Oracle Announces Oracle CRM On Demand Release 18

• Demonstrating Oracle’s commitment to ongoing innovation, Oracle CRM On Demand Release 18 introduces industry-leading capabilities designed to drive revenue and reduce costs.
• New capabilities include delivering qualified leads at lower cost, enabling better business planning regardless of market conditions, enterprise-grade cloud security, network and access control and a new “Insurance On Demand” solution for broker/producer channel management.
• Release 18 delivers enhanced lead quality with progressive profiling and advanced data integration, allowing companies to target potential customers with more relevant messages using adaptive campaigns, and to increase conversion rates.
• Adaptable business planning enables companies to create, modify and execute plans more quickly in response to market conditions, shortening the planning cycle, providing early visibility to potential disruptions and improving response time.
• Enterprise-grade cloud security helps ensure that critical data is safe and secure in the cloud, providing enterprise-grade data encryption, virtual private network connections and access control auditing, protecting customer interactions in the cloud while adhering to data compliance standards.
• Oracle CRM On Demand Insurance Edition delivers the only complete, on-demand Broker/Producer Channel Management solution for insurance companies, designed to maximize producer revenue at a lowest possible cost through better producer planning, integrated marketing management and comprehensive channel analytics.

 

Supporting Quote

 

"The latest release of Oracle CRM On Demand demonstrates Oracle's commitment to the On Demand product line and the strategic role an On Demand application can and does play in the customer interaction cycle," said Mary Wardley, VP CRM and Enterprise Applications at IDC. "The latest release brings needed integration between the all too often misaligned roles of marketing and sales in the leads management process."

 

"With the second major release of Oracle CRM On Demand in less than six months Oracle continues to lead the industry by listening and responding to customer needs and then rapidly innovating to deliver the value," said Anthony Lye, SVP of Oracle CRM. "Oracle CRM On Demand Release 18 introduces superior integration for marketing and sales, new insight for business planning and enterprise-level cloud security. Oracle CRM On Demand continues to set the bar for industry as the best way for organizations to achieve maximum CRM success in the most economical way."

 

Supporting Resources

• Oracle CRM On Demand

 

About Oracle Applications

Over 65,000 customers worldwide rely on Oracle's complete, open and integrated enterprise applications to achieve superior results. Oracle provides a secure path for customers to benefit from the latest technology advances that improve the customer software experience and drive better business performance. Oracle Applications Unlimited is Oracle's commitment to customer choice through continuous investment and innovation in current applications offerings. Oracle’s next-generation Fusion Applications build upon that commitment, and are designed to work with and evolve your existing applications investments. Oracle's lifetime support policy helps ensure customers will continue to have a choice in upgrade paths, based on their enterprise needs. For more information on the latest Oracle Applications releases go to: www.oracle.com/applications.

Recharge Your Cell Phone Wirelessly

It’s no science fiction, for within a couple of years you will be able to recharge your cell phone wirelessly!!!


All thanks to Fujitsu, the Japanese technology company. It’s been reported that the company has developed a system capable of simultaneously charging multiple portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and laptop computers; and that too without the need for cable connections.

Fujitsu unveiled a prototype system at an Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers conference at Osaka Prefecture University. According to the company, electric cars users may also eventually be able to charge their vehicles wirelessly using the same technology.

This innovative and predicted as a life changing technology works on the basis of the transmission of electricity using magnetic fields between the charger and the electronic device. The system enables wireless charging at distances of up to several metres, with the ultimate aim of installing public "charging spots" on the streets in order to enable easy charging around the clock.

Fujitsu is reportedly planning to make products, incorporating the new wireless charging system, for the masses by 2012.

Apple's New iPod Soars

Apple’s new iPod touch seems to have started off on a strong note going by the feedback and responses of the market. It is packed with incredible new features including Apple’s stunning Retina™ display, FaceTime® video calling, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 chip, 3-axis gyro, iOS 4.1 and Game Center—all combined in the thinnest and lightest iPod touch ever. The new iPod touch features up to 40 hours of music playback and seven hours of video playback on a single battery charge.*


Apple’s stunning Retina display makes everything on iPod touch look even more incredible, whether playing games, watching video, browsing the web or flicking through photos. The Retina display has 960 x 640 pixels—four times as many pixels than before. The resulting 326 pixels per inch is so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels when iPod touch is held at a normal distance, making text, images and video look sharper, smoother and more realistic.

With the new front-facing camera and mic, iPod touch users can make FaceTime video calls over Wi-Fi. With just one tap of the new FaceTime app, iPod touch users can call other new iPod touch or iPhone® 4 users** to easily see what their friends are up to, share important moments like the first day of school and even show others what they are seeing by easily switching to the rear-facing camera.

The rear-facing camera on iPod touch is perfect for HD video recording. Users can easily capture HD video wherever they are and share it via email, MobileMe™ and YouTube. With the iMovie® app, users can combine movie clips, add dynamic transitions and themes and include photos and music right on their iPod touch. Users can buy and download the app for just $4.99 through the App Store℠ right on their iPod touch.

Apple’s A4 chip provides iPod touch users with exceptional processor and graphics performance along with long battery life. This remarkably fast and power-efficient chip, along with the Retina display and 3-axis gyro, makes games on iPod touch the best they’ve ever been on any mobile device.

iPod touch is the world’s most popular portable game player. Now with Game Center, iPod touch users can challenge and play friends or be matched automatically with new opponents. Game Center lets iPod touch users showcase their scores and achievements and discover new games their friends are playing. With the App Store on iPod touch, users have access to the world’s largest catalog of apps with over 250,000 apps, including over 65,000 game and entertainment titles to choose from.

Music and entertainment lovers can now easily access iTunes® Ping directly from their new iPod touch. iTunes Ping lets you follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading. iPod touch users also have the entire iTunes Store® at their fingertips, giving them instant access to the world’s largest catalog of music, TV shows and movies.

The new iPod touch comes with iOS 4.1, the newest version of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. iOS 4.1 enables new features like FaceTime video calling, multitasking, folders and Game Center.

Build SCM Confidence to mitigate Risks

Managing the supply chain in the current turbulent world is increasingly becoming difficult. Various external and internal factors contribute to mismanagement and ultimate to a total disruption to the smooth functioning of the supply chain. The latest trend in Supply Chain Management is to create confidence in supply chain team members so as to mitigate risks in the process. In fact, building confidence within the supply chain management is increasingly becoming extremely important for the companies to do away with the various risks involved in the process. Very often, issues and problems in the chain happens because the supply chain members are not confident and are in tandems about some unforeseen events erupting at the last hour; and these leads to a lot of man made mistakes which could have been avoided. In addition, the end-to-end visibility and real time information is extremely critical.

Lack of Confidence=Rise in Risks

Globalization of the market, shorter product and technology life cycles, uncertainties in demand and supply, complex international supply network comprising of logistics etc—all have led to great risks in the supply chain management. And if you add chaos and nervousness to then chances of making wrong decisions exist in every stage of the supply chain.

Issues like lack of information and visibility in the process ends with lack of confidence that often leads to a breakdown of the chain. Some of the typical pain-points for the supply chain members are:

• Can the suppliers deliver?

• Is the quality of products is good?

• Is the demand forecasts correct?

• What is the current status of the order?

• What is the order cycle time?

The lack of confidence in the supply chain leads to the following risks mentioned below:

Finance & Market:

• Stocking up inventories

• Obsolete inventories

• Incorrect markdowns

• Less supplies

• Changes in users taste or preference

• Missing existing and new opportunities

Chaos & Decision:

• Unsure whether a decision is correct or wrong

• Overreacting

• Mistrusting and second guessing

• Intervening and overreacting

Confidence Building Measure

Companies have woken up to the fact that having an effective supply chain management also means to have a team confident in the process. There are a number of solutions available in the market that can not only create an effective supply chain management process but can also make the information available to the members which in turn can increase confidence and mitigate risks. The supply chain management solutions should have the following:

• Availability of real time and accurate information

• All the relevant data should be accessible to all

• Whenever there is an issue or problem, the appropriate team should be alerted

• The supply chain members should have the right tool to respond and troubleshoot

• The demand and pipeline inventory should be visible to all the concerned teams

• Whenever the products are going out of stock, the appropriate teams should be alerted

Effective supply chain management solutions from companies like Oracle can power information-driven supply chains, predict market requirements, innovate in response to volatile market conditions, and align operations across global networks. In addition, Oracle’s supply chain management solutions provides industry-specific solutions based on best-in-class applications that span product development, demand management, sales and operations planning, transportation management, and supply management.

Conclusion

The supply chain is often exposed to market risks, and it would fail to correctly respond to changing market trends and user preferences if the right market signals are not detected at the right and appropriate time. And if the right information and data is not available all the time or in real time, there are chances of problems and issues at each stage of the supply chain. The best bet is to have an appropriate supply chain management solution that would have the companies take control of the whole operations and hence increase the supply chain confidence.