It’s December and for many UK Oracle users that means one thing – the annual UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) Conference which was held, once more, in Birmingham at the ICC.
The event draws a wide range of attendees as it covers the whole spectrum of Oracle users under the heading of Apps, Tech and JDE, and really shows off the immense breadth of the Oracle portfolio.
As ever, the event ran exceptionally smoothly due to the experienced UKOUG events team. They’re always helpful and smiling, on what is undoubtedly a busy day, and it’s a pleasure to work with them.
I had the pleasure of chairing several of the Customer Experience (CX) seminars, and for me they were the highlights of the event. Fred Wilkinson of BPI OnDemand kicked things off in style with a typically mind-bending view of the future of CX which really served to get our brains in gear.
During the day it was also great to hear the stories of TH March‘s journey from traditional to digital sales, told eloquently by their Managing Director, Neil McFarlane. One of the benefits of the impartial nature of the UKOUG events is that no one is afraid to tell the audience about the challenges they faced in implementing some of the Oracle products, and it was equally pleasing to hear how those problems were overcome. It’s a more realistic and ultimately more useful set of insights based on real-life experience that you can’t get from a brochure or a sales presentation.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the story of Nuvias presented by Alex Love of Enigen. It was great to see a multi-pillar transformation, with Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Cloud at the heart of that.
My day was rounded off with a wonderful hands-on demonstration of CX Journey Mapping in action presented by Oracle’s Richard Spearman. It really brought to life how to get stakeholders together to consider businesses activities from their customers point of view, and how to develop innovative and potentially transformational solutions through Oracle technology.
The hospitality was wonderful and it was great to see old and new faces at the CX community lunch, and the APPS community drinks after the show. My only sadness was that this year I could only make it for one day of the event.
Overall the show is a timely reminder of how incredibly strong the Oracle user community is, with excellent support from partners and Oracle themselves. As the journey to Cloud continues, it is clear that the UKOUG will remain a critical link between customers, partners and vendors that will bring success to organisations for years. I am proud to be a part of it.
“A Visit to UKOUG APPS17” was written by Walpole Partnership’s Managing Director, Andy Pieroux.
