The immediate needs are:

1. Conduct Solution Design and Validation Workshops with the goal of determining how best to design and configure eBiz in the future state to achieve the current and future business and user requirements and objectives.  

2. Assessment of the current set-up and configuration of the Oracle modules to ensure they are optimally set up to meet current and future user and business requirements taking into taking into consideration IFRS, other business / financial reporting requirements as well as best practices.  This activity is a prerequisite to determining the changes which may be required in upstream systems and data feeds to meet the specified requirements.  The expectation being that this piece of work is related to the work described in #1 above.

What is required is a quote on completing #1 and #2 above and commitment to the completion of the deliverables by the date specified.

Depending on the outcome of the work above, the "Client" may issue a second RFP for the planning and implementation of the agreed upon solution over the next 12 – 18 months.  As a result there is a strong possibility of additional follow-up work re: implementation support.

MANDATORY SKILLS/EXPERIENCE

The Candidate or Team must possess technical and process expert knowledge of Oracle eBiz applications as well as related best practice workflows.  They are expected to have extensive experience successfully implementing Oracle eBiz suite of applications in other organizations, including organizations similar to the Branch.

• Expert Knowledge of Oracle eBiz application suite - 10 years experience
• Extensive experience successfully implementing Oracle eBiz in other organizations, including those similar to the Branch.
• Expert Knowledge of Financial and Business practices in a retail, wholesale and distribution environment.  10 years demonstrated experience with the retail sector.
• Familiar with leading / best practices regarding business / financial processes executed within an Oracle eBiz environment.
• Experienced utilizing a workshop approach to rapidly complete a Solution Design and Validation of an Oracle eBiz solution.
• Strong collaboration, communication and facilitation skills
• Strong analytical and organizational skills

The following skills or experience will be beneficial:

• Knowledge of DataVantage (now MicrosRetail) sales audit tool Balance
• Knowledge of JDA Point of Sale
• Knowledge of Oracle BPEL

BACKGROUND

Financial Business Improvement Project (FBIP) was established in mid 2008 to complete an analysis of the current financial systems and processes and to identify, prioritize and recommend opportunities for improvement.  A business case has been created and approved by the executives with authorization to proceed with the implementation of the FBIP recommendations.

The "Client" is currently running Oracle Applications suite 11i.  Active modules include General Ledger (G/L), Accounts Receivable (A/R), Accounts Payable (A/P), Purchasing, Inventory, Fixed Assets and Order Processing.  The various modules have been implemented over a period of three years, through different projects.  Here, the "Client" is running JDA Retail Management Software (WINDSS).  MicrosRetail Balance application (formerly Datavantage) is used for transaction auditing.  Inventory is maintained in two primary applications: distribution centres are maintained in Oracle eBiz while store inventory (including all Branch owned inventory at Retail Accounting Centres (RACs)) are maintained in another third party application (JDA PMM Inventory).  Oracle applications are integrated with the clients' legacy applications via a complex set of interfaces to support all "Client's"Stores, Non-Government stores and licensee sales.

One of the FBIP team core recommendations is to extend eBiz to cover all Branch owned inventory so as to simplify the application architecture and enable the re-design / re-engineering the business and financial processes to streamline, standardize and strengthen the end-to-end processes, controls and reporting capabilities.  The focus is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the systems and processes as well as to lay the foundation for future initiatives and projects such as Point of Sale (POS) replacement and Demand Forecasting / Planning.