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ORACLE ADDRESSES CONTRACT AUTOMATION MARKET WITH EXPANDED SUITE OF CONTRACT APPLICATIONSREDWOOD SHORES, Calif., August 22, 2001* (http://www.oracle.com/tellmemore/?873544) Oracle Corp., the largest provider of software for e-business, today unveiled its expanded vision for automating all aspects of contract management. Oracle Contracts, a major component of the Oracle E-Business Suite, is a family of applications that will allow companies to manage their contractual obligations across the extended enterprise, including complex agreements with customers, suppliers and partners. Using Oracle Contracts, customers can reduce complexities of the contract management process by standardizing and streamlining the contracting process - helping reduce administrative costs, expose new opportunities and eliminate contract leakage. Originally launched in 1998, the Oracle Contracts family of applications is being augmented with new applications for managing sales contracts, project contracts, service contracts, as well as contracts intelligence. The inability to effectively and efficiently generate and manage their contractual agreements costs companies time and money and can take its toll on relationships with customers and partners. Historically, contracts have been manually written and frequently customized, requiring a significant amount of human capital to manage the process. As business relationships between customers and suppliers become increasingly complex, companies must standardize these business processes in order to gain bottom-line efficiencies. For example, managing complex contracts with multiple subcontracts have traditionally been labor intensive projects. Notifying subcontractors of changes to crucial delivery dates and other contractual obligations is crucial for companies to efficiently run their business. And, traditional manual methods of monitoring contracts are not only time-consuming and costly, but also often result in poor contract performance and 'revenue leakage.' For example, if a service organization doesn't have visibility into what products are covered under a customer's warranty, they risk servicing a product for which they haven't been compensated or alienating the customer by attempting to charge for service on a covered product. Additionally, lack of visibility to all of the contracts in an enterprise can result in missed revenue opportunities. Without the knowledge of a customer's contract expiration date, companies miss opportunities to maintain a consistent revenue stream or explore the potential to up-sell extended service agreements or cover additional products. "Oracle's contracts offering is a comprehensive family of applications that fulfills the key contract management requirements across the entire extended enterprise," said Sharon Ward, Hurwitz Group. "By integrating contract management with applications such as sales, service, financials and projects, Oracle is providing a solution that automates what has traditionally been a costly and complicated process." The Oracle Contracts family manages the breadth of contractual obligations, throughout the entire life cycle of the contract. The core contracts application, Oracle Contracts, manages the authoring and management process of a contract, as well as serving as the central repository for the collection and dissemination of contract information. This application provides the core functionality for managing contracts, such as renewing or extending a contract, requesting a contract change, managing contract deliverables. New modules of the Oracle Contracts family that extend this core functionality include: * Oracle Contracts for Service: Enables users to design, author, manage and bill for service offerings tailored to their customers' needs; providing visibility to contract entitlements while proactively acting upon contractual commitments. All service contracts - warranties, extended warranties or complex service agreements, are held centrally providing visibility across the entire enterprise and providing tight integration to other applications in the organization. * Oracle Contracts for Rights offers an integrated, approach to managing intellectual property by automating the business processes involved in the acquisition and licensing of intellectual property rights. It provides a complete contract authoring and management solution, and a property catalog that serves as a centralized secure repository of all intellectual property information. The contracts serve as the "inventory" of all property rights owned, acquired or sold. * Oracle Project Contracts: Enables companies to manage long-term capital intensive contracts, including bid and proposal management, contract document authoring, including terms and conditions, project funding and billing. Oracle Project Contracts is specifically designed to meet the complex contract management needs of project driven organizations, including commercial and government contractors, agencies, and subcontractors. * Oracle Contracts for Sales: Allows users to fully automate their sales contracting process, to enhance the effectiveness of the sales organization and improve profitability in their enterprise. This enables cost reductions through decreased revenue leakage, proactive notifications, reduced litigation expenses and streamlined contract negotiations. * Oracle Contracts Intelligence: Helps businesses make informed tactical and strategic decisions by converting the contracts transactional data into contracts business knowledge. Oracle Contracts Intelligence covers contracts governing the business transactions of selling, buying, using, making, managing and servicing. Future products are expected to include Contracts for Subscriptions, Oracle Lease Management and Contracts for Procurement. "Contract automation today is where Financial's automation was 20 years ago -- in a file cabinet with all businesses agreeing on the importance and need for its automation potential," said Mark Barrenechea, senior vice president, applications development. "Every corporate transaction is linked to either a customer, partner, supplier, or employee. That linkage is a contract. With contracts added to the Oracle E-Business Suite, businesses can now manage contractual obligations across all lines of business." About Oracle Oracle Corporation provides the software that powers the Internet. For more information about Oracle, please call 650/506-7000. # # # Trademarks Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Editorial Contact: Karen Tillman Oracle Corp. 650/607-0326 Karen.Tillman@oracle.com top of page |
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