HRIS

PROJECT
On
ERP SOFTWARES

Submitted to: By :
Ms Teena Bagga Taru Taneja

Shalini bahadur
Costs of implementing a new ERP system

One-Time Costs
Software:
The cost of an ERP software package varies widely, ranging fromRs.15,00,000 for micro-based
packages to several million rupees for some mainframe packages. The number of concurrent
users generally drives the software cost, so that smaller systems cost less. In addition to the ERP
software package, one-time costs may include systems software, development of customized
software, or integration with other applications.
Hardware:
Hardware selection is driven by the firm’s choice of an ERP software package. The ERP
software vendor generally certifies which hardware must be used to run the ERP system.
Hardware may need to be replaced or upgraded. As a general rule, small-to medium size
manufacturers already have microcomputers and a local area network, so that a micro-based ERP
system build standards which requires a little additional investment in hardware.
External Assistance:
External assistance includes the consulting and training costs to implement the ERP package.
The software vendor, reseller, or independent consulting group may provide external assistance.
The amount of external assistance required is dependent on several factors, such as the
complexity of the ERP package, the experience and knowledge of internal personnel, and the
extend to which external personnel are used in place of internal personnel to implement the
system.
Internal personnel:
Internal personnel time reflects the time commitments for the implementation project team, the
executive steering committee, the users in various functional areas and MIS personnel. The time
commitments include training classes, development of internal procedures for using the system,
developing customized reports and applications, preparation of the data, meetings with external
consultant and team meetings. A general guideline for internal personnel costs can also be
expressed as a ratio with the ERP software costs, where a typical ratio is 0.5 to 1.0.
The one-time costs for implementing an ERP system can be simplistically estimated using
typical ratios with ERP software costs.

Ongoing Annual Costs:

Software:
Ongoing software costs should include the annual customer support agreement with the ERP
software vendor. This customer support typically provides telephone assistance and software
upgrades and is priced around 15 percent to 20 percent of the software price. Upgrades to
software releases are also required. The upgrade path for new releases of the ERP software
package is critical. New releases contain enhancements for functionality and bug fixes, and
ensure that the software runs on the latest technology platform. From the user’s point of view,
the upgrade path enables the manufacturer to take advantage of hundreds of labor-years of
development efforts undertaken by the ERP software vendor with minimal investment. From the
vendor point of view, it is much easier to support users to the latest releases. However, user
changes to sources code and other user customizations can make it very expensive or even
impossible to upgrade.
Hardware:
Ongoing hardware cost will reflect new requirements specified by the ERP vendor to run the
software.

External assistance:
External assistance should be used as part of a continuous improvement program to effectively
use an ERP system application for running the company. Training and consulting can focus on
improved business processes, new or poorly used software functionality, and training of new
personnel. A phased implementation approach requires additional assistance at each phase.
Additional customizations may be required, especially with evolving user sophistication.

Internal personnel:
The implementation project team does not necessarily end its responsibilities at time of system
cut over. A phased implementation approach and continuous improvement efforts will require
ongoing time commitments. Employee turnover and job rotation will also require ongoing
training efforts. The nature of the ERP software package typically mandates the number and
expertise of MIS personnel needed for ongoing support. This support may range from a part-time
clerical person to aa large group of MIS experts.

Replacing or Reimplementing an ERP system:

An investment analysis focusing on ERP benefits frequently applies to those firms initially
justifying an ERP implementation. It can also used to justify a reimplementation when the initial
efforts have failed to produce desired results. The breakout box describing classifications of ERP
success identifies situations where the ERP implementation falls short of producing desired
benefits

People Soft
History
Founded in 1987 by David Duffield and Ken Morris, originallyheadquartered in Walnut Creek,
California, and eventually Pleasanton,California, PeopleSoft's roots began with an idea Duffield
had about a "Client-Server" version of Integral Systems popular mainframe HRMS package.
Once Integral declined development and released Duffield to pursue this endeavor onhis own,
PeopleSoft was born. In 2003, when the company acquired J.D.Edwards, it decided to
differentiate its former product line with those of Edwards by renaming both products. In anuary
2005, PeopleSoft was acquired in a hostile takeover by Oracle Corporation. This takeover was
resisted, but Oracle overcame the legal challenge and PeopleSoft ceased to be an independent
company, although its products continue to be used.

Product design
The whole software suite of PeopleSoft moved from the traditional clientserver based design to
web-centric design, called PeopleSoft InternetArchitecture (PIA) with their version 8 releases.
The end result was that all of a company's business functions could be accessed and run on a web
client. A small number of security and system setup functions, though, still needed to
beperformed on a fat client machine. The inherent nature of Internet-based applications allowed
for a straightforward transition from a client-server model .One important feature of PeopleSoft's
PIA is that no code is required on theclient - there is no need for additional downloads of
plugins, or JVMs such as the Jinitiator required for Oracle Applications.

The architecture is built around PeopleSoft’s own PeopleToolstechnology. PeopleTools is a

proprietary development platform (similar to a 4GL) created by PeopleSoft. This platform
includes many different components a developer theoretically needs to create an application
including a scripting language, design tools to define various types of metadata, standard security
structure, and batch processing tools. The metadata describes data for user interfaces, tables,
messages, security, navigation, portals, and so forth. The benefit of creating their own
development platform allowed PeopleSoft applications to run on top of many different operating
systems and database platforms, It is not tied to a single database platform (though with the
Oracle takeover, it is possible this could change in the future). PeopleSoft implementations exist
or have existed on Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server,Informix, Sybase, IBM DB2 (including its
z/OS, Unix and OS/400 variants),Oracle Rdb and HP AllBase/SQL.
All of PeopleSoft’s modules (Human Resources, Supply Chain,Financials, CRM, etc.) are built
with the PeopleTools technology. A benefit of the technology is that all the code which makes up
a module can be customized to suit the owner’s business needs. An auxiliary product,
PeopleCode, is an (ool) object-oriented proprietary language used to express business logic for
PeopleSoft applications.

J.D. Edwards
In 2003, PeopleSoft performed a friendly merger with smaller rival J.D.Edwards software. The
former rival's similar product line was differentiated by its target audience; mid-sized companies
who could not hope to afford the original PeopleSoft applications. J.D. Edwards product lines,
formerly J.D.Edwards World on the AS/400 and OneWorld was and continues to be
differentiated by its Configurable Network Architecture or CNC Architecture.This architecture is
designed to shield applications from both the operating system of the database backend servers
as long as some flavour of the SQL language is used. Thus, IBM's DB2/UDB, Microsoft's SQL
2000 and Oracle's databases are supported. J.D. Edwards also continued to support thousands of
customers on AS/400s running its original J.D. Edwards World or WorldSoft"product.

Likewise servers can run on a host of operating systems including Linux,Windows and IBM's
AS/400 operating system. In addition, PeopleSoft remains committed to supporting J.D.
Edwards's original AS/400-based World software, also called WorldSoft, the old-style "green
screen" application — the same application which drove Duffield to branch out and create
PeopleSoft in the first place.

Oracle Corporation
Beginning in 2003, PeopleSoft battled with Oracle over control of thePeopleSoft company. In
June 2003, Oracle made a $7 billion bid ($19.50/share) in a hostile corporate takeover attempt.
In February 2004, Oracle increased their bid to approximately $9.4 billion ($26/share), a 33%
increase; this offer was also rejected forthwith by PeopleSoft's board of directors. Later that
month, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block Oracle, on the grounds that the
acquisition would break anti-trust laws; however, in September 2004, the suit was rejected by a
U.S. Federal judge, who found that the Justice Department had not proven its anti-trust case; in
October, the same decision was handed down by the European Commission. Though Oracle had
reduced its offer to $7.7 billion ($21/share) in May, it again raised its bid in November to $9.4
billion ($24/share), marking a 14% increase.

In December 2004, Oracle announced that it signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire
PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion ($26.50/share). In January 2005, Oracle made drastic
cuts to the PeopleSoft ranks. Although these cuts affected approximately 9% of the 55,000 staff
of the combined companies, they have maintained at least 90% of PeopleSoft's product
development and support staff. After its acquisition of PeopleSoft, Oracle rebranded the original
J.D. Edwards products to once again include the J.D. Edwards name in order to capitalize on the
strong brand loyalty that was perceived to exist within the J.D. Edwards user community. Thus,
PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne was rebranded JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft World
was rebranded JD Edwards World.

PeopleSoft has merged with Oracle and a new product Fusion is to be released by Oracle in the
near future. Oracle says Fusion will take the best aspects of the PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and
Oracle Applications and merge them into a new product suite.

Oracle is, however, offering to maintain support for the existing Oracle and PeopleSoft product
lines for customers who wish to continue with what they have. The line they are taking appears
to be an attempt to prevent customer defections to rival ERP vendors by making it attractive to
retain current applications or move to Fusion when appropriate.

PeopleSoft in use
PeopleSoft software has been successfully implemented by many of its customers. However
there have been several instances of litigation. As with any ERP software, the implementation
process (including analysis, planning and development), performance (load) testing and various
other types of software testing is absolutely critical towards the success of the project.
Although Student Administration and Higher Education systems make up only a small
proportion of the company's user base, they seem to have attracted a degree of adverse comment.
In 1997, Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records.
They initially had an implementation partner, Kaludis Consulting Group Inc. After seven years
of difficulties, CSU sued – initially naming Kaludis, but later (after Kaludis countersued) naming
PeopleSoft as the main defendant and including Kaludis. The suit was for $510 million, claiming
breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The university
claimed that software developed by PeopleSoft was missing specified features, and as a result
caused disruption to their admissions process. PeopleSoft claimed that they had followed
industry best practices. Court documents available online show the case was settled in 2005. The
settlement agreement mentions a payment from Kaludis to CSU, as part of the settlement.There
is no mention of any payment by PeopleSoft.
In December 1999, seven of the eight "Big Ten" Midwestern universities which licensed
PeopleSoft's software wrote a joint, open letter to the PeopleSoft CEO complaining about quality
and performance issues.
The California State University system adopted PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. The university
spent $500 million on this system in a process so deficient that it resulted in an investigation and
a rebuke by the state legislature. The Report of the California State Auditor criticised the
University, amongst other things, for not having a business case for the implementation. When
asked why it never conducted a formal return-on investment analysis on the CMS project, the
university explained that the magnitude of potential savings estimated by its consultants, IBM
and Pacific Partners Consulting Group (Pacific Partners), led them to believe that such a formal
analysis was unnecessary.
Arizona State University, one of the largest universities in the western region, recently migrated
to an Oracle database and PeopleSoft solution.
PeopleSoft timeline
· 1987: PeopleSoft, Inc. founded by David Duffield and Ken Morris in Walnut Creek, CA, USA.
· 1988: PeopleSoft HRMS released.
· 1991: Begins opening international offices.
· 1994: Public distribution of Distribution and Financials modules.
· 1995: Launch of Student Administration System.
· 1996: Releases Manufacturing and PeopleSoft 6, their first ERP package.
· 1997: PeopleSoft 7 is released within upgraded ERP modules.
· 1998: PeopleSoft 7.5 is released with improved client/server technology. Acquired Intrepid Sys
 · 1999: Craig Conway named new CEO; release products to enable Internet transactions.
· 2000: Acquired Vantive Corporation.
· 2000: Deliver PeopleSoft 8 with an in-house application service provider.
· 2003: Acquired J.D. Edwards
· 2005: Acquired by Oracle Corporation.
· 2007: PeopleSoft HCM 9.0 is released.

SAP

SAP was founded in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany. It stands for Systems, Applications and Products in
Data Processing. Over the years, it has grown and evolved to become the world premier provider of
client/server business solutions for which it is so well known today. The SAP R/3 enterprise
application suite for open client/server systems has established new standards for providing business
information management solutions.
SAP is modular software, covering almost every conceivable aspect of a wide variety of industries.
Core modules include Sales and Distribution, Material Management, Production Planning, Financial
Accounting and Controlling, Project Systems, Service Management, Plant Maintenance, Human
Resources and the brand new Customer Care System and Contract Accounting for utility companies.
SAP has enabled Internet capabilities as well, which means that a customer can have an HTML –
based fronted, but SAP in the backend, thereby increasing the marketing arm worldwide. SAP also has
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Application Link Enabling (ALE) functionality that allows
direct electronic transactions with external systems. The software is event – driven and has workflow
capabilities that can be incorporated in the process map.

SAP has been keeping in step with the changing times and newer trends in the market to meet
customer demands. The advent of the Euro has not stirred up SAP, as it is inherently Euro – compliant
due to its multiple – currency handling capabilities. SAP is geared to support the E – commerce wave
that can be seen today over the horizon, with its Web – enabled HR, B2B and B2C components and
more are already in the pipeline.

SAP products are considered excellent but not perfect. The main problem with software product is
that it can never be perfect. The main advantage of using SAP as your company ERP system is that
SAP has a very high level of integration among its individual applications which guarantee
consistency of data throughout the system and the company itself.

In a standard SAP project system, it is divided into three environments, Development, Quality
Assurance and Production.The development system is where most of the implementation work takes
place. The quality assurance system is where all the final testing is conducted before moving the
transports to the production environment. To all company, the production system should only contain
transport that has passed all the tests. SAP is table drive customization software. It allows businesses
to make rapid changes in their business requirements with a common set of programs. User-exits are
provided for business to add in additional source code. Tools such as screen variants are provided to
let you set fields attributes whether to hide, display and make them mandatory fields.

This is what makes ERP system and SAP in particular so flexible. The table driven customization are
driving the program functionality instead of those old fashioned hard coded programs. Therefore, new
and changed business requirements can be quickly implemented and tested in the system.
 In order to minimize your upgrading costs, the standard programs and tables should not be changed as
far as possible. The main purpose of using standard business application software like SAP is to
reduce the amount of time and money spends on developing and testing all the programs. Therefore,
most companies will try to utilize the available tools provided by SAP.

Features of SAP

1) Integration -The SAP system provides complete integration of the various data transfers, which in turn
is helpful for creating high – quality reports. The consolidated software helps to reduce the time
needed to close the books of accounts.

2) Automation of consolidation procedure - This process helps to save time and money. There is no need
to enter all documents manually.

3) Customization - New programs can be easily created as needed.

4) Cost – effective audits - Auditors can perform interactive analysis of special information.

5) The SAP system is user friendly. It provides context – sensitive functions and extensive online
documentation that is easy to understand and learn.

6) The SAP system includes functions for creating reports and provides information through exceptional
and interactive reporting.

7) The SAP system allows parallel valuation approaches at all levels for external and
internal accounting purposes using different currencies.

8) Time saving

9) Considerable manpower – every work is done computerized.

10)Computers do its job very accurately and data processing is too much fast as compare to manual
system.
11) Multiple copies can be generated at a time, so time is saved.

12) Results can be easily understood because everything is done in very procedural and in simple way.

SAP R/3 (SAP ECC-6)

SAP R/3 is a client/server based application, utilizing a 3-tiered model and its latest version is known as
SAP ECC-6 (Enterprise Central Component). A presentation layer or client interfaces with the user. The
application layer houses all the business-specific logic and the database layer records and stores all the
information about the system, including transactional and configuration data.SAP R/3 functionality is
structured using its own proprietary language called ABAP (Advanced Business Application
Programming). ABAP, or ABAP/4 is a fourth generation language (4GL), geared towards the creation
of simple, yet powerful programs. R/3 also offers a complete development environment where
developers can either modify existing SAP code to modify existing functionality or develop their own
functions, whether reports or complete transactional systems within the SAP framework. ABAP's main
interaction with the database system is via Open SQL statements. These statements allow a developer to
query, update, or delete information from the database. Advanced topics include GUI development and
advanced integration with other systems. With the introduction of ABAP Objects, ABAP provides the
opportunity to develop applications with object-oriented programming.

The sole purpose of an R/3 system is to provide a suite of tightly integrated, large-scale business
applications. The standard sets of applications delivered with each R/3 system are PP (Production
Planning) ,MM (Materials Management) ,SD (Sales and Distribution) ,FI (Financial Accounting) ,CO
(Controlling) ,AM (Fixed Assets Management) ,PS (Project System) ,etc.These applications are called
the functional areas, or application areas, or at times the functional modules of R/3.

R/3 comes prepackaged with the core business applications needed by most large corporations.

Advantages of SAP R/3

1. The R/3 software package is designed to allow businesses to effectively and efficiently operate a
variety of business processes within a single integrated information system.

2. R/3 is scalable and highly suited for many types and sizes of organizations and runs on six different
platforms.
3. SAP R/3 is very versatile, as it will operate on six different platforms, including the recently added
Microsoft NT.

4. The R/3 package includes several very attractive features like it has a three – tier client / server
system.

5. SAP R/3 is composed of a single, virtual file structure with no subsystems.

6. Management accounting tools in SAP R/3 are cost center accounting, internal orders, product costing
and activity based costing, profitability analysis and profit center accounting.

7. SAP R/3 provides check writing capability in its Accounts Receivable component which very few
other programs offer.

8. SAP R/3 also provides for a “single data entry point” where the data entered from any location is
instantly sent to all other appropriate modules in the ERP system.

Disadvantages of SAP R/3

1) The software is complex and difficult to master.

2) The system is rigid and forces the organizations to change their internal processes (through it
ultimately benefits the users).
3) The implementation takes a long time.
4) The consultants charge a high fee.
5) The software needs significantly larger resources in terms of processing power, disk
space and network speed.

HR Processes with ERP – SAP HR Module

Human resource management (HRM) is associated with managing a company’s workforce effectively.
Human Resource (HR) department responsibilities are selecting, recruiting new employees, introducing
company and information regarding their job profile, conducting training, certification for employees,
conflict management, using effective process to review employee performance and determine salary
increments and bonuses, managing salary, communicating changes in salaries, benefits, policies to
employees, supporting management plans for changes in the organization. Managing all these things
without proper system will be hectic job.
Personnel Management - The personnel management component of the HR module has functions for
recruitment, personnel administration, benefits and personnel development activities.

Compensation Management - The compensation management functionality in the personnel

administration component of HR module enables to plan and budget employee compensation and
obtains a centralized view of the individual areas or organizational units in the company. The
functionality offers fixed compensation plans or variable compensation plans and also offers stock
option compensation plans, if it is offer to the employees.

Time Management - The time management component offers the functionality to record and an
evaluating employee time data. Absence and attendance data might also be recorded and transferred to
other HR applications, such as payroll accounting for example. Flexible timing of attendance is
managed as efficiently as regular working times and shift operations.

The time data recording function is the basis of evaluating and payment of the employee’s working time.
Time recording can be done through automatic time recorder terminals, which might be interfaced with
the SAP R/3 system or the attendance times might be manually entered in the system.

The shift planning function enables to accurately determine the number and type of personnel who
would be required to carry out the business requirements. The time evaluation function enables to
evaluate employee times and helps to assign a financial value to it as far as costs and employee
compensation is concerned.

HR Database - The databases of the employees are well structured and accurate in SAP system.
The authorization of the employees is according to the BDP (Book of Delegated Power).
Enterprise Application Ownership Experience Feature Comparison

The study includes a comparative assessment across the three major phases of the application
ownership lifecycle: implementation, application usage, and ongoing support and maintenance.

PeopleSoft demonstrated a consistent advantages for the key features in this study.

1. Implementation: The implementation phase includes the initial installation of the software, its
configuration, the initial load of data into the new application, and any work that might be required
for the application to interface properly with the IT environment of the customer, such as integration
with other applications, and whether the integration is batch or real time.
The implementation phase is typically broken into three major steps:
1. Software installation
2. Configuration
3. Integration.

The installation step is important since an incomplete or incorrect initial installation of the
software can lead to significant lost time in further steps of the implementation.
Streamlined configuration tools are critical in keeping an application implementation project on
time, since, during configuration, all the specifics of customer business requirements are captured
and shared across implementation staff. Finally, the integration step is typically one of the most
challenging — with many hidden and unanticipated costs. Three factors — the complexity of the
applications to interface with, the complexity of the business processes between applications, and
the complexity of the integration tools that may require multiple experts and multiple types of
expertise — make it difficult to establish detailed project plans and thus to accurately estimate
project costs.

The seven feature sets in the installation category are as follows :-

• Application installation wizard: Both Microsoft and Siebel offer a streamlined installation
wizard that is comprehensive and well packaged. PeopleSoft offers an application installation
wizard that removes manual steps and automates key installation processes, including the
configuration of the underlying database.

By contrast, while SAP also uses wizards, its installation procedure and wizards are proprietary
and more complex and very often require the implementers to step out of the automated process to
handle tasks that were omitted during the planning phase. Oracle has improved its installation
wizard tremendously over previous releases, but still the wizard is inconsistent across modules and
requires additional manual steps to be accomplishedoutside the wizard.
• Advanced configuration: PeopleSoft Setup Manager configuration tool enables implementation
staff to connect to documentation online and navigate through the documentation by selecting
product and features directly from the configuration screen. Both Siebel and Oracle provide
advanced tools to support the definition of business processes and data flows. SAP provides tools
that are more complex and require more technical expertise. Microsoft limits end user ability to
fully configure applications.

• Process modeler: PeopleSoft provides 1,200 pre-defined models that cover PeopleSoft best
practices business process flows. Oracle Workflow allows for business processes to be modeled
using a drag-and-drop designer and produces a visual diagram of the business process. With
Siebel, customers can add pre-defined or custom business processes, branching, and sub-processes
to create a workflow process tailored to their unique business requirements. SAP offers
functionality in process modeling only within the context of its own applications.

The ability to manipulate existing business processes within Microsoft Great Plains is limited and
requires customization work. Process modeling is independent from integration but is a critical
step for developing process oriented integration .

• Advanced data loading and moving: Microsoft simply does not allow advanced data loading and
moving. Oracle Setup automates and simplifies the initial setup of data.Oracle Setup is a question-
driven wizard that automatically generates application related parameters and flows such as chart of
accounts, expense policies, and rules. PeopleSoft provides advanced data-loading and moving
capabilities, including the ability to load data online from Excel spreadsheets into PeopleSoft
applications through component interfaces. SAP provides a free set of tools and procedures that
make it possible to transfer data from a variety of sources without any programming. Siebel has
a set of proprietary tools for the data load; the tools can be used as batch loading for information that
must be reloaded on a regular basis, once the mapping of data is done.

• Pre-packaged integration between vendor applications: PeopleSoft Process Integration Packs

deliver all levels of required integration: data transformation, routing, cross-reference maps, and
standard-based connectors/adapters for a complete end-toend integration. PeopleSoft currently
provides five pre-packaged integrations for key SAP and Oracle business processes out of the box.
These pre-packaged integrations replace the need for custom integrations, thereby saving customers
up to 60% off the cost of custom integration. While not offering pre-packaged integration packs,
Oracle maintains adapters to most commonly used applications. Its adapters do help reduce the effort
for custom integration. SAP encapsulates integration tasks within its NetWeaver platform, but still
requires deep technology expertise to complete the integration. Siebel Universal Application
Network provides a common interface layer for Siebel Application to interface with non-Siebel
applications but requires third-party components.

• Process-oriented integration: Within Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Workflow supports basic
process-oriented integration and the modeling of it. Siebel’s approach to process-oriented integration
is to publish all its process-oriented business services as web services. PeopleSoft’s new interactive
integration repository enables customers to display integration points from a business process point
of view and generate integration process plans. SAP’s integration approach has been very focused on
business processes, but it relies heavily on proprietary technologies. Microsoft Integration Manager
includes a set of templates that allow the control of the underlying business logic.

• Built-in web services integrations: PeopleSoft provides built-in web services and fully supports
industry standards for web services. In addition, Oracle supports web services integration at every
layer of its application framework (database, middle-tier, and application layer).

Conclusion - PeopleSoft features for implementation rated higher than Microsoft’s, SAP’s, and
Siebel’s in enabling implementation teams to install, implement, and deploy enterprise applications
through comprehensive configuration wizards and pre-packaged integration packs for all major
enterprise application vendors. Oracle also rates consistentlyhigh in the areas of configuration, data
loading, pre-packaged integrations, and web services. PeopleSoft has made more progress than other
vendors in enabling and streamlining its configuration and integration tools.

2. Usability - The usability phase includes all key functionality that is related to the application
ease of use. Usability covers topics such as ability to perform tasks with the minimum amount of
errors, intuitive use of the application, end user productivity, ability to learn how to use the
application effectively with the minimum amount of training, number of screens or clicks required to
perform a specific task, support for novice as well as advanced users, alignment with industry
standard interfaces, response times, and ease of adapting application terminology to customer
business cases. With this kind of scope to the issue of usability, it does provide value to evaluate and
build an objective comparison on the usability of various applications.

Usability, in fact, can impact positively or negatively the total ownership experience. First and
foremost, usability has a direct impact on end user adoption, which can make or break a deployment.
Poor usability can lead to on going hidden costs through lower end user productivity, error-prone
applications, or applications that are misaligned with a company’s business processes.

Conclusion - Across the features evaluated, PeopleSoft and Siebel rated highest in terms of the
usability features evaluated. The task-oriented organization of application screens and the
consistency of screen layouts across all modules in PeopleSoft applications improve end user
productivity and enables end users to complete tasks faster and with fewer errors. Microsoft
Business Solutions usability is limited due to a continued reliance on a “thick client” architecture for
most of the applications, and SAP was found lacking in task-oriented dashboards.

3.Maintenance, Support, and Upgrades: The maintenance includes all post-implementation

activities that are required to keep the application operational under normal and stressed conditions.
It includes on going support, upgrades (patches and minor and major upgrades), all diagnostics and
tuning activities managed by administrators to maintain the application running in optimal
conditions, and the archiving of historical data.

Maintenance costs have an important impact on the overall ownership experience, due to the
traditionally labor-intensive and repetitive nature of these activities. Diagnostics and tuning facilitate
the upgrade process by staying current on releases, while poor diagnostics tools lead to unpredictable
downtimes and business disruption. Seven criteria were involved in the Crimson assessment of the
maintenance phase:

• Diagnostic and technical support: Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and Siebel support is delivered the
“traditional” way: a knowledge base on the web and phone calls with technical support. PeopleSoft
is the only vendor to provide a built-in diagnostic framework through embedded diagnostics
scripts that let customers send secure, realtime production system snapshots to PeopleSoft’s
support center. This unique capability ensures faster issue diagnosis and resolution. With SAP,
Oracle, and Siebel, diagnostics and resolution information is exchanged between the customer and
the vendor through tailored emails that depend on the availability, the responsiveness, and the
knowledge of the vendor’s support staff.

• Remote and online support: Both PeopleSoft’s and Oracle’s online support databases are rich in
content but can be time consuming to navigate. Siebel provides some support content over the web
but, once a problem has been logged online, always promotes interaction with the customers over
web selfservice support. SAP has recently introduced multiple web sites to provide better post
implementation information to its customers, but the efforts remain fragmented across various
interaction points with customers.

• Performance diagnostics and tuning: Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP provide a built-in,
instrumented performance monitoring tool that tracks the application performance in real time as
well as by component. The tool provides comparisons to average performance levels to proactively
identify and troubleshoot non-performing components. Siebel supports industry-standard application
response-time management that simplifies performance tuning across all tiers. Because it requires
third-party software, Siebel is not rated as highly. With
Microsoft, performance monitoring is done at the platform level (Windows/NT); no specific
application performing tools are available.

• Patch management: Applying patches to enterprise applications can be a very time consuming
and disruptive activity. SAP, Oracle, and Siebel make their list of patches fully available on the web
but provide limited guidance and automated tools to select which patches are relevant to a specific
configuration. PeopleSoft has streamlined this task by offering a Change Assistant toolset that
supports the automatic checking of preand post- requisites and by automatically selecting which
patch should be applied for the customer to be current. Microsoft releases new versions of patches
for its applications very infrequently (less than once a year), so the features with respect to patch
management are well suited.
• Automated upgrade process and toolsets: SAP offers tools to identify pre-requisites
and guide technical staff through the various steps of an upgrade. The SAP upgrade process is only
partially automated, with many complex tasks to be performed manually. PeopleSoft provides
Upgrade Assistant, an automated upgrade tool with well tested and complete upgrade scripts. Oracle
offers upgrade scripts and tools but with a lesser degree of automation. Microsoft provides basic
upgrade automation tools that are adequate for Microsoft’s low frequency of releases.

• User-centric performance testing: PeopleSoft allows customers to submit test cases,which are
used as part of the application testing and release process. PeopleSoft is the only vendor to test
functionality and performance using real customer data on volume database systems. Oracle relies
mostly on its database performance test to validate the performance of its application. SAP offers
test services reported to be so expensive that
very few customers opt to use them. Siebel has been focused on usability since it released its first
CRM application, and user-centric testing is an integral part of its product development cycle.
Microsoft delivers good usability but the functionality delivered is less sophisticated.

• Data archiving: Oracle only provides purge capabilities and does not allow customers to archive
or restore/reinstate archived data into production. Both SAP and PeopleSoft provide archive, purge,
and restore capabilities natively. In addition, PeopleSoft provides rules-based archiving templates
enabling administrators to set up different archiving rules for different regions for better global
compliance support. Siebel and Microsoft do not directly offer archive, purge or restore capabilities.

Conclusion - In this phase, PeopleSoft offers the fullest feature sets covering diagnostic and
technical support, performance diagnostics, patch management, user centric performance testing,
and data archiving. PeopleSoft, Oracle, and SAP all offer full performance diagnostics and tuning.
And PeopleSoft, Microsoft, and Siebel fully address patch management, while only PeopleSoft and
Siebel fully address the issue of user-centric performance testing. All vendors have basic automated
upgrade tools, and all have shown progress in addressing maintenance improvements to the
ownership experience.

PeopleSoft rated consistently high across the maintenance feature set primarily due to the ability to
proactively and rapidly isolate and resolve application issues through embedded diagnostics scripts,
thorough test scenarios and scripts, and streamlined upgrade process. Specifically in relation to
Microsoft Business Solutions , PeopleSoft’s complete web enablement streamlines the upgrade
process compared to an offering like Microsoft Great Plains, which operates in a client-server
environment and requires the client to be upgraded as well.

Summary

Microsoft
Microsoft has no formal ownership experience program defined. Microsoft has developed its cost
management strategy based on a very low software price point and close to 100% out-of-the-box
deployments with little ability to customize the software. As a result, Microsoft offers basic
functionality that does not require extensive training, but it also does not necessarily deliver the full
value expected by the customer in view of the ownership experience.

Oracle
Addressing cost of ownership is at the heart of Oracle’s philosophy for Enterprise Applications.
Based on the Oracle eBusiness Suite, an integrated suite of applications, Oracle claims that it can
lower implementation costs by avoiding unnecessary costs, such as those associated with costly
custom integration between applications. Although Oracle’s approach has some merit — some
measurable benefits have been highlighted through ROI case studies, serious concerns are still being
raised regarding what Oracle has delivered to date.

PeopleSoft
Structured in a formal program, PeopleSoft dedicated over 1,000 developers and $800 million to
improve the Total Ownership Experience for customers. Rather than focusing simply on best
practices that improve the ownership experience, PeopleSoft has rethought its entire set of
applications to ensure that they are built from the ground up to minimize deployment and
maintenance costs.

SAP
Many users of SAP applications have, over the years, noted the complexity of SAP applications, the
resulting high implementation costs, and consequent budget overruns. In response to these issues,
SAP today highlights SAP NetWeaver as the centerpiece to SAP’s product strategy for decreasing
the complexity and cost of ownership for SAP applications. Currently, the impact of SAP
NetWeaver on the overall SAP cost of ownership remains to be proven. SAP has not yet provided
proof points validating that its customers benefit from
improved ownership experience through the implementation of SAP’s latest technology.

Siebel
Siebel’s customer experience initiative was first focused on customer satisfaction and high-level
ROI measurements. It is only recently (12+months) that Siebel has focused more specifically on
cost-of-ownership issues (mainly in response to customers’ complaints). Siebel’s improvements to
its software development process are guided by the experience and insight gained from close
examination of 200 Siebel 7.x deployments.