Oracle partner gets multimillion top-up after Edinburgh Uni disaster
- Reference: 1707223574
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/02/06/oracle_partner_gets_35_million/
- Source link:
The additional contractual fee takes the total contract value to £37 million ($46.4 million) on a deal originally signed for £25 million ($31.3 million). The Register [1]reported last year that the contract value had risen by £8 million ($10 million) to account for "changes in requirements and additional work."
According to a procurement document published this week, the university needed more changes than it thought. More were "necessary and largely a result of additional requirements and internal requirements changes," [2]the document said .
[3]
It appears as though the new system, Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud, is taking a bit of time to bed in. In May last year, the university's academic representative body issued a statement of [4]no confidence in the institution over its disastrous enterprise software migration, which left research students and suppliers unpaid.
[5]
[6]
The senate of the Scottish institution – whose alumni include Charles Darwin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Alexander Graham Bell – said at the time that management had "yet to answer vital questions about the payment backlog resulting from the implementation."
According to documents seen by The Register , the senate said: "These are elementary questions of project management, which should be able to be answered simply, rapidly and factually. If the answer is not known, that is a scandalous failure of management; if the answer is known and is being withheld, that is a scandal of a different sort."
[7]
The most recent procurement documents said Inoapps is supporting the "design of the university's transformed business processes, enabled by the technical solution using the Oracle SaaS platform."
[8]Academics have 'no confidence' in Edinburgh University's response to its Oracle disaster
[9]Edinburgh Uni finds extra £8M for vendors after troubled ERP go-live
[10]Whether to move off Oracle is the $100M+ question for Europe's largest public body
[11]Leaked email: Unit4 ERP system leaves some school staff with 'nil pay'
The university said "another contractor would not have access to the Inoapps proprietary methodology for design and implementation" and that "disclosure of the methodology or technical products from that approach to a third party would be a breach of confidentiality. As such a change of contractor cannot be made for these technical reasons."
In addition, "any change in contractor would also cause significant disruption, duplication of internal and external costs and also add significant inconvenience and complexity in support arrangements post implementation," the procurement documents said.
"Additional requirements and internal requirements changes" is not a good look for an ERP project first announced in June 2019, when Oracle said the university was moving to the cloud-based Fusion platform.
HR processes went live for all staff in November 2020, while payroll and time sheets launched April 2022. In August 2022, the People and Money system went live.
How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu [12]READ MORE
In the university's [13]annual report [PDF] from December last year, Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor, admitted the ERP rollout "caused disruption to students, staff and suppliers."
"We are acutely aware of the impact this has had and we have introduced improvements, additional training and support as part of our robust response. An external review has been completed to highlight what lessons we can learn: this will help to inform future strategic change projects," he said. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/edinburgh_uni_finds_extra_8m/
[2] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/003657-2024
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZcJlu17pPAZMXQUlFYV6FQAAAcE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/edinburgh_uni_senate_report/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZcJlu17pPAZMXQUlFYV6FQAAAcE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZcJlu17pPAZMXQUlFYV6FQAAAcE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZcJlu17pPAZMXQUlFYV6FQAAAcE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/edinburgh_uni_senate_report/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/edinburgh_uni_finds_extra_8m/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/05/oracle_birmingham_chaos/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/30/surrey_county_council_new_unit4/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/11/fujitsu_public_procurement/
[13] https://www.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/files/uoe_annual_accounts_2023.pdf
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"It appears as though the new system, Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud, is taking a bit of time to bed in"
That seems to be a very polite way of saying that everything is still in Oracle clusterfuck mode. I hope that other universities across the planet take note of what is going on at Edinburgh University.
Sometimes, you should listen to your supplier
Well, I did my time there and can luckily say it was all fine when I left! Thankfully I was out before the issues and the bloodletting/blamestorming started, but I'd guess it was a combination of:
- Not following "Adopt, not Adapt"
UoE, like every other ERP customer I've ever met, are a unique special flower, whose internal processes can't possibly follow the industry-leading defaults supplied by Oracle, Workday, SAP, etc. or the advice of their chosen SI, who do actually have their best interests at heart. They say they're going to adopt, but then when you get down to it, they want every process changed in a myriad of ways, all of which add config time, development, testing and risk.
- Not planning their Data Migration properly
Generally, ERP customers don't allow enough time to develop their migration routines, so they require a system to be built in a certain way, using certain data, but then can't supply that data, or in that format. Customers often keep ownership of the DM part of the project. The SI builds what they've asked for and keeps asking if they're on track with DM. The client keeps saying yes, but it's only when UAT or Prod cutover goes pear-shaped that the client admits they never passed testing, or had to truncate it, & didn't have enough staff/time to sort it properly. By then, they're tied into go-live timelines with major implications and the SI helps them crowbar it in, knowing it'll probably be a nightmare. Added to which, HE legacy systems are always disparate aging bits of kit held together by bits of string and a single overworked person owning critical pieces, who can't/won't delivery what's needed in time.
- Academics treat being a manager like it's a waste of their time
Every HE institution has a Corporate Admin function that is under-resourced and under-appreciated, trying to run the place like a viable enterprise, while the academic departments and senior management are all led by professors who would rather be doing research and treat submitting & approving timesheets, expense claims, leave requests, performance reviews, etc. as a damned embuggerance that someone else should do for them, or should just magically happen. Head of Dept posts are generally done on a buggins' turn system by each dept's senior lecturers as a secondary role to teaching/research and a stepping stone to a more senior academic role. Actually being an effective administrator or decision-maker is not a qualification for the role. Try designing a system where there is a rigid hierarchy that must be followed at all costs, but most layers of management refuse to check their emails or log in to a system more than once a month, if you're lucky and willfully avoid learning how to do something basic, as their precious academic knowledge might be diluted in some way by the effort.
Bitter? no, not me...
(Anon as they'd recognise my name and I might have to go back!)
Re: Sometimes, you should listen to your supplier
When the software can't properly handle a user pressing the back button in a browser, it says to me that the biggest problem isn't the university not adapting to processes, but the software being badly written and utterly awful to use.
I no apps
I mean, seriously? They bought a system from a company whose name is a truncation of "I no apps"?
Wow! That's like giving all your money to someone called 'Bank Man fried' or 'Made Off'.
Oh.
And now they complain that they have engineered themselves into a 'well this is such a specific system that only this one company can operate and knows how it works, so we really can't go with anyone else' situation. Jut wondering whether anyone with an MBA was involved in the design or implementation. The FT (paywall, sorry, I bought the print version on Monday) recently published an article about 'peak MBA' noting that companies in the FTSE run by managers with an MBA perform worse in the long term than ones with people who understand the business they are in . MBAs tend to emphasise extracting* money over long term stability and often do rather better financially than the companies they manage.
* (initially a typo autocorrected to "extra sting", not sure which I prefer.)
It’s a combination.
Of Birmingham City Council and Surrey County Council.