Awards Recognize Perficient for Prioritizing a People-First Mindset and Workplace Experience 

We’re thrilled to share that Perficient has been recognized by Energage and Nectar with three 2024 Top Workplaces Culture Excellence Awards: Professional Development Top Workplaces, Top Workplaces for Appreciation, and Employee Well-Being Top Workplaces! This recognition underscores our unwavering commitment to fostering a world-class culture that challenges, champions, and celebrates our people. 

Earlier this year, Perficient was honored as a 2024 USA Today Top Workplace, ranking 26 on the top 100 list of large employers in the U.S. Our 2024 Top Workplaces Culture Excellence Awards are a continuation of that program in celebration of our award-winning culture and our colleagues who make a difference each day. Take a look as we delve deeper into each award and explore some of the programs, practices, and initiatives that have contributed to Perficient’s vibrant and people-first culture.  

Professional Development Top Workplaces: Elevating Career Growth Through Growth for Everyone 

The Professional Development Top Workplaces award recognizes companies that prioritize the growth and career advancement of their employees. At the heart of Perficient’s People Promise is Growth for Everyone, a system of professional development resources, training programs, and tools aimed at guiding every colleague on their own transformational career journey. 

Perficient’s award-winning Growth for Everyone program provides a wide range of professional development programming, including our Consultant Curriculum, Leading With Impact, and Learning to Lead programs. New this year, we introduced an optional resource created exclusively for colleagues who have completed one of our leadership development programs – Perficient Elevate. The program includes on-demand curriculum and live training sessions designed to help colleagues become more effective leaders. 

Perficient’s commitment to continuous learning ensures colleagues stay at the forefront of the latest industry trends and advancements. Our recognition as a Professional Development Top Workplace pays tribute to our promise to champion the career development of our global colleagues.  

Read More: Discover More About Perficient’s Growth for Everyone Programming  

Top Workplaces for Appreciation: Recognizing and Celebrating Colleague Success 

The Top Workplaces for Appreciation award honors companies that believe in creating an environment where self-sustaining performance and positivity are a direct result of genuine employee appreciation. Through efforts like Perficient’s Shoutouts program and the annual Perficient Excellence Awards, we’re fostering a cycle of continued workplace appreciation for a job well done.   

First introduced in 2021, Perficient’s Shoutouts program revolutionized the way colleagues recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of their team. With a live colleague Shoutout feed displayed across the company intranet, we’re ensuring that recognition is visible and celebrated globally. Colleagues can quickly and easily recognize individuals and entire teams for their hard work and personal achievements. This fosters a sense of pride and accomplishment that strengthens collaboration, boosts confidence, and instills a deeper sense of belonging across our global organization. 

The annual Perficient Excellence Awards program is another way we celebrate our colleagues who are making a difference in their everyday actions. The awards are based on peer nominations, with hundreds of colleagues submitting nominations for their co-workers who truly embrace our core values: Integrity, Innovation, Clients, Collaboration, People, and Pride. In 2024, we recognized 32 colleagues with Perficient’s Excellence Awards, honoring a distinguished group who make a difference for our clients, partners, community, and each other. Perficient’s Top Workplace for Appreciation category award is a testament to the collaborative spirit of our people and our efforts to recognize colleagues for their dedication to boldly advancing our business.  

Read More: Celebrate the Success of Our Colleagues By Reading Their Personal Growth Stories  

Employee Well-Being Top Workplaces: Prioritizing Colleague Health and Happiness 

Perficient’s commitment to ensuring the health and well-being of our people reflects the unique culture found across our global offices. The Employee Well-Being Top Workplaces award highlights select organizations that place health and wellness at the forefront of their workplace culture and recognizes their commitment to fostering a supportive community. 

Through our LiveWell Employee Resource Group (ERG), we’re providing support to colleagues in achieving overall wellness in three key areas: health, relationships, and finance. The LiveWell ERG provides regular programming and dialogue focused on helping colleagues nurture their mind, body, and soul. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month in October, the LiveWell ERG organized its first Global Wellness Challenge with a mission to foster healthy habits and lifestyle choices. Colleagues from around the world can participate in a friendly competition between teams by participating in a variety of wellness activities that support their mental and physical well-being. 

By emphasizing colleague well-being, we’re ensuring that Perficient is an inclusive space where everyone can become the best version of themselves. Our recognition as an Employee Well-Being Top Workplace serves as a testament to our promise to challenge, champion, and celebrate our people.  

Read More: Learn About Perficient’s Commitment to Employee Well-Being With LiveWell 

Celebrating a Culture of Excellence 

Perficient’s 2024 Top Workplaces Culture Excellence Awards celebrate our ongoing efforts to develop an environment focused on professional development, genuine appreciation, and health and well-being. This not only enhances the colleague experience but also drives the success of our global company. Together, we are creating meaningful connections around the world that shatter boundaries and forge the future for generations to come.  

READY TO GROW YOUR CAREER?  

At Perficient, we continually look for ways to champion and challenge our talented workforce with interesting projects for high-profile clients, encourage personal and professional growth through training and mentoring, and celebrate our people-oriented culture and the innovative ways they serve Perficient and the community.  

Learn more about what it’s like to work at Perficient at our Careers page.  

Go inside Life at Perficient and connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.  

Sitecore Symposium 2024 is Underway!

A conference like Sitecore Symposium is a great way to make a mini vacation out of your work travels. I arrived on Sunday and explored the city of Nashville. Did you know that Nashville is home to a full-scale replica of the Parthenon? It was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Today, it’s the only remaining building from the exposition and has since been turned into a museum. The museum contains the largest indoor statue in the Western Hemisphere, the goddess Athena in full gold leaf standing at 41ft tall.

Symposium is being hosted at the Gaylord Opryland Resort. This is my first time here and the hotel is beautiful. The atrium is covered in glass and has lush green gardens and walking paths with waterfalls. You can even take a boat ride through the interior.

For me, the best part about these conferences is seeing people face-to-face! Most of us work remotely and are only able to see these people on phone calls and little boxes on our screen in a grid on a zoom call. It’s great to see people in person, face-to-face because technology can’t replicate that experience.

Exploring Nashville

The conference schedule fills up quickly, so having time beforehand to hang out with friends is great. Chet Potvin  organized a walking food tour of Nashville on Sunday night. We started out at a rooftop bar with a great view of downtown Nashville. The guide shared some great stories about Nashville history, culture, music, and food. We had four stops, which included Nashville barbecue and the famous Nashville hot chicken.

MVP Summit

Monday was the MVP Summit. This was my first time attending. While I can’t share any of the information from the sessions, I can say it was a great experience. We got a sneak peek of inside information and got to interact with the Sitecore product teams and executives. We had interactive conversations and it’s great knowing that the team at Sitecore really listens to our feedback. As MVPs, we are really able to impact the products.

MVP Party

After a full day of sessions, we were treated to an MVP party at Dave and Buster’s. Sitecore booked the entire venue just for us. We had great food and drink, unlimited gaming, and karaoke. It was a great time to hang out with old friends and make new friends.

Tiffany, Josh, and I challenged Dave O’flanagan to a race of Mario Kart! MJ is quite the instigator and isn’t afraid to let loose and encourage others to do the same. We did a great version of Ice Ice Baby. And in case you’re curious, yes, we know all the words. The night ended with 15 people singing Closing Time. But we weren’t done yet. On the walk back to the hotel, we gave our best acapella version of Sweet Caroline. It was so good so good so good! What a fun night! It’s the reward for a full year’s worth of hard work to achieve MVP status.

Looking Ahead to Symposium

I’m looking forward to seeing what more Sitecore Symposium has to offer. It promises to be full of innovation, collaboration, fresh insights, and informative sessions. If you’re attending Sitecore Symposium, stop by our Perficient booth!

Addressing the Talent Shortage
While fears of AI-driven job displacement dominate headlines, the real crisis looming is a $8.5 trillion talent shortage projected by 2030. Much like the famous ‘invisible gorilla’ experiment, where viewers focused on counting basketball passes miss a costumed figure walking through the scene, businesses risk overlooking a crucial element: the Employee Experience (EX). To navigate the impending talent crunch, companies must shift their focus from the distracting ‘gorilla’ of AI job threats to the ‘basketball game’ of EX – the key to attracting and retaining vital human talent.

The top three HR priorities
According to SHRM, the top three priorities for HR professionals in 2024 include:
1. Maintaining employee morale and engagement (81%)
2. Retaining top talent (78%)
3. Finding and recruiting talent with the necessary skills (70%)

The results from the SHRM survey point to challenges with both recruiting and retention. In the U.S., an aging population, Baby Boomer retirement, and declining birth rates are contributing to a labor shortage. This makes it harder for employers to compete for scarce talent on the recruitment side and increases the pressure to retain talent. On the recruitment front, estimates suggest the average cost to hire an employee is $4,700, with many employers citing a cost to hire a new employee at three to four times the position’s salary.

To address, companies are turning their attention to improving EX.

What is EX?
EX is the sum of an employee’s experiences with a company. This includes everything from what initially attracted an employee to the company, to all the interactions with your company up through the individual’s last day. Given the scope of EX, it is not just the sole job of HR to improve the experience. Everything from the physical workspace, remote working capabilities, company culture, and interactions with coworkers, leaders, and HR plays a role in shaping the employee experience.

Key Focus Areas for Improving EX
With a multitude of focus areas, here are two to consider for improving the employee experience:

• Human-centered technology
• AI-infused HR experiences

Human-centered Technology
Digital and digitization plays a crucial role in shaping perceptions. When choosing HR technology, it is important to balance the features and functionality of the technology with the emotional needs of users. Whether you’re thinking about recruiting and applicant tracking, learning and development, or performance management, pay attention to how the technology enhances or detracts from the workplace experience.

Three questions to ask include:
1. Does the technology make it easier to complete the task?
2. Does the technology help get the job done?
3. How does the technology make the employee feel?

If your company is in the market for HR technology, a good place to start is to conduct employee journey mapping to understand employee needs, processes, and perceptions across key components of the employee lifecycle. By capturing the employee perspective, actions, and emotions, you can better understand technology needs and inform technology enhancements.

From a recruitment standpoint, this approach enables the creation of streamlined online applications. These user-friendly systems eliminate the need for candidates to both upload their resumes and manually input the same information, significantly reducing redundancy and improving the application experience. HR technology can also help candidates understand the overall recruitment process and where they are in the journey.

On the retention front, employee journey mapping can reveal pain points such as frustration with time-consuming compliance training. To address this, companies can modernize their approach by adopting innovative learning management systems. These systems leverage microlearning, storytelling, interactivity, gamification, and personalization to enhance engagement and efficiency.

Modern platforms offer ‘snackable’ content, delivered in bite-sized portions over time, eliminating the need for lengthy, non-skippable video sessions. Some even provide ‘test-first’ options, allowing employees to bypass familiar material, focusing only on areas where they need development.

By reimagining compliance training in this way, organizations can transform a traditionally tedious process into an engaging, efficient, and personalized learning experience, ultimately contributing to improved employee satisfaction and retention.

Not only will looking at HR technology in a human-centered way drive friction out of the employee experience, but it can also increase efficiencies and employee perceptions.

AI-infused HR experiences
In each stage of the employee engagement lifecycle, there are numerous ways AI can enable better experiences. Finding and retaining talent is both costly and competitive. To be successful, companies must excel across the entire spectrum of the employee journey encompassing all stages of the lifecycle.

Increasingly, HR teams are taking AI-infused approaches so they can focus on more strategic initiatives by reducing administrative work while enhancing perception.

The application of AI in HR:
• Attract and Recruit: AI is commonly used to identify candidates who may not have applied but have the right skills, to screen resumes, to schedule interviews, to conduct initial assessments, to provide personalized job recommendations, and to write job descriptions.
• Onboard: Some companies are shifting towards AI and virtual onboarding where new hires are onboarded through virtual replicas of their workspace where they can interact with their colleagues’ avatars, join team exercises, and learn how the organization operates. Early research on virtual onboarding has shown it to be more engaging than PowerPoint presentations, resulting in better retention of information over time.
• Develop and Retain: Outside of facilitating personalized training programs, tracking progress, and predicting churn, I believe AI can be used to create individualized, branded experiences for employees. For example, companies can leverage the concept of Amazon wish lists to create career wish lists that suggest classes, pair employees with mentors, provide suggestions for reading, recommend courses, and identify conferences to help employees explore and get closer to achieving their goals. To take this concept further, AI can be leveraged as a concierge service when paired with human managers to coach, mentor, and guide employees to the next level in their career journeys.
• Transition/Separate: On the transition and separation front, AI is being used to maintain positive relationships and minimize disruption during employee transitions.

Conclusion
In the quest to retain employees, building positive interactions is a day-to-day approach. By focusing on human-centered technology and infusing AI into HR, companies can significantly enhance EX. Employee loyalty is earned across each stage of the experience. This holistic approach not only helps attract and retain top talent but also ensures a more engaged, satisfied, and productive workforce. In the face of a looming talent shortage, prioritizing EX is not just a strategic advantage but a necessity for future success.

Meet Samantha Ziegel, Solutions Architect, Salesforce 

With Perficient’s Growth for Everyone initiative, we’re enabling colleague career development while celebrating the individual and collective success of our people. As a strong leader in the Salesforce Business Unit (BU) Samantha Ziegel is paving the way for exponential growth in Perficient’s Salesforce Data Cloud and Einstein AI offerings in her role as a solutions architect. 

She embraces the study and adoption of AI tools within the Salesforce ecosystem, while also serving as a platform lead for Perficient’s Salesforce data cloud and Einstein AI solution sets. Samantha is an active member of Perficient’s Women in Technology Employee Resource Group (ERG) and Generative AI Lab, an advocate for working moms, and a collaborative team player who drives positive change throughout Perficient and beyond.

Most recently, she was honored as a CEO Selection award winner for the 2024 Excellence Awards – Perficient’s most prestigious awards recognizing distinguished colleagues who make a difference and embrace our core values. 

Continue reading to learn more about Samantha’s unique career path, her thought leadership in the Salesforce BU and Generative AI space, and how she is paving the way for future women leaders in technology. 

Samantha’s Career Journey: A Passion for Healthcare and Technology  

As a solutions architect, Samantha plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between business needs and technical solutions. She wears many hats with her experience spanning industries and technologies. While her career journey is anything but traditional, Samantha’s unique blend of professional expertise provides the versatility and insight to effectively propel her career forward.  

Samantha began her journey in healthcare when she worked in patient care across hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, and long-term care facilities. “I have not had a straight-line career path by any means,” said Samantha. “I was exploring going into nursing, but I switched because I wanted to focus more on the business side of healthcare once I discovered that was a really exciting and challenging space to be in.” 

Driven by a strong desire to make a broad impact, Samantha pursued an undergraduate degree in public health. This enabled her to understand the intersection of healthcare, business processes, communication, and policy, gaining valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by communities and healthcare organizations.  

Transitioning From Healthcare Operations to IT Consulting  

After working in healthcare operations, sales, and marketing for several years, in 2012, Samantha made the leap to technology. With the prevalence of technology, the ever-changing landscape intrigued her. She saw it as an opportunity to consistently challenge herself by learning new concepts. 

Recognizing the growing importance of technology, she attended Emory University in 2019 and graduated with a master’s degree in informatics. Her continued educational growth better equipped her with the technical and business process skills necessary to be the epitome “translator” between business and technology.  

With a decade of experience in healthcare IT, Samantha’s deep understanding of the clinical and business aspects of healthcare, combined with her technical expertise, makes her an asset in the IT consulting industry. 

Building Future Leaders Through Women in Technology 

Samantha’s drive to build relationships and discover more about technology led her to join Women in Technology (WiT), a large organization in Atlanta, Georgia with great support programs for networking with like-minded professionals.

She challenged herself to understand three key questions:  

• What does it take to be successful?
• What does success look like?
• What are the different options for career pathing?

“I started volunteering with Women in Technology to help build programs for grade school, high school, and college students, specifically for young women considering getting into STEM,” said Samantha. “I helped lead some efforts there, including hosting and planning events and sitting on panels. Through that process, I started developing a network of women in tech, and I saw women in leadership roles that were not always previously visible.” 

In 2019, in relocating from Georgia to Illinois, Samantha joined Perficient as a Senior Business Consultant working remotely for Adobe out of the Ohio BU. She began volunteering with Perficient’s Women in Technology ERG and saw a unique space to contribute to a topic that she is passionate about, supporting working moms.  

“There are different needs at every stage of parenthood, whether it’s physical or emotional support or career advice.” said Samantha. “You’re going to need to be present as a working parent in different ways, and it’s nice to have leaders who can empathize with the unknown and trust that you understand what’s expected of you at work. Sometimes that is not clear at every organization, but at Perficient, it’s very clear.” 

READ MORE: Hear More from Samantha by Checking Out Her Recent Perficient Blogs  

Exploring Life at Perficient and the Salesforce BU  

Through her involvement in Perficient’s Women in Technology ERG, and desire to continue learning, Samantha made connections and started exploring additional opportunities at Perficient. After working on a Salesforce project, she saw an opportunity to grow and made the transition from the Ohio BU working with the Adobe platform to the Salesforce BU in January 2022. 

“Over the course of a few months, I was able to transition to the Salesforce BU just before welcoming our second child,” said Samantha. “I chose to move to the Salesforce BU primarily because of the leaders and the team members. I’ve always been interested in learning the Salesforce technology. My varied background in working with different technical stacks, I was confident in transitioning to learn a new platform and talk with our developers about realistic solutions.” 

She was promoted from Senior Business Consultant to Lead Business Consultant in 2023. Soon, she also raised her hand to spearhead the development of go-to-market materials for the sales and delivery teams supporting and selling Salesforce products, specifically Data Cloud and Einstein AI. As a Platform Lead for Perficient’s Data Cloud and Einstein AI team, Samantha collaborates closely with teams across the company to develop effective go-to-market sales materials and ensure that Perficient is consistently utilizing best practices for Salesforce’s innovative data and AI products.  

In April 2024, she formally transitioned into her current role as a Solutions Architect (SA), where she guides clients through designing and implementing tailored technology solutions that align with their specific business needs. As an SA, she translates business requirements to technical speak, and then into terms that resonate with a broader audience. Whether it is an end user, a product owner on the client side, or an executive stakeholder, Samantha ensures that all business goals and organizational requirements are met. 

“What keeps me at Perficient is the people and the leadership,” said Samantha. “Specifically in our Salesforce practice, we have many female leaders who are visible, which is outstanding. Many of our leaders are working parents, enabling me to feel fully supported as a working mom. I have the autonomy to get my work done while balancing work and life accordingly.” 

Read More: Discover The Latest News from Our Salesforce Business Unit 

Taking Charge: Innovation in AI and Cyber Security  

With a keen interest in AI dating back to her master’s program at Emory University, Samantha has been at the forefront of AI innovation since the emergence of generative AI tools. “When ChatGPT opened up Generative AI to the masses in 2022, it really caught my attention,” said Samantha. “I am what you would call an insatiable learner. I always find myself diving into the next big technology by really understanding, “How do these cogwheels work, and how was this machine built? How are we going to implement it?”’ 

Her interest in AI has led her to join Perficient’s Generative AI Innovation Group, where she collaborated with other team members to understand more about AI and Perficient’s strategic position on this technology. Samantha plays a crucial role in spearheading and writing our corporate AI policy, developing new processes, and supporting the Generative AI Innovation Lab.  

Additionally, she serves as an AI Steering Committee Representative, ensuring that all AI projects align with Perficient’s standards and ethical guidelines. “I feel like Perficient is positioning the company really well to play responsibly with an innovative approach in the AI space,” said Samantha. “We’re starting to put these guardrails, policies, and workflows into play, and I’m excited to be a part of it.” 

Samantha’s Career Advice  

Check out Samantha’s advice on growing your career, being a working mom, and taking the initiative.  

It takes a village. Whether it’s AI, being a parent, or being a working parent, you shouldn’t have to do it alone. There’s no way you’re going to know everything, and you need to surround yourself with people who support and believe in you.  

Raise your hand early and often. When you do this and an opportunity comes up, your name is already on the roster. Don’t wait for somebody to take your hand and move you to the next level or give you the next cool thing to work on. You need to say clearly and consistently what it is you want to do, and why, to the right people and not just one time. 

Break down societal norms and change your mentality. Traditionally, women often have to prove themselves more than men. There’s still a bit of this mentality where women feel that they must prove themselves before asking for or expecting something. It’s partially in your own head. You’ve told yourself you have to prove yourself, or society has set these norms. But now is the time that these stereotypes and self-limiting beliefs are starting to break down, and we can start to change our mindset. This can apply both at home and at work. Feeling like your duties as a working mom are unbalanced with your partner’s? Let’s start breaking down those norms together, making way for a more balanced future for our children.  

Setting An Example for Aspiring Technologists  

Samantha’s career journey is a testament to her exceptional technical skills, unwavering passion for technology, and her commitment to driving innovation around the world. Her leadership and dedication to using new technology to solve real-world problems make her an incredible asset to Perficient, valuable and trusted team player for her colleagues, and role model for aspiring technologists globally.  

Samantha’s expertise and passion for innovation continues to shine, and her contributions will enable Perficient to forge the future ahead as a reliable digital partner. Her dedication to using strategy to streamline our processes makes a difference and serves as an inspiration to leaders around the world.  

MORE ON GROWTH FOR EVERYONE  

Perficient continually looks for ways to champion and challenge our workforce, encourage personal and professional growth, and celebrate the unique culture created by the ambitious, brilliant, people-oriented team we have cultivated. These are their stories.  

Learn more about what it’s like to work at Perficient on our Careers page. Connect with us on LinkedIn here.

Lets talk about data governance in banking and financial services, one area I have loved working in and in various areas of it … where data isn’t just data, numbers aren’t just numbers … They’re sacred artifacts that need to be protected, documented, and, of course, regulated within an inch of their lives. It’s not exactly the most glamorous part of financial services, but without solid data governance, banks would be floating in a sea of disorganized, chaotic, and potentially disastrous data mismanagement. And when we’re talking about billions of dollars in transactions, we’re not playing around.

As Bob Seiner, a renowned data governance expert, puts it, “Data governance is like oxygen. You don’t notice it until it’s missing, and by then, it’s probably too late.” If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, nothing will.

Why is Data Governance Such a Big Deal?

In the banking sector, data governance is more than just a compliance checkbox. It’s essential for survival. Banks process an astronomical amount of sensitive information daily—think trillions of transactions annually—and they need to manage that data efficiently and securely. According to the World Bank, the global financial industry processes over $5 trillion in transactions every day. That’s not the kind of volume you want slipping through the cracks.

Even a small data breach can cost banks upwards of $4.35 million on average, according to a 2022 IBM report. No one wants to be the bank that has to call its shareholders after that kind of financial disaster.

Data governance helps mitigate these risks by ensuring data is accurate, consistent, and compliant with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and Basel III. These rules are about as fun as reading tax code, but they’re crucial in ensuring customer data is protected, privacy is maintained, and banks don’t end up with regulators breathing down their necks.

Tools of the Data Governance Trade

Let’s talk about the cavalry—the tools that keep all this data governance stuff from turning into a full-blown nightmare. Thankfully, in 2024, we’re spoiled with a variety of platforms designed specifically to handle this madness.

• Collibra and Informatica
  • Collibra and Informatica are heavyweights in the data governance world, offering comprehensive suites for data cataloging, stewardship, and governance. Financial services companies like AXA and ABN AMRO rely on these tools to handle everything from compliance workflows to data lineage mapping.
• Alation and Talend
  • Alation is known for its AI-powered data cataloging and governance capabilities, while Talend excels in data integration and governance. Companies like American Express have adopted Alation’s tools to streamline their data governance operations.

The Future of Data Governance in Banking

Looking forward, the financial sector’s reliance on robust data governance is only going to increase. With the rise of AI, machine learning, and real-time data analytics, banks will need to be even more diligent in how they manage and govern their data. A recent study from IDC suggests that by 2026, 70% of financial institutions will have formalized data governance frameworks in place. That’s up from around 50% today, meaning that the laggards are starting to realize that flying by the seat of their pants just won’t cut it anymore.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, emphasized the importance of data governance in a recent shareholder letter, stating, “Data is the lifeblood of our organization. Our ability to harness, protect, and leverage it effectively will determine our success in the coming decades.”

Climate risk models are the newest elephant in the room. As banks face pressure to account for environmental factors in their risk assessments, data governance plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy and transparency of these models. According to S&P Global, nearly 60% of global banks will be embedding climate risk into their core business models by 2025.

In a world where data is king, and compliance is the watchful queen, banks are stuck playing by the rules whether they like it or not. Data governance tools are not just for keeping regulators happy, but they also give financial institutions the confidence to innovate, knowing that they’ve got their data house in order.

A recent survey by Deloitte found that 67% of banking executives believe that improving data governance is critical to their digital transformation efforts. This statistic underscores the growing recognition that effective data governance is not just about compliance, but also about enabling innovation and competitive advantage.

So, yeah… data governance might not be the flashiest part of banking, but it’s the foundation that holds everything together. And if there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that nobody wants to be the bank that ends up on the evening news because they forgot to lock the vault—whether it’s the physical one or the digital one.

Problem Statement:

Oracle Fusion Costing Distribution process will treat the Outside Processing (OSP) as ordinary items (Direct Material/Material).  If you are procuring direct items to work orders or have an outside service provided in a sub-assembly as a work order step, Oracle Cost Management solution will cost the two “items” as Direct Material given the Cost Component Mappings.  Also, if this is a standard costed assembly, OSP Portion will be shown as ordinary material at the standard cost definition of the item.  If in the beginning OSP Items are setup as regular items then identifying and reporting on OSP work and associating different costing methods can be a challenge.

There is a way to account for OSP charges separately.

Solution/Create:

• Cost Category and define the OSP items under this Cost Category.
• A new Cost element and have a new Component Group
• A new Cost Profile and associate the newly created Component Group
• Cost Profile Defaulting Rule

Results:

This approach will provide greater flexibility on setting a different cost method to OSP items.

Ability to define actual cost for OSP Items and see their variances in manufacturing as opposed to Procurement. (If the OSP is defined as standard costed item, the variance will be seen as Price Purchase Variance, if the OSP is defined as actual costed item, then the variance will be on the Work Order.  Did you know that you can define a standard cost for an item that has an Actual Costing profile!)

See the OSP Portion of the assembly cost as a separate cost element in Cost Rollup

Report and analyze OSP Cost in Work Order Cost separately

Contact

Contact Mehmet Erisen at Perficient for more information on how Perficient can help you implement Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Management solutions

www.oracle.com 

www.perficient.com

Remember the joy of opening a fresh Lego set as a kid? You had all these individual pieces, but the real magic happened when you combined them, following those picture-perfect instructions, to build something incredible. That’s the essence of Salesforce CPQ product bundles – taking individual products and services and transforming them into irresistible offerings for your customers.

Imagine this: you sell software solutions. You’ve got your core product, add-on features, and maybe some implementation services. Selling them piecemeal can feel like handing someone a box of unsorted Lego bricks – overwhelming and confusing! But what if you could package them neatly into tailored solutions? That’s where bundles come in. With Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), product bundles make it easier for businesses to package their offerings, making the sales process more efficient and customer-friendly.

But why are product bundles such a game-changer? Let’s break it down.

The Beauty of Bundling

Think of bundles as pre-designed Lego creations. Instead of forcing your customers to figure out what fits together, you present them with complete packages, making their decision process smoother and faster. In sales, clarity and ease of choice are everything. When customers can easily see what they need in a single, attractive package, they’re much more likely to buy.

Here’s why bundling with Salesforce CPQ can transform your sales strategy:

• Simplicity for Customers: No more deciphering complex price lists! Bundles offer clear choices, making it easy for customers to understand what they’re getting and how much it costs. It’s like choosing between a ‘Starter Kit’ or a ‘Pro Package’ – simple and straightforward. The buying experience is simplified, leaving no room for confusion. And when things are simple, decisions happen faster.
• Increased Deal Value: By strategically combining products and services, you naturally increase the overall value of the deal. Just like that impressive Lego castle is worth more than a pile of bricks, a well-crafted bundle entices customers to spend more by offering greater perceived value. Customers see that they’re getting more for their money, which leads to higher average deal sizes.
• Faster Sales Cycles: Less decision fatigue means quicker decisions! With pre-configured options, your sales team spends less time on configuration and more time closing deals. It’s like handing your customer the finished Lego masterpiece – they can start using your solution right away! And for businesses, speed is critical – faster sales mean more revenue in a shorter time.
• Reduced Errors: Bundling minimizes the risk of incorrect configurations or missing components. Remember the frustration of finishing a Lego set, only to discover a piece missing? Bundles eliminate that risk by ensuring all necessary elements are included. For sales teams, this translates into fewer mistakes in quotes, leading to a smoother and more accurate sales process.

Building Your Bundle Empire: A Quick Guide

So how do you create these bundles that can revolutionize your sales? Building effective Salesforce CPQ bundles requires a strategic approach. Let’s look at a step-by-step guide that’s as easy to follow as those Lego instructions:

1. Know Your Audience: What are their pain points? What solutions do they seek? Understanding your customer needs is like studying the Lego instruction booklet – it guides you toward building the right thing. If you know your customer’s specific challenges, you can create bundles that directly address those needs, making them irresistible.

2. Strategic Grouping: Combine products and services that complement each other. Think peanut butter and jelly, Batman and Robin – items that naturally go together to deliver a more holistic solution. For example, if you’re selling software, bundle the software with training and customer support services. Your customer gets a complete package without needing to make multiple decisions.

3. Pricing Power: Offer bundles at a slightly discounted price compared to purchasing items individually. This incentivizes customers to opt for the package deal, increasing your average deal size. Just like with Lego sets, buying all the pieces together is usually cheaper than buying them one by one. And customers love a good deal!

4. Flexibility is Key: While pre-configured bundles are great, allow some room for customization. Some customers might want to swap out a specific ‘Lego brick,’ so offering flexibility keeps them happy and engaged. With Salesforce CPQ, you can allow customers to add or remove certain items from a bundle while keeping the overall package intact.

5. Continuous Optimization: Don’t just set your bundles and forget about them. Monitor how well they’re performing and adjust based on customer feedback or changing market conditions. Just like how new Lego sets come out every year, your bundles need to evolve to stay relevant and effective.

The Customer Experience: Why It Matters

Now, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of your customer. Imagine they’re overwhelmed by options, trying to piece together the perfect solution. If they’re left to figure everything out on their own, they might become frustrated or give up altogether. But with a well-designed bundle, the process becomes seamless. The customer feels understood, their needs are met, and they leave with a sense of satisfaction.

This is especially important for businesses offering complex products or services. When everything is bundled into a clear, cohesive package, it reduces the mental load for customers, making the purchasing process a breeze.

The Takeaway

Salesforce CPQ product bundles are like having a secret weapon in your sales arsenal. They simplify the buying process, increase deal value, and boost efficiency. By offering pre-configured solutions that customers can easily understand, you reduce decision fatigue, speed up sales cycles, and create happier, more satisfied customers.

So, channel your inner child, embrace the power of bundling, and watch your sales soar to new heights! Just like Lego, the possibilities are endless when you have the right pieces – and with Salesforce CPQ, you can put them together in the most effective way possible.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has exploded onto the scene in most industries. And the healthcare field is no exception. Faced with growing workloads, shrinking margins and the ever-present “do more with less” mindset, many in healthcare are looking to generative AI as the next revolution in healthcare delivery, management and marketing.

We’re bullish on the concept of generative AI. But it’s important to not consider the technology as some “holy grail” or “silver bullet.” In a prescient presentation given at IBM in 1979, there was a slide that read: “A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” Any tool, no matter how powerful, is only as good, helpful and considerate as the person who wields it. And there are many considerations for AI in healthcare organizations — everything from HIPAA, PHI and PII to being mindful of the consumer experience and even finding ways to lower the risk of burnout among your organization’s providers.

We’ve broken down six of our recommendations for best practices your team should keep in mind as you determine how to incorporate AI into your organization’s operations.

Do establish an organizational AI policy

No matter if you intend it or not — no matter whether you even know it’s happening — there are almost certainly people within your healthcare organization right now who are finding ways to use AI in their tasks. From creating reports and managing data to writing messages, AI is a powerful method of taking large, unruly inputs and generating functional outputs quickly. But therein lies the danger as well as the strength.

Working with untested, unsupported tools is dangerous from the security and system liability standpoints. Without careful integration, an unmanaged AI tool could lead to serious violations regarding patient data, your organization’s internal data and other vital information. Employees who “go rogue” and start using unvetted, unmanaged AI tools can open your organization up to serious liability.

The best time for your organization to have set an AI policy was yesterday. The second-best time for it to do so is right now. This kind of policy gives you tools to safely introduce generative AI systems into your workflows. And the policy will provide guidelines to your team members about when to use — and not to use — AI in their duties and processes.

Bringing in a qualified healthcare data management team with experience in AI implementation is key. These experts will work with you to integrate AI into your processes safely and efficiently. This can help your team members can work not only smarter and faster but also safer. And an AI data management team can help ensure your implementation aligns with strict requirements from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other regulatory bodies.

Don’t just use any AI system

Not all AI systems are created equal. And by the very nature of AI and machine learning (ML), none of them evolve equally either. So AI is very much a tool and solution that requires a customized, thoughtful implementation in order to be successful.

If your team members just select a generative AI system and expect an easy plug-and-play experience, that’s a recipe for varying levels of disaster — from bad user experiences up to and including potential liability due to regulatory noncompliance. Even firms who know AI and know it well don’t always know what it takes to implement AI solutions in the healthcare industry. So it pays to work with experts in both AI and healthcare.

When you establish an AI policy and then work with your generative AI partner to source and implement the system carefully, you minimize your organization’s risk for these negative — and potentially costly —experiences.

Do get input on where generative AI can lighten the load

It’s no secret that healthcare organizations took a substantial hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. And they’re still recovering, having to do more work with fewer people and less resources. We’re continuing to see recruitment and retention as major issues for our clients. Organizations are having trouble aligning workloads to their headcounts.

This is one of the key ways generative AI can help you. From lessening the burden on your call centers to helping providers shoulder the burden of charting and responding to patients notes in Epic and other EHRs, generative AI works best when it’s used to speed and streamline large-scale, repetitive tasks. But it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

We recommend putting together a focus group of representative users — not just “power users” or people in your organization who are already using generative AI. Seek insights from department heads, providers, administration and leadership about where AI solutions could make their everyday tasks easier.

We also recommend establishing an AI committee to work cross-functionally with your departments. Ideally, this committee would include representatives from your IT and legal departments. This will help you accomplish several key tasks:

• Consolidate requests for AI implementation to avoid duplicating work
• Determine the feasibility of various requests to use AI tools and whether they comply with HIPAA and other regulations
• Help lead the charge for departments and leaders who may be resistant to AI usage
• Find new ways to incorporate AI that can benefit multiple departments (e.g., if it worked over here, could it work similarly over there?)

Don’t think of AI as the one-stop shop for your content strategy and content marketing

We’ve heard this from clients who are daunted by mountains of content work before them: “We’ll just farm that out to an AI.” It seems like the easy answer for content concerns. Generative AI can write (sort of), and people barely read healthcare content anyway, right?

It’s true that most healthcare consumers aren’t reading every letter, word and comma your content team writes. But they do skim and scan for what they’re interested in. And what they’re interested in is exactly the material generative AI is terrible at creating for you. Say it with us: “Generative” does not equal “creative.”

Your healthcare content depends on showing consumers what makes your organization special — the differentiators that set you apart from your competitors. And generative AI can’t account for those. It was trained in the Wild West of the internet — from Reddit and X (the site formerly known as Twitter) to blogs, personal websites and more. All that data the large-language models (LLMs) that power generative AI programs have crawled means they can write based on patterns of what words are likely to come next in a given phrase. But the AI doesn’t know and can’t comprehend your value proposition, because that’s unique to your organization. And it can’t speak to your healthcare personas, their unique journeys or their distinct concerns and objections.

And, in a key consideration for healthcare especially, AI cannot write with empathy for the healthcare consumer’s journey. It can fake empathy — and it’s better at faking it than ever before. But, at the end of the day, generative AI programs are still just programs. They can’t understand emotion and, therefore, can’t write with an understanding of what your consumer is feeling. Good healthcare content should come across as caring, supportive, knowledgeable and friendly — traits your organization should embody. But AI-generated content can come across as cold and distant. And that means your potential patients or members can erroneously think your organization is cold and distant too.

Generative AI can help if you need to explain a pancreaticoduodenectomy or to describe the general process of a coronary revascularization. What it can’t do is explain why consumers should trust your team to help them if they need these procedures. It’s important to use the tool for what it’s good at, not try to force it to do something it can’t — or shouldn’t — do.

Do use AI to improve your search and chatbot interactions

Site search used to be almost an afterthought for most digital implementations. The idea was that people got where they needed to be from Google, Bing or other search engines and then would find their own ways from there. But as more consumers expect a robust search tool as table stakes (blame the Amazon effect!), search has grown ever more important in the digital experience.

Generative AI is delivering strong semantic and conversational search experiences that you can integrate into your site search. This is leading to more relevant search experiences and better user engagement for clients who make these investments in their search solutions.

Generative AI is also elevating chatbots — once limited to a handful of scripted interactions — to the level of true conversational assistants. AI-powered chatbots, when created and implemented thoughtfully as part of a consumer-centric experience, can adapt to unpredictable user queries and needs on the fly.

We strongly recommend including user testing when implementing or upgrading your AI-powered search or chatbot solutions. Get feedback from your actual users (or users in your desired demographics) to find what’s working, what’s not working and how users would respond to potential improvements.

Do choose the right generative AI partner for your organization

The potential of generative AI is real. But so are its perils. You need the right partner to help you both formulate your organization’s strategy for how to use AI and then implement that strategy.

Perficient’s experts have helped lead the charge in the AI transformation, particularly within the healthcare space. We’ve worked with clients across the country and around the globe on thoughtful, strategic AI implementations. Generative AI is playing an important role in the strategies we’re offering for clients in data service, modernization and business transformation — key pillars of our practice and for your healthcare organization.

What AI looks like now in the realm of healthcare won’t be what it looks like in a year, five years or 10 years. But AI is here to stay. We can help you work through the considerations, goals, KPIs and implementation process. And we’ll be here to help you create a strategy that will grow and mature with your organization over the long haul.

We’d love to talk with you about your AI questions, challenges, concerns and goals. Contact us to learn more about our healthcare-focused generative AI solutions.

This post is the third in a series of four about estimating project hours. Part 1: Sandbagging & Lowballing Part 2: Dependencies & Creep Part 3: Assumptions & Uncertainty Coming Soon: Part 4: The Emotional Conclusion

In this third installment of my blog series on project estimates, let’s dive headfirst into the murky waters of assumptions and uncertainty! Think of these as the gremlins of project planning – they are full of secrets and laugh along the way as they trip you up. If you’ve read my other blog posts, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of transparency. Those gremlins are hiding behind your assumptions, and if you don’t shine a spotlight in the shadows of uncertainty you’ll have some BIG holes in your project plan.

Making a Fool Out of You & Me – Assumptions

Identifying and removing assumptions should be a priority for all project planners. Let’s face it, if you are running on assumptions, then you are flying blind. And if you allow those assumptions to remain, then your whole project is going to go into a tailspin. Project leadership is not a place for stunt pilots!

Unresolved assumptions can take many forms. You often notice them when someone seeks clarity but doesn’t receive a clear answer. “We’ll figure it out later” can lead to a crash landing for your project estimate. Take time to clearly outline what’s out of scope in the SOW. Clients may have unspoken expectations around best practices, while agencies focus on budget constraints. Be explicit about what’s not included.

With assumptions in place, your project plan will be incomplete. Your project estimates will be ripped apart. So how do you avoid this turbulence? Ensure you map out your flight plan! Use a “discovery phase” or a “sprint zero” to make sure you cover details early before the project implementation begins. During these planning sessions, your team and the client can get a clearer view of the skies.

The Uncertainty Paradox

Like the fate of Schrödinger’s cat, certainty in project management and estimation is elusive. If you don’t manage uncertainty, you might get scratched!

After your team provides their best estimates, you often hear, “They’ll never go for that.” Then you reduce the cost before showing it to the client. Congratulations! Now you’re negotiating with yourself – cutting scope or profit based on a gut feeling. Your uncertainty limits the project before the client even sees it.

Negotiations with the client can also add a layer of uncertainty. The agency gives an initial estimate, but the client has their own view of the final outcome. The usual approach of starting high, countering low, and meeting in the middle may seem straightforward, but it often undermines the project goals because it is based more on financial desires than on clearing up uncertainty in the project. Once the contract is signed, other choices arise and the limited budget weighs heavily. Schrödinger’s cat is still purring, and the outcome remains unknown.

Executive Summary

Executives love to start project requests and then pull a disappearing act until it’s time for final approvals. When you hand them the packet, they’ll flip right to the end to check the bottom line – skipping that executive summary conveniently placed on the first page. It wasn’t added as a diversion tactic! Yes, their time is valuable, but an executive’s decision to skip the details comes at a cost.

Savvy business leaders know how to interpret estimates. The best ones coach their teams to expect overages – there is no crystal ball for the real world. Ideally, you’d include contingency lines for those unknown-unknowns, but if the bottom line is shown without contingency reflected clearly, the busy exec will be left with assumptions.

Some business leaders push for “not to exceed” contracts to avoid surprises. But imagine the shell game the agency has to play when the funds run out. The team will scramble to figure out how to balance quality with on-time delivery and prevent the project from losing money. There’s no fluffy rabbit to be pulled from that hat!

The winning strategy is to keep it clear and concise. Transparency is best. Show the bottom line, add a contingency allowance, and note the change management process for when the project unexpectedly shifts.

Conclusion

Don’t let the gremlins of project estimation hide behind your assumptions. Kick off with a discovery phase to remove uncertainty, include what’s out of scope, and ensure everyone knows how contingency is being handled. Your SOW should be backed by a change management process because even the best-laid plans can change. And remember, executives are pressed for time, so make it easy for them to review what their team is signing up for!

……

If you are looking for a partner who strives to remove assumptions for the sake of clarity, reach out to your Perficient account manager or use our contact form to begin a conversation.

This post is the third in a series of four about estimating project hours. Part 1: Sandbagging & Lowballing Part 2: Dependencies & Creep Part 3: Assumptions & Uncertainty Coming Soon: Part 4: The Emotional Conclusion

APIs, or application programming interfaces, are essential to the dynamic world of digital transformation because they allow companies to communicate quickly and efficiently with their data and services. Consequently, effective management is essential to ensure these APIs function correctly, stay safe, and provide the desired benefits. This is where Google Cloud’s top-tier API management product, Apigee, comes into play.

What is Apigee?

Apigee is a great platform for companies that want to manage their APIs effectively. It really simplifies the whole process of creating, growing, securing, and implementing APIs, which makes things a lot easier for developers. One thing that stands out about Apigee is its flexibility; it can handle both external APIs that third-party partners can access and internal APIs used within the company. This makes Apigee a great option for businesses of all sizes. Moreover, its versatility is a significant benefit for those looking to simplify their API management. It also integrates nicely with various security layers, like Nginx, which provides an important layer of authentication between Apigee and the backend. Because of this adaptability, Apigee enhances security and allows for smooth integration across different systems, making it a reliable choice for managing APIs.

Core Features of Apigee

1. API Design and Development

Primarily, Apigee offers a unique suite of tools for developing and designing APIs. You can define API endpoints, maintain API specifications, and create and modify API proxies by using the Open API standard. Consequently, it becomes easier to design functional and compliant APIs with industry standards. Furthermore, this capability streamlines the development process and ensures that the APIs meet regulatory requirements. Thus, developers can focus on innovation while maintaining a strong foundation of compliance and functionality. Below is a flow diagram related to API Design and Development with Apigee:

2. Security and Authentication

Any API management system must prioritize security, and Apigee leads the field in this regard. It provides security features such as OAuth 2.0, JWT (JSON Web Token) validation, API key validation, and IP validation. By limiting access to your APIs to authorized users, these capabilities help safeguard sensitive data from unwanted access.

3. Traffic Management

With capabilities like rate limitation, quota management, and traffic shaping, Apigee enables you to optimize and control API traffic. This helps proper usage and maintains consistent performance even under high traffic conditions.

4. Analytics and Monitoring

You can access analytics and monitoring capabilities with Apigee, which offers insights into API usage and performance. You can track response times, error rates, and request volumes, enabling you to make data-driven decisions and quickly address any issues that arise.

5. Developer Portal

Apigee includes a customizable developer portal where API users can browse documentation, test APIs, and get API keys. This portal builds a community around your APIs and improves the developer experience.

6. Versioning and Lifecycle Management

Keeping an API’s versions separate is essential to preserving backward compatibility and allowing it to change with time. Apigee offers lifecycle management and versioning solutions for APIs, facilitating a seamless upgrade or downgrade process.

7. Integration and Extensibility

Apigee supports integration with various third-party services and tools, including CI/CD pipelines, monitoring tools, and identity providers. Its extensibility through APIs and custom policies allows you to tailor the platform to meet your specific needs.

8. Debug Session

Moreover, Apigee offers a debug session feature that helps troubleshoot and resolve issues by providing a real-time view of API traffic and interactions. This feature is crucial for identifying and fixing problems and is essential during the development and testing phases. In addition, this feature helps ensure that any issues are identified early on; consequently, it enhances the overall quality of the final product.

9. Alerts:

Furthermore, you can easily set up alerts within Apigee to notify you of critical issues related to performance and security threats. It is crucial to understand that both types of threats affect system reliability and can lead to significant downtime; addressing them promptly is essential for maintaining optimal performance.

10. Product Onboarding for Different Clients

Apigee supports product onboarding, allowing you to manage and customize API access and resources for different clients. This feature is essential for handling diverse client needs and ensuring each client has the appropriate level of access.

11. Threat Protection

Apigee provides threat protection mechanisms to ensure that your APIs can handle concurrent requests efficiently without performance degradation. This feature helps in maintaining API stability under high load conditions.

12. Shared Flows

Apigee allows you to create and reuse shared flows, which are common sets of policies and configurations applied across multiple API proxies. This feature promotes consistency and reduces redundancy in API management.

Benefits of Using Apigee

1. Enhanced Security

In summary, Apigee’s comprehensive security features help protect your APIs from potential threats and ensure that only authorized users can access your services.

2. Improved Performance

Moreover, with features like traffic management and caching, Apigee helps optimize API performance, providing a better user experience while reducing the load on your backend systems.

3. Better Visibility

Apigee’s analytics and monitoring tools give valuable insights into API usage and performance, helping you identify trends, diagnose issues, and make informed decisions.

4. Streamlined API Management

Apigee’s unified platform simplifies the management of APIs, from design and development to deployment and monitoring, saving time and reducing complexity.

5. Scalability

Finally, Apigee is designed to handle APIs at scale, making it suitable for both small projects and large enterprise environments.

Getting Started with Apigee

To get started with Apigee, follow these steps:

1. Sign Up for Apigee

Visit the Google Cloud website and sign up for an Apigee account. Based on your needs, you can choose from different pricing plans.

2. Design Your API

Use Apigee’s tools to design your API, define endpoints, and set up API proxies.

3. Secure Your API

Implement security policies and authentication mechanisms to protect your API.

4. Deploy and Monitor

Deploy your API to Apigee and use the analytics and monitoring tools to track its performance.

5. Engage Developers

Set up your developer portal to provide documentation and resources for API consumers.

In a world where APIs are central to digital innovation and business operations, having a powerful API management platform like Apigee can make a significant difference. With its rich feature set and comprehensive tools, Apigee helps organizations design, secure, and manage APIs effectively, ensuring optimal performance and value. Whether you’re just starting with APIs or, conversely, looking to enhance your existing API management practices, Apigee offers a variety of capabilities. Furthermore, it provides the flexibility necessary to thrive in today’s highly competitive landscape.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficient procurement processes are essential for maintaining a competitive edge. Organizations must manage a myriad of products and services, ensuring that they are sourced, purchased, and delivered efficiently. Oracle Product Data Hub (PDH) Cloud and Oracle Procurement Cloud are two powerful tools that facilitate this process. A critical component of this integration is item classification, which profoundly impacts procurement activities. In this blog, we will explore the impact of item classification in Oracle PDH Cloud on Oracle Procurement Cloud, along with practical examples.

Understanding Item Classification in Oracle PDH Cloud

Oracle PDH Cloud is a comprehensive product information management solution that serves as a central repository for all product data. One of its key features is item classification, which allows organizations to categorize items based on various attributes such as type, usage, and specific characteristics. This classification system helps in organizing, tracking, and managing products more effectively across the enterprise.

Item classes in Oracle PDH Cloud can be defined using multiple criteria, such as:

• Product Type: Finished goods, raw materials, components, etc.
• Usage: Consumables, repairable items, capital goods, etc.
• Industry-specific Attributes: Chemicals, electronics, pharmaceuticals, etc.

By leveraging these item classes, businesses can ensure consistent and accurate classification of all items, which is critical for effective procurement management.

Impact of Item Classification on Oracle Procurement Cloud

Oracle Procurement Cloud leverages the data provided by Oracle PDH Cloud to enhance procurement processes. The classification of items plays a crucial role in several aspects of procurement:

Streamlined Supplier Management:

• Proper item classification enables procurement teams to categorize suppliers based on the types of products they provide. This facilitates more targeted supplier management and helps in establishing specialized supplier relationships.
• Example: A manufacturing company classifies its items into raw materials, spare parts, and office supplies. Suppliers of critical raw materials are managed with rigorous quality checks and regular performance reviews, while suppliers of office supplies are evaluated based on cost-effectiveness and timely delivery.

Efficient Sourcing and Bidding:

• Item classification helps in the efficient sourcing of products. By categorizing items, procurement teams can develop tailored sourcing strategies for each class of items.
• Example: An electronics company classifies items into components, finished products, and packaging materials. When sourcing microchips (a component), the company invites bids from specialized suppliers with expertise in semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring competitive pricing and high-quality standards.

Optimized Purchase Order Management:

• Accurate item classification ensures that purchase orders are managed more efficiently. Procurement teams can create purchase orders based on specific item classes, improving order accuracy and fulfillment.
• Example: A retail company classifies its inventory into seasonal items, regular stock, and promotional goods. During the holiday season, purchase orders for seasonal items are prioritized to ensure timely stock availability, while regular stock orders are managed on a rolling basis.

Improved Contract Management:

• With clear item classification, procurement teams can develop and manage contracts that are specific to different classes of items. This allows for more detailed contract terms and conditions, tailored to the unique requirements of each item class.
• Example: A pharmaceutical company classifies its items into active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), excipients, and packaging materials. Contracts for APIs include strict quality control measures and compliance with regulatory standards, while contracts for packaging materials focus on sustainability and cost-efficiency.

Enhanced Spend Analysis and Reporting:

• Item classification provides a structured way to analyze procurement spend. By categorizing items, procurement teams can gain deeper insights into spending patterns, identifying opportunities for cost savings and strategic sourcing.
• Example: A food and beverage company classifies its items into perishable goods, non-perishable goods, and packaging. Spend analysis reveals that packaging costs have increased significantly, prompting the procurement team to negotiate better terms with suppliers or seek alternative packaging solutions.

Compliance and Risk Management:

• Certain industries require strict compliance with regulatory standards. Item classification helps ensure that procurement processes adhere to these standards.
• Example: A chemical manufacturing company classifies items based on regulatory requirements, such as hazardous chemicals, non-hazardous chemicals, and safety equipment. Procurement processes for hazardous chemicals include adherence to safety regulations, proper documentation, and special handling procedures.

Integrating Oracle PDH Cloud with Oracle Procurement Cloud

The seamless integration between Oracle PDH Cloud and Oracle Procurement Cloud is essential for maximizing the benefits of item classification. This integration ensures:

• Data Consistency: Item classification data is consistently shared between the two systems, eliminating discrepancies and ensuring a unified view of procurement data.
• Real-time Updates: Any changes in item classification in Oracle PDH Cloud are automatically reflected in Oracle Procurement Cloud, ensuring that procurement processes are always based on the most current data.
• Scalability: As businesses grow and evolve, the integrated system can scale accordingly, accommodating new item classes and changing procurement needs.

Conclusion

Item classification in Oracle PDH Cloud is a powerful tool that significantly enhances the capabilities of Oracle Procurement Cloud. By categorizing items based on various attributes, businesses can achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and control in their procurement processes. The integration of these two systems ensures that procurement activities are streamlined, compliant, and scalable, ultimately leading to improved operational performance and cost savings.

As organizations navigate the complexities of modern supply chains, leveraging the power of item classification and integrated procurement management systems will be a key differentiator in achieving operational excellence and competitive advantage.

September marked Hunger Action Month (HAM), a time to raise awareness and take action to end hunger. At Perficient India, we took this opportunity to contribute to a cause close to our hearts. The Bangalore team came together in an initiative driven by our Employee Resource Group (ERG), collecting and donating an incredible 1,289.7 pounds of groceries to Ashirwad Sevashram, a home for children in need.

Selfless acts by colleagues

Our efforts were not just about delivering resources but about making a meaningful connection with the children. As we handed over the groceries and snacks, their smiles lit up the room. These children, so full of joy and gratitude, expressed their thanks to us and the higher powers they believe in.  They offered prayers, before enjoying their snacks.

Perficient colleagues united with great enthusiasm to load the vehicle with the collected groceries, ensuring every item was carefully handled and accounted for. They went beyond just collecting—offering their helping hands to organize and track all the donations, ensuring everything reached its intended destination. Their commitment to seeing the entire process through, from collection to delivery, showcased the dedication and teamwork that Perficient stands for.

Moments of joy

The day was filled with moments of pure joy. After having their snacks, the kids took out a speaker and played their favourite songs. In no time, we found ourselves dancing alongside them matching their energy and enthusiasm. The air was filled with laughter and happiness. These bright young souls even took time to share their stories with us, and we, in turn, listened, encouraged, and celebrated their dreams.

It was a day to remember—a day that showed us the true spirit of giving. Being able to share these moments with the children of Ashirwad Sevashram made us all proud to be part of Perficient. We realized that the fight against food insecurity does not just end in September. No matter the time of year, any donation, volunteer effort, and act of kindness can impact lives.

We didn’t just leave behind groceries that day, we left behind smiles and memories that will stay with us for a long time. Perficient’s commitment to community and impactful actions is a reminder of how we, together, can make a difference. We are proud to stand by this mission, knowing that with every small step, we are helping build a brighter future.

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