Why upgrade to Oracle R12?

This is one of the common doubts in everyone's mind; Why we should upgrade to R12? Is it worth spending so much of money and effort? Following are few important reasons:

1. Oracle will no longer support 11i. As per one of the oracle releases, following are the support termination dates for different versions of 11i


2. R12 is the Global Business Release

• R12 enables you to think, work and manage systems globally
• Management can make more informed decisions because of better business intelligence capabilities
• Comprehensive integration capability by adopting industry standards like XML, messages, webservices and Java &PL/SQL APIs
• Integrate Oracle, 3rd party and legacy applications via BPEL(Business Process Execution Language) to extend process automation
• Supports all languages and localizations in the same database. Scales to very large volumes via RAC and Grid computing

3. R12 is more comprehensive solution. It comes up with more than 2350 new capabilities/functionality. It has few new modules like Ebusiness Tax, Payment etc.

4. It has centralized the scattered data Eg: Banks Accounts, Suppliers, Tax etc. This has improved the ability to meet statutory requirements and provides more comprehensive reports. Centralized data maintenance has reduced the user load also allowed Oracle to introduce new functionality like AP/AR Netting, Refund etc

5. Improved user experience.

• Many screens have moved from Forms based UI to self service OAF pages. This has allowed better look and feel and has given more freedom to personalize the screen as per user likings
• Reduced pop-ups and duplicate screens
• Redesigned and streamlined UI for easier data entry and access
• Reduced number of steps to complete key activities. Guided navigation to assist even new users

6. Features like Multi Org Access Control or Data Access Sets etc improve user productivity significantly and also comply regulatory requirements

7. Business and Industry specific processes are streamlined and incorporated in R12. This helps customers to comply with International Regulations and Standards

8. There are more options to configure the system as per company processes, reducing the customizations

9. Keep yourself updated with changing technology trends and reap the benefits of latest technology via improved security, usability and productivity. R12 comes up with new technologies like XML Publisher, OAF, BPEL, OBIEE etc

10. R12 comes with significant application and architecture changes. Moving to R12 will build a foundation to prepare for Fusion, minimizing the Risk

11. R12 has centralized some of the scattered functions. Eg:

• E-Biz Tax module replaces individual tax modules within AR, AP, PO etc and acts as central repository for all tax data and integration with 3rd party tax service providers
• Sub Ledger Accounting module acts as accounting repository before interfacing to GL. This configurable module allows companies to implement complex accounting and reporting rules
• Payments module now consists of funds disbursement (previously part of AP) and funds capture (previously part of AR) functions
• Cash Management module is made as owner of all internal bank accounts and external (Customer and supplier) bank accounts are stored separately