background
For the past 11 years since 2008, our ERP system and SAP B-one + SAP B-one auxiliary system have been our company's business support tools for managing and controlling business affairs.
The maintenance of this system has always been undertaken by a specific employee of our company. Considering the special value of this employee, even after he returned to his place of residence for personal reasons, we still signed a part-time employment contract with him.
The contract stipulated that the company would provide 3,000 yuan per month as compensation, hoping that the employee would continue to be responsible for the maintenance of the company's ERP system through remote control tools. He agreed.
However, after four years of cooperation, the employee proposed increasing the annual maintenance fee from 36,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. If this trend continues , the maintenance and development of this system will become a bottomless pit for us, as we will be completely dependent on this employee for its upkeep. Therefore, we are looking for an alternative to this support system to avoid relying on a specific person or team again.
Our budget is 150,000 per year. The goal is to seek ERP rental products or services to save on maintenance costs.
Looking for product suppliers to replace our existing ERP system.
We initially contacted SAP to outline our needs—to upgrade our ERP system. SAP's business representative recommended SAP by Design. After comparing the system 's functionality with our existing ERP system, we discovered several weaknesses.
First, its deployment cost alone exceeded RMB 650,000 . We also found that the system 's characteristics in the manufacturing field are relatively weak compared to our existing systems. We even learned that SAP had long since stopped developing and updating SAP Bydesign.
Therefore, we needed to continue searching for other ERP product vendors at the same level as By Design . We then discovered Oracle's NetSuite, a cloud-based ERP and e-commerce service product that requires no maintenance and is always up-to- date .
We collected a lot of information about NetSuite's modules and functions. After initial research, we found that this system perfectly suited our business needs. We decided to contact Oracle. We left a message on their website expressing our interest in using their cloud-based ERP product to replace our current SAP system , and provided our contact information.
About a week later, in the last week of May or the first week of June , we received a phone call from Joseph Li, a sales representative from Oracle's Guangzhou branch. During the conversation, he gave us an initial understanding of our general needs for the new system, and they also expressed their initial ability and confidence in providing us with a solution. So, we agreed on a time to meet at our factory.
Another week passed, and they didn't come. But a week later, the day before the meeting, they contacted me, asking if we could meet that following Tuesday . We remember it was around June 12, 2018.
The visitors were: Li Xiaowen, Senior Director of Application Products at Oracle's Guangzhou branch; Joseph Li; and Deng Huining, South China Marketing Manager of the Application Software Business Unit. The main purpose of their visit was to further confirm our upgrade and replacement needs for the new ERP system.
During the meeting, our company provided a more detailed introduction to the current role of ERP in the business and the problems we are currently facing.
Oracle engineers introduced us to the market positioning, product features, and functions of NetSuite, and stated that their NetSuite cloud service is best suited to replace our current SAP product because it requires almost no additional after-sales maintenance.
We proposed that we need Netsuite to replace our current ERP system because we do not intend to let the existing ERP maintainers and managers know that we have such a plan.
In response, Oracle stated that if these implementation tasks were to be completed by their internal staff, it would incur extremely high costs, which would ultimately be passed on to the buyer. This would not be a wise choice for the buyer.
They also stated that they have professional NetSuite product implementation partners, and the implementation work done by their partner team achieves the same results as that done by Oracle's internal engineers. They revealed that the personnel Oracle sends in this area are actually also recruited from among the NetSuite implementation partners, but the price difference between the two is significant.
Mr. Li Xiaowen, Senior Director of Oracle's Application Products Department, told us that they would provide us with a quote for an alternative solution tailored to our current ERP system and our specific needs. After we review the quote and details, we will engage in further communication to ensure the project is successfully completed.
He also suggested that we bring the NetSuite business partner along when we conduct the survey next week, and told me that the implementer of the solution was a development engineer who had left NetSuite to work independently. This engineer is very familiar with the product, and we should have confidence in his abilities. With the implementation team's cooperation, the product implementation will be completed smoothly.
Following the meeting, on June 15, 2018, Mr. Deng Huining from Oracle sent an email to our company leadership, requesting that we provide functional requirements for our respective businesses based on the current situation. We then compiled these requirements into a spreadsheet and provided it to him, stating that they would assess the workload and arrangements with the implementation team upon receiving it. The email is shown in the attached image.
On June 28, 2018, we received the quotation.
We also reviewed the product offerings provided by Oracle NetSuite. Based on the program details in the quote, we found that the products Oracle offered did indeed meet our current needs, and were even higher-end than we had expected. Of course, even with a significant discount, the total price was more than double our original budget.
We think it's worth the price.
We believe that the price is reasonable if it can meet the company's future business development needs.
Nevertheless, we remain skeptical, as our current ERP system has been under development and maintenance for eight years. Can Oracle's product truly replace our existing system?
We also expressed our concerns to them. In response to our questions, Oracle's sales staff said they would send a pre-sales technical engineer to conduct research and further clarify whether Oracle's product could replace the functionality of our current product.
Towards the end of the meeting, Oracle inquired about our project's investment budget.
We responded that we needed to compare prices from several suppliers. If the final price was similar to Oracle's, we would prioritize Oracle.
Overall, the meeting and communication went relatively smoothly and harmoniously.
Key factors influencing our choices and purchases
On the morning of June 19, 2018, four gentlemen from Oracle Corporation—Deng Huining, Jia Wenbo, and Li Xiaowen—along with their product application business partner, Chen Qingde from Shenzhen Yunxing Network Technology Co., Ltd., visited our company.
The purpose of this visit is to confirm our requirements regarding the ERP project upgrade.
All department heads and ERP users of our company attended the meeting. Attendees included: Qu Yunyi, accountant of the Finance Department; Zhang Hongchen, head of the Engineering Development Department; Qiu Xianlu, general manager of the company; Tan Shuidi, director of the Marketing and Customer Service Department; Wu Rengui, manager of the Quality Management Department; Luo Guiwen, head of the Logistics Department, and other core users of the company's ERP system.
Both sides introduced themselves at the beginning of the meeting. The Oracle representative also had a general understanding of the business roles of each of us in attendance.
Each attendee listened to explanations from Oracle engineers and sales staff regarding the general functions and benefits of NetSuite. The aim of this meeting was to gather feedback from users on the use of the new ERP system.
At the same time, Oracle's pre-sales engineers also asked us to describe our requirements for the ERP system in writing . Regarding this, the attendees all said that their needs were already reflected in the current ERP system . Oracle only needed to demonstrate these functions and services in the product they would provide to us .
Each participant was required to list the ERP functions they needed to use in their respective roles . Each department did this after the meeting and compiled the results into Mr. Guo Zhirong's email address as Business Director at Schlade.
We invited Oracle and its partners to browse our current ERP system and to record and view various interfaces and images. We also provided them with SAP B-One product manuals and operation manuals so that Oracle staff and their business partners could more easily understand our needs.
In fact, Oracle staff conducted a detailed survey and recorded the functions and features of the system we were using at the time.
Schleid compiled the demand lists for each department and position and forwarded them to Oracle's pre-sales engineers' email addresses.
On the afternoon of June 19th, Mr. Jia Wenbo, a pre-sales engineer from Oracle, compiled our required feature list and attached an email for us to confirm the details in the attached table . This demonstrates that Oracle has a clear understanding of our needs regarding the use of their ERP product.
The information provided by this Oracle employee in the email further strengthened our desire to purchase the product. He explicitly stated in the email that his requirements could be met; that is, the product Oracle offered could fully cover the business characteristics and functions of our existing system.
On July 3, 2018, Winson Chen, head of Oracle Business Partners, began implementing the NetSuite system and requested our company to provide a list of key users.
On July 4, 2018, our company granted Mr. Chen, the implementation engineer, access to the SAP system and SAP auxiliary system that we are currently using.
On July 16, 2018, we paid the full product usage fee to Oracle's designated bank account as agreed. On July 18 of the same year, Mr. Deng confirmed in an email that the money had been received.
On August 1, 2018, our company signed a consulting service contract with Shenzhen Yunxing Network Technology Co., Ltd. Immediately after signing the contract, our company paid the other party a consulting service fee of RMB 100,000.
On September 3, 2018, Mr. Chen, the person in charge of implementation, notified our company via email that user login permissions had been enabled.
On September 12, 2018, Mr. Chen, the implementation manager, informed us that the processes for each position in the Netsuite system were basically completed and that he planned to come to our company for a process demonstration and discussion.
On November 4, 2018, Mr. Chen, the person in charge of implementation, summarized the progress of the work. Four months had passed since the start of implementation, and our company was still unable to operate in the Netsuite system.
On November 15, 2018, Mr. Chen, the implementation manager, sent us system training documents and requested that our company collect and provide data from the original SAP system so that it could be imported into the NetSuite system.
On December 13, 2018, after nearly a month, most of the data had been imported into the NetSuite system. Operational documentation was also provided for some positions; however, some positions (Quality Department, Finance Department) have still not received the documentation.
On December 25, 2018, Oracle's partner informed us via email that most of the issues collected over the past few days, as listed in the table, had been resolved, with a small number still being processed.
Additionally: To avoid the peak work period in the warehouse tomorrow, the training originally scheduled for tomorrow will be held this Thursday. Please help reserve one hour of training time for each of the production and warehouse departments. The training already scheduled for HR tomorrow will also be held this Thursday. Please help pass this message on to Ms. Cao in HR.
On January 15, 2019, Mr. Chen, the person in charge of implementation, provided the prepayment application process and the normal payment application process. The tax invoice application process has been completed, and the instruction document is currently being prepared.
On January 18, 2019, Mr. Chen, the person in charge of implementation, sent the training documents for each department again, only slightly updated from the original, and some missing job operation training documents were still not provided.
On January 30, 2019, the training only focused on one step for each position, without going through the entire process together. Department heads within our company were unclear about how process information was communicated between their respective departments.
On February 15, 2019, Mr. Chen, the implementation engineer, notified us on February 13 and arrived at our company on February 14 and 15 as scheduled to continue the incomplete training process. The training was still conducted for each department, and the entire process was not covered. At that time, we pointed out that the shipping labels and product drawings used in our current SAP system could not be generated in the Netsuite system. Mr. Chen said that it would take a lot of time (approximately several months) to develop them.
On February 28, 2019, the implementation engineer, Mr. Chen, instructed us to operate according to the previous training documents, as there were no updates or additions to the training documents. His initial response was that he would arrange for someone to come to our company as soon as possible.
On March 5, 2019, the implementer, Mr. Chen, continued to instruct us to operate according to the previous training documents, without updating or adding any new training documents. His second reply stated that he would arrange for someone to come to our company as soon as possible.
On March 17, 2019, the implementer, Mr. Chen, still instructed us to operate according to the previous training documents, without updating or adding any new training documents. The third reply stated that he would arrange for someone to come to our company as soon as possible.
On March 21, 2019, the implementation engineer, Mr. Chen, said he would record the entire process and provide audio narration, which he would then send to us. He replied a fourth time, saying he would arrange for someone to come to our company as soon as possible.
On March 28, 2019, after more than a month of email communication, the implementation engineer, Mr. Chen, only provided voice and video operation procedures for some positions. This was merely converting the original text-based operation documents into actual operation procedures. He also pointed out that labels and product drawings were still missing. The deadline for our company was repeatedly postponed, and to this point, the entire system process had not yet been completed.
On the morning of March 28, 2019, Oracle's business partner sent an email to Mr. Guo and our company manager. In the email, Oracle's implementation team promised that they would deliver the actual operation process to our company manager in the near future. The content of the email indicates that, as of that day, the product configuration was still unable to be used as required .
As evidenced in the email, we reached an offer with Oracle and its partners in June 2018. However, by April 2019, the product still could not be delivered to us.
The role of the engineering department in this incident :
- Participate in the development of the new NETSUIT system as required by the company;
- Explain to Wisnon, the Oracle designer, the current processes and operations of our company's ERP system that involve the engineering department;
- As requested by Oracle designer Wisnon, please provide the relevant forms (paper or electronic) that our department will use , such as: BOM, production orders, etc.
- We communicated with Oracle designer Wisnon to discuss the configuration details of the new system and our requirements, such as simplifying the user interface of the new system.
- Try out the new system and go through the processes to identify and address any issues with it.
- Supervise other departments to complete the developers' requirements and trials, and find problems and feedback on the new system.
Events that left a deep impression:
- Attend the initial development meeting;
- Oracle personnel were stationed at the factory to provide him with various requirements and information.
- On January 29, 2019 (before the Spring Festival holiday), Wisnon from Oracle came to the factory to explain how to operate the developed parts of the new system.
- After the Spring Festival, Mr. Guo urged the completion of the order process and trial use.
- A meeting with Oracle personnel revealed that the delivery review could not be completed on schedule.
Seek a reasonable solution from Oracle's parent company.
On April 1, 2019, we filed a complaint with Oracle China's pre-sales service regarding issues we encountered in our transaction with Oracle.
After sending the email , we received a phone call from Beijing saying that relevant personnel from Oracle's Guangzhou branch would contact us.
Around April 2, 2019, we received a call from a Mr. Li. He said he would send someone to our company to understand the situation. Oracle Guangzhou sent two staff members to visit. They were: Account Manager Guo Wei and Senior Consultant Wang Ziyi.
All members of Schleid also attended the meeting. During the meeting, we ran Oracle's NetSuite system in the customer service manager's account according to actual application and found that the "Shipping Notification" issuance process was still missing. As a result, both parties confirmed that the entire business process could not be "worked out".
On April 12, 2019, Oracle account manager Li Xuan and his business product system implementer Chen Qingde visited to verify whether the entire business process was truly "unworkable" .
First, sales orders are entered by Tan Shuidi, an operator in the customer service department, and approved by Qiu Xianlu, an operator in the operations department. The next step is to review the orders. The customer service department creates an order review event under the event option according to the operation guide provided by the implementation personnel, and sets reminders to relevant personnel in each department to remind them that there are orders that need to be reviewed.
According to the order review process, it starts from the customer service department, goes through the engineering department, logistics department, quality department, and production department, and finally returns to the customer service department. All of these steps are feasible. After the order review is completed, according to our company's business process, if there is stock, the customer service department issues a shipping notification to the logistics department, while also copying it to the warehouse and production; if there is no stock, a production notification needs to be issued to the engineering department.
At this point, our customer service operators didn't know how to issue shipping notifications, and our implementation engineer, Mr. Chen, also stated that he couldn't send notifications using the format our original system used. Oracle account manager Mr. Li suggested that this could be achieved by installing a communication tool similar to QQ to remind relevant personnel. We found this absurd.
Because this step cannot be completed, the subsequent processes cannot be connected and cannot continue. Implementation engineer Mr. Chen said this function needs to be developed separately. As of April 12th, our company is still unable to perform basic process operations in the NetSuite system, and implementation engineer Mr. Chen cannot provide a specific delivery date.