Oracle EBS R12.2.8 available, but is it worth the hype?

Our highlights of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) R12.2.8

This month, Oracle has released EBS R12.2.8 as its latest E-Business Suite version. Oracle’s marketing team state that it includes new features, statutory & regulatory updates, and enhancements for stability, performance, and security. This is a cumulative update; as well as providing new updates for this release, it also includes updates that were originally made in previous versions.

Oracle is heavily focused on its Cloud applications, delivering at least one upgrade per year. But where are the upgrades for E-Business Suite? If we take release 12, there has been 12.2.3 through to 12.2.8. But each of these point releases are just patches providing bug fixes and small enhancements.

This is validated by looking at what is actually available in R12.2.8.

The key changes include:

  • Improved User Experience – more HTML interfaces and mobile capabilities
  • Updates for Mobile Release 8
  • Oracle Financials –
    • Receivables users can optimise the collection cycle and increase cash flow
    • Payables users can optimise invoice processing and cash outflow,
    • Assets users can speed up period close and increase asset utilisation
  • Order Management –
    • Allows flexible definition of which customer groupings can buy items
    • Oracle Quoting allows quotes in spreadsheets to be uploaded using Web ADI
  • Procurement –
    • Enhances the non-catalogue request flow to invite suppliers to self-register
    • An improved ‘spot buy’ capability allows privileged users to initiate certain one-time purchases without involving a buyer
    • Oracle Sourcing provides flexibility to award another bidder should a prior winning bid not work out
    • Oracle iSupplier Portal facilitates global operations by allowing a single supplier representative to operate on behalf of multiple subsidiaries
    • Contract Lifecycle Management includes enhanced flows and new standards-based APIs to improve buyer workload assignment and ease the import of historical information

Is EBS R12.2.8 worth the hype?

When analysing these key changes, nothing stands as a great reason to upgrade to R12.2.8. Will these changes save days within a month-end cycle and provide cost savings within the business? If customers did not apply this latest version, could their organisations still survive? It’s clear why we see so many organisations neglecting these updates as they bring little if any ROI to their business.

Not only that, but the installation is likely to be complex for organisations that skip upgrades. This is because the steps to apply R12.2.8 depend on what current E-Business Suite version you have. Customers on 11i must upgrade to R12 before applying R12.2.8. No direct upgrade path exists from R12.0 to R12.2.8 either. These customers will have to first upgrade to R12.2 before applying R12.2.8!

In our opinion, the cost to apply and test R12.2.8 does not justify the business benefits. If you are already happy with your current version, why keep upgrading and spending money? You could maintain your current version and save money for things that are really needed within your business.

If you are waiting for Oracle to deliver the enhancement that you really need for your business, you could be waiting for years. Oracle waits for a certain number of customers to request the same thing, before it even contemplates delivering it.

Third-party support allows you to receive enhancements to your system faster, as well as saving you from worrying about being on the latest version. To find out more about how third-party support can help your business, contact us directly.

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