Oracle has announced the availability of its Advanced Procurement Release 12, an integrated procurement suite that can cut supply management costs. Ameren Corporation will be one company implementing this new release.
This release was specifically designed to meet the changing needs of procurement professionals with a consolidated workcenter for all procurement responsibilities, improved support for complex goods and services and expanded supplier management and enablement. Oracle Advanced Procurement Release 12 is an integral part of the recently announced Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 and another proof-point of Oracle's "Applications Unlimited" program.
"Our procurement organization is responsible for more than cost savings, we're also responsible for driving the operational excellence crucial to the satisfaction of our customers," said Price Marr, Ameren's manager of strategic sourcing. "The latest release of Oracle Advanced Procurement should equip our staff with the tools we need to continue to increase our effectiveness and efficiency and provide greater transparency to our operations."
Oracle Advanced Procurement Release 12 was designed to meet the changing needs of procurement professionals as they drive continued transformation of the procurement function. This release introduces the Professional Buyer's Work Center, which consolidates procurement responsibilities into a single command-and-control environment. For example, a procurement executive can use a single workbench to execute all aspects of supply management including strategic sourcing, contract management and supplier performance management. The Professional Buyer's Work Center provides a new user experience with a significantly improved look and feel, increased personalization options, streamlined workflows and simplified navigation.
This latest release also provides enhancements to help procurement professionals with expanded responsibilities. For example, Oracle Advanced Procurement Release 12 includes new security and access control features specifically designed for shared services organizations and center-led operating practices. Also included are enhancements to simultaneously improve contract collaboration and compliance through improved Microsoft Word synchronization. A new, unified catalog architecture helps reduce the maintenance burden, improve the accuracy of content and drive spend visibility.
The role of procurement professionals is increasingly moving beyond cost-reduction and expanding to include new methods of value creation in non-traditional spend categories and business processes. In response, Oracle Advanced Procurement Release 12 provides increased support for complex goods and services. For example, new capabilities better align procurement and finance operations for improved supplier performance and control over payment for complex services. Customers now benefit from extensive support for progress payments including rate, lump sum and milestone pay items that can automatically track project and accounting details.
The procurement of complex categories will also be improved through new approval features including new workflow types such as parallel approvals, position hierarchy support, "view only" support and a graphical display of approval paths. These enhancements are complemented by requestor driven procurement and team scoring of sourcing requirements, which improve the procurement of complex categories by driving collaboration between procurement organizations and the businesses they serve.
