KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Nov. 13, 2007 - CIBER Enterprise Solutions, a division of CIBER, Inc. (NYSE: CBR), today announced the implementation of Oracle® Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (Oracle BI Suite EE) for Burns & McDonnell, an international full-service architecture and engineering firm based in Kansas City.
To manage its complex engineering and architectural projects, Burns & McDonnell uses three sophisticated project management information technology (IT) applications to keep track of scheduling, budget, and resource details. To manage its back office activities, such as accounts payable and receivable and purchasing activities, the firm uses the Oracle E-Business Suite-including Oracle Financial Management, Oracle Projects, and Oracle Supply Chain Management.
Burns & McDonnell sought to enhance the process of obtaining detailed reports about the schedules, budgets, and resources for each project to make strategic plans and forecasts. Prior to the implementation of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition, Burns & McDonnell would send requests to the firm's IT Department to create special reports to compile data from multiple systems which took resources away from the IT Department's primary objective of maintaining the firm's computing systems.
Burns & McDonnell was seeking a way to improve reporting capabilities and sharing of data across applications. The firm had tried numerous other solutions, but found that none would work within the parameters of their IT environment and their IT security systems.
Burns & McDonnell had begun work on an interim solution developed by a Java programmer with very specialized skills. That solution had taken three months so far, and when the programmer left the firm, all efforts were stopped because no one with the necessary skills was available.
Burns & McDonnell turned to CIBER for assistance.
"We had not worked with CIBER before, but met with them at a trade show in April," said Dana Witthar, Enterprise Applications Programming Manager at Burns & McDonnell. "We were impressed with CIBER's superior business and industry knowledge, their leadership in business intelligence, and the flexibility of their approach, as well as their relationship with Oracle and their extensive expertise with Oracle products."
An experienced systems integrator, CIBER specializes in (among others) business intelligence, human capital management, and Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Oracle's JD Edwards upgrades. (View CIBER's business intelligence webinar at www.ciber.com/events/bi)
For the project, CIBER provided technical and business consulting services, training services, and implementation services. As a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, CIBER was familiar with Oracle BI Suite EE, Oracle's comprehensive, standards-based suite of business intelligence infrastructure and tools products, and felt it would be the best solution for Burns & McDonnell's challenges. CIBER leveraged its relationship with Oracle to determine that the proposed Oracle BI Suite EE would help address the firm's project management and security systems objectives - which, it did. Then CIBER implemented Oracle BI Suite EE and trained Burns & McDonnell's IT personnel on use of the product.
As a result, the firm was able to recreate-in three days-the items developed by the Java programmer. Since specialized technical knowledge was not needed to use Oracle BI Suite EE, the firm was able to substantially complete a number of projects that had been stopped because of the loss of the Java programmer, and a hiring order for a new Java programmer was withdrawn.
After a successful test period by Burns & McDonnell, CIBER provided final training and also facilitated strategy meetings with executive management to suggest how best to launch the application companywide and train the firm's 3,000 global employees by end of the year.
"CIBER fully delivered on all of the features and benefits described in their sales approach - we are very pleased with the results," said Witthar. "We expect our overall reporting times to be reduced, the number of ad hoc reporting requests to be greatly reduced, and our software licensing fees to decrease as Oracle BI Suite EE has replaced several applications for which we are currently paying annual licensing fees. We consider CIBER to be a trusted advisor, and we look forward to CIBER's assistance on future IT initiatives."
"CIBER has completed implementations of the Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Oracle's JD Edwards suite for firms in numerous industries," said Mike Dillon, Senior Vice President of CIBER's Oracle Practice. "Many ERP customers are recognizing that Business Intelligence solutions allow them to maximize their ERP investment. By empowering people with real-time trend analysis, customers have actionable information. Burns & McDonnell was extremely knowledgeable in the use of the Oracle E-Business Suite, and this project takes them another step further in business improvement."
CIBER provides information technology consulting services and was recently ranked as the eighth best global IT outsourcing vendor worldwide, and among the top 50 best managed global outsourcing vendors, according to a June 2007 Brown-Wilson Group survey.
CIBER is exhibiting in booth #2022 at Oracle OpenWorld, being held in San Francisco Nov. 11 - 15. To learn more, visit www.ciber.com/events/openworld.
About the Oracle PartnerNetwork
Oracle PartnerNetwork is a global business network of more than 19,500 companies who deliver innovative software solutions based on Oracle software. Through access to Oracle's premier products, education, technical services, marketing and sales support, the Oracle PartnerNetwork program provides partners with the resources they need to be successful in today's global economy. Oracle partners are able to offer their customers leading-edge solutions backed by Oracle's position as the world's largest enterprise software company. Partners who are able to demonstrate superior product knowledge, technical expertise and a commitment to doing business with Oracle qualify for the Certified Partner levels.
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About CIBER Enterprise Solutions
As a division of CIBER, Inc. (NYSE: CBR), CIBER Enterprise Solutions offers enterprise and e-business application implementation and integration consulting services for top-tier software applications in the enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain and e-business areas. CIBER Enterprise Solutions' business and technical expertise spans 20 years of providing solutions to companies across all industries. CIBER, Inc. is a pure-play international system integration consultancy with superior value-priced services for both private and government sector clients. CIBER's global delivery services are offered on a project or strategic staffing basis, in both custom and enterprise resource planning (ERP) package environments, and across all technology platforms, operating systems and infrastructures. Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colo., the company now serves client businesses from over 60 U.S. offices, 22 European offices and five offices in Asia. Operating in 18 countries, with over 8,250 employees and annual revenue of approximately $1 billion, CIBER and its IT specialists continuously build and upgrade clients' systems to "competitive advantage status." CIBER is included in the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index. CIBER, ALWAYS ABLE. www.ciber.com
Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
Statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, as discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CIBER undertakes neither intention nor obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.