Oracle E-Business Suite Reviews

At Dekalb County, the most valuable feature of E-Business Suite is the integration of all the different modules. It's truly become our financial database from a projects and procurement point of view. It's all connected and logical.

Oracle has clearly brought experts to the table for the their design and development roles. In the early days, E-Business Suit was comprise simply of programmers' coding, but that's not their model anymore. I like that Oracle's brought in experts who know payables, who know what CFO's want to see, etc. They've got real-world experience and it shows because when you stand it up for the first time, it's an absolutely useable system. From that perspective, it's 100% worth the investment.

For example, sub-ledger accounting was new to release 12. If I am an international company or I want to deal with a company outside of the United States, they record things a little bit differently in their accounting. If I want to value my company and I have inventory in the United States, we put that on our books. I could have $100 worth of inventory, so therefore my company looks like it's $100 better than maybe Italy, but Italy doesn't record inventory on their books. It's not an asset.

So with E-Business Suite, Oracle has built a product from which I can make entity/business decision adaptations without changing the underlying code.

What sub-ledger accounting allows me to do is recreate the accounting structure, so I could still have my primary books, which is in US GAAP, but I could have secondary books. Now that I'm working in county government, where E-Business Suite really helps is with cash management.

I am fine with where E-Business Suite is now. From a county standpoint, I would like to see them integrate fund accounting into fixed assets and cash management. Right now, E-Business Suit really isn't 100% public sector. I guess we're not the market to roll out to.

Also, I'm not impressed with the out-of-the-box analytics. It's really the bare minimum.

Moreover, out-of-the-box, Oracle E-Business Suite's cash management module does not do fund accounting. It puts a strain on our accounting staff because the data doesn't really represent properly, but I was able to get it to work by using sub-ledger accounting to redefine the delivered Oracle out-of-the-box method.

I've been using E-Business Suite since 1989.

We've had no issues deploying it.

Whether we have stability issues depends on how long a module has been out. With the evolution of E-Business Suite, each new module has had its hiccups and challenges. The longer the module is out, however, the more stable it becomes. This has been our experience with GL, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, cash management, and fund accounting.

The frustrating part of that is because it's new, you don't have the expertise out there to pull on. You could call Oracle support and yes, they're going to help you eventually, but one of the things that the user group gives me is, I know people who know GL, accounts payable, etc. I can reach out to my network, but I don't have a network on new products.

So the answer to the stability question is both yes and no.

E-Business Suite is scalable. We don't have to worry about it at my organization, but I know from my prior consulting experience that it's absolutely scalable, from mom-and-pop shops to large multi-national companies.

I have up and down days with Oracle support. Like anything, it depends on who your support analyst is. They have some phenomenal analysts. Unfortunately, the lifespan, as I understand it, is only maybe 18 months. They come to know this product inside and out, but then they go on to do other things. If I look at it realistically, here we only call support when there's an issue. We're always complaining. If I was on the receiving end of that, 18 months of listening to complaints might get old. There are the people who can answer my questions and who will get it done, and then there are those who don't.

Actually, I'm dealing with a support ticket now. I have had to on multiple occasions put in the ticket 'read my question' versus what I think is happening. I don't know if it's a computer that spits out the first few e-mails, but it's "hello, my name is X, Y, Z", and as a business, you get sick of the same old stuff. I need this resolved and, honestly, the time it takes for me to log into Oracle support and read the stock e-mails has become extremely frustrating.

The setup to me is straightforward, but I've been using it for so long. For a new person, I don't think that companies could use the software without consulting help of some sort. You need to understand your business. There are very good consultants who could come in and they will ask you the right questions to help drive the setup. They're decisions that need to be made that, if wrong, you can still live with. But, there are other, more critical decisions that you make that you can't undo. So is it easy to set up? Physically going into the screens is as simple as can be. The question really needs to be, how much time do you need to put in prior to sitting down to set the system up? You really need to understand your business and you need to understand what you're trying to do.

We had outside help, but what causes problems is the fact that when you're a company and you're looking for new software, you are sitting there and you're saying, "OK my old software doesn't quite do what I want," so you want to buy something else. You go out, you do your RFP, you decide you're going to get E-Business Suite. The problem is, the experts at the company know their business. They also know their business using their old system. The consultants that they get to come in, they know E-Business Suite, but they don't know your business. The two don't always mesh correctly. What I've noticed over the years is you end up re-implementing the old system you just came off of. You're not utilizing all of the neat features that E-Business Suite has.

If you haven't implemented it and are considering purchasing it, don't be afraid of it. Go ahead, jump in. Oracle is a phenomenal company and they will stand behind their product. The best advice is to take your time, know your business, and don't always take 100% judgement from your consultant. Use their advice, but listen to that little voice in your head of what you know as well. Have a good collaboration between you and the consultant. Don't try to do it on your own.

The last piece of advice and what many companies fail to do is the education portion. I can't tell you how many companies I've gone into to do training only after they've gone live. And it never fails that they've scaled back their education to save money. Like where I am now at Dekalb County, they never train the end users. These end users know absolute basics to get by, but they don't know all the great tools. Even though once it's implemented, they need to keep learning it. Just because you've implemented a product, you're not done. Now, after it has settled down and you've used it, you can go and see what else your product that's live can also do. So remember to get educated.

I primarily use E-Business Suite for trading and procurement.

E-Business Suite's best features are the standard process, the table dictionary, and the ability to work with the SQL language to correlate data.

E-Business Suite's pricing could be lower. In the next release, E-Business Suite should include the HIS information system and 360-degree feedback.

I've been using E-Business Suite for eight years.

E-Business Suite is stable.

E-Business Suite is scalable.

I previously used SAP.

The initial setup was a little complex, and deployment took between twenty and thirty minutes to complete.

We used an in-house team.

E-Business Suite's pricing could be lower.

I would rate E-Business Suite seven out of ten.

E-Business Suite's best features are BAT functionality, flexibility, configurability, and integration with Oracle Database.

E-Business Suite's user experience and interface could be improved. There are also some issues related to the cloud version, such as less powerful flexibility that prevents easy customization and integration. In the future, I would like E-Business Suite to include more self-service applications and no-code/low-code capabilities for users to create simple applications.

I've been using E-Business Suite since 2004.

Oracle's support could be quicker and more responsive.

The initial setup is easy and takes six to twelve months - about eight to nine on average.

Compared to other vendors like SAP or Microsoft, the prices for Oracle are reasonable, but they could always be lower.

I especially like E-Business Suite's data management functionality - I would say it provides perfect data management inside the app. I would advise anybody wanting to implement E-Business Suite to try to understand and implement standard functionality first before doing any customization. I would rate E-Business Suite as eight out of ten.

We use this as our ERP.

It is a very consistent product. With a wide range of knowledge base

The solution needs to be updated with modern technology as it currently runs on the Java platform, JRE, which quite running obsolete and requires you to need an NPAPI supported browser to run the tool

I would also like to see an interface that is supported on a tablet or phone.

I have been using this solution for the past 12 years. 

It is pretty stable.

The cloud version is more elastic than the on-premise.

Tech support was very knowledgeable.

It was quite complex to setup, taking about six years. We currently have three employees maintaining it.

We had three partners that helped us with the implementation.

There is an annual licensing fee and you are able to add features depending on the scope of the environment.

Be diligent when reviewing which partner to select.

We use Oracle EBS for market business.

Oracle could improve the flash system integration. We are now focused on the cloud, so Oracle needs to use some cloud connect and exchange data and connect to various databases to access the data. With Oracle EBS there is no process, vertical manufacturing, vertical in the cloud. 

We have been using Oracle EBS for two years.

This solution is not stable. There are bugs that are being addressed.

Oracle EBS is scalable, the flexibility is there to setup an organization with multiple locations.

Technical support is poor currently. They are focusing more on the cloud rather than customers that are on-premise. 

When we have concerns we would raise the issue with a ticket on their portal. They would not provide the solution we needed and caused us to be under tremendous pressure. We usually need to finish the concern. Even as recently as last week we had concerns with closing an accounting problem and had to escalate to the director level.

The initial setup of Oracle EBS is easy, it is plug and play.

We purchased the license a long time ago and it was very reasonable.

I rate Oracle EBS a 7 out of 10.

The most valuable features are that it's more flexible than other ERPs available on the market, and it is very easy for users to learn and for business processes to be configured.

Areas for improvement would be that sometimes it's a bit rigid with customization and doesn't always facilitate region-specific requirements. In the next release, I would like to see a more flexible way to implement the product - it should have a process-driven configuration and a common user language. I would also like them to add an auto-responding intelligence with a common database for errors so that the end-user can figure out where the problem is coming from.

I have been using this solution for over ten years.

This solution is generally stable as long as it has a good infrastructure. There are some bugs, but Oracle releases patches periodically, and they're never big enough to interrupt business.

Technical support is ok but has become less responsive over the last few years (although it tends to be faster for cloud-based applications).

This is a highly-priced application and would not be affordable for small or medium business domains (although their cloud-based applications are cheaper).

Anyone considering implementing this product should consider choosing the cloud versions, as that is where the world is going. However, keep in mind that the cloud version is not as flexible as on-premises. This is a world-class application that includes a lot of business processes from other ERPs that Oracle has acquired. I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

We use this solution in our company to help with processes and dealing with payments for company projects. We are customers of Oracle and I'm the director of ERP systems. 

There are a few valuable features in this solution, the most valuable of which is the ERP. The customization and integration features are also great, it's the main thing you look for in a suite. 

Our biggest problem with this solution is the user interface. We'd like to see a simpler, more user-friendly product, with a flexible process, like you get with Fusion or SAP S4HANA. Both those solutions have a better UI, whereas Oracle has older features and feels like an outdated product. We're looking to migrate to another product because of that and because Oracle is lacking AI features. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

This is a stable product. 

Technical support is a mixed bag and depends on the support requested. Sometimes it goes to someone who isn't knowledgeable and can't help us and sometimes they're fine and can solve our problem. 

The initial setup was a little complex for us and I think it took close to seven months to complete using an integrator team; it's a continuous process. We have a team that deals with the maintenance of the solution and there are around 400 users in the company. 

This is an expensive solution but it's to be expected because ERPs are expensive. 

This is still a good product and I would recommend it even though it doesn't suit us anymore. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution mostly as the ERP system at the moment.

The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. The user levels are easy to take on. 

Everyone in the company is quite used to the Oracle functionality. 

It's easy when you want to integrate certain solutions that are being developed. When adding modules, the process is quite seamless.

The initial setup was pretty easy.

We are in Zimbabwe. At the moment we are having challenges with foreign payments. The pricing for us is quite high due to the exchange.

We wanted a fully-fledged solution that has got payroll, HR, finance et cetera, basically everything finance and administration we'd like to see sustainability management. This solution doesn't offer exactly what we need all in one package. We want to upgrade, therefore, we're currently seeing what else is on the market to see if there are competitors that have the kind of full packaging we require.

There's an issue with business process automation. I would like an end-to-end in terms of processes. There are different modules, however, there's not that end-to-end that we are looking for in terms of process automation. That is what is lacking right now. I have seen Microsoft, for example, really work well when it comes to process automation.

I've been using the product for about six years at this point. I started using the solution around 2014 if I recall correctly.

The version we are using is extremely stable. We've found it to be a reliable product. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We haven't had to engage with technical support on any issues as it just seems to run very well.

The solution offers good scalability depending on the setup. Since we have an on-prem product, we have a big data center. In terms of the database replication, I think maybe it was more expensive. We didn't have to deploy an active/active setup on the DB side. 

We haven't really needed to reach out to technical support. That's a testament to how well this product runs. 

That said, in the past, I recall dealing with them, and for the most part, they were great. There were a few issues they were a bit slower to respond to, however, overall, as I recall, they were good.

When you are running a business you want a faster turnaround time. However, there are also some issues where they will be operating within their SLA, be it 24 or 48 hours. Still, sometimes you just need those quick turnarounds, such as maybe one or two hours, to get things done.

We did not find the initial implementation to be complex. It was rather straightforward. As time went on there were some little customizations being made, however, it was just rather straightforward in general. We didn't struggle with the implementation at all.

The pricing for us, being based in Zimbabwe, is expensive. The exchange is not so good. While we have some constraints now, we don't foresee this being an ongoing problem.

Although we don't have an imperative to move solutions, we are looking at other options to see what is available on the market.

We are just customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with Oracle.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations.

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been largely happy with the product's performance.