Key Takeaways from JDE Summit 2016
I attended the JDE Summit hosted by Oracle in Broomfield Colorado during the week of February 1st. It was a conference with a few hundred attendees focused on consulting firms and Oracle, rather than a customer event. This was new for me as we focus our attention towards direct customers utilizing Oracle products.

There are 3 key areas to note regarding Heartland’s strategy within JD Edwards technology in 2016 and moving forward. These observations should provide some insight regarding the direction of technology and consumption of data in IT, not just the JD Edwards marketplace. Heartland has aligned our strategy with Oracle providing a flexible, industry focused solution utilizing our Resource Delivery Model and acting as a trusted advisor in the ecosystem.

Citizen DeveloperCitizen Developer was discussed and highlighted during a few sessions. I believe this is the future of how organizations utilize technology, particularly JDE. It is heavily focused on the concept of personalization by the end user rather than customization by the developer.

To simplify it further, think of personalizing your Smart Phone to have sounds, colors, images, that fit your preferred way to use the technology. This is how JDE is now being utilized and there isn’t the need for a customization every time by a developer as the end user has the ability to personalize the application using E1 Page Composer and advanced query capability.

Internet of Things IOT is gaining a lot of traction in the marketplace and JDE is on the cutting edge of exposure of the concept in the information technology marketplace. There is a strong need for organizations to integrate many systems and manage data in a simplified way. The data could come from a mobile device, JDE system, 3rd party application, or even a physical asset owned by the organization.

To simplify it further, an example presented during the conference, an organization was able to use IOT to track a vehicle’s location and vital statistics connecting into JDE. JDE has developed this technology to integrate with mobile and 3rd party systems easily, which facilitates it’s use in various ways that align with extended exposure of how organizations consume and measure data.

JDE vs. Oracle Cloud customer solution Oracle’s cloud product is very strong and has received increased attention the past 24 months, this will continue. A question that has been asked regarding JDE’s future is if the Cloud offering will compete with JDE’s offering? It appears these areas should complement each other rather than compete with each other, particularly identifying where each product has strength vs. weakness in the marketplace as Heartland provides talent in both areas with a unique resource profile personalized for each requirement.

The easiest way to determine this is identifying what industry fits what solution, we will likely see a pattern develop in each area as organizations utilize Oracle cloud products. The graph below highlights these areas with the categories in RED being strong targets for a cloud solution rather than JDE. The industries highlighted in black will continue to have JDE as the best fit solution.

Final thoughts Heartland has aligned our Resource Delivery Model to successfully fit Oracle’s product offering within JDE products in 2016 and moving forward. As organizations continue to consume data at a record pace, our tailored approach to pro-active communication with premier talent enables us to be prepared for various client resource needs with a customized resource profile for each unique requirement. The resources we deliver not only possess the JDE/Oracle technical skills they also specialize within the focused industry possessing the business acumen to add value to each client in multiple ways.

Blog Written by:

Patrick Donlin
Heartland’s CEO and President of Sales