be available in 2008. This is a first step in achieving the needed integration. What was lacking from the Oracle life science offering discussions at the event was an integrating strategy to bring siloed functionality together into a true portfolio.

Through Applications Unlimited, Oracle is protecting investments in some of its existing PLM modules such as Advanced Product Catalog, though it was clear that the ongoing focus will be on Agile-based functionality. Charles Phillips highlighted Oracle Agile PLM during his keynote session and again at the Agile PLM track, which was held in lieu of the Agility conference. Oracle clearly has moved PLM to a highly visible position in its product portfolio. Its challenge will be to quickly demonstrate how AIA and other Fusion Middleware pieces can allow its ERP, other point solution, and non-Oracle customers to leverage Agile technology painlessly and quickly.

Oracle is just beginning to learn how to sell based on solving manufacturing business problems in a coordinated way, instead of looking at point pain relief. As it continues to build skills in this area, it will start to be viewed as a supplier delivering strategic value to its potential customers. Manufacturers looking for functionality to solve key business process problems in R&D, PLM, MES, supply chain and other manufacturing-centric areas should look at Oracle — it has much to offer. However, customers must do due diligence and investigate which pieces of the solution — from the vast array of solutions and technologies that Oracle has to offer — are most appropriate and best suited to solve their specific problems.