North East University Reap Greater Value from Oracle E-Business Suite R11i

Recognised by The Guardian as England’s best new university in 2001, and rated best new university in the UK for the overall quality, range and quantity of its research, the University has a key role to play in supporting the North East economy.

With a turnover of some £75m and a student population of 16,000 this is regarded as a mid-tier university which has a large mix of courses covering engineering, technology, business, management, life science and the creative arts.

An extensive development programme is underway including a new riverside campus and student accommodation.

Challenges

Operating at a de-supported release of Oracle Applications

Optimise purchasing taking advantage of potential functionality

Data issues preventing a multi-org set-up

Leverage value of existing investment in Oracle E-Business Suite.

Solution

Commissioned Oracle Certified Advantage Partner, Patech to upgrade the Oracle solution firstly to R11.5.6 and subsequently to R11.5.10

Benefited from Patech’s expertise in public sector financial and purchasing solutions and Oracle’s intuitive self-service functionality to ensure a rapid go-live with minimal user training

Used Oracle Discoverer to let managers analyze data at their desktop, thereby cutting report development times

Ability to streamline and automate travel spend through the use of Oracle iExpenses, self service requisitioning (Oracle iProcurement), and web based analysis and reporting (Oracle Daily Business Intelligence)

The upgrade to R11.5.10 allowed for the set-up of a multi-organisation environment to capture a clearer view of all the University’s business activities