On June 20, Serene went live with the first phase of an internal Oracle Cloud ERP project, which includes Oracle Cloud Financials, Cloud Project Portfolio Management, Workforce Deployment. “As an Oracle Platinum Partner, we feel it is extremely important to ‘drink our own champagne’,” aid Vinay Saini, CFO of Serene-AST, LLC.

The solution will become the single common platform on which Serene and its parent company, AST Corporation, will operate, and includes functions such as:

  • Time entry and expense reporting
  • Project management and execution
  • Establishment and government of all projects
  • Corporate functions, such as Accounts Payable, Receivables, and General Accounting

Congratulations to our team on achieving this milestone!

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Serene Corporation, and its parent company AST Corporation, are pleased to announce their attainment of Oracle Cloud Premier partner status. This recognition is due to the expertise Serene and AST have demonstrated in their multiple, successful Oracle cloud go-lives and their dedicated Oracle cloud-certified resources.

Serene and AST are extremely pleased to have attained a high level of partnership so quickly. We are committed to building upon that success by increasing successful adoption of Oracle cloud solutions world-wide.

David Loshin provides seven evaluation considerations for selecting MDM solutions in this article.  His portrayal of second-generation MDM tools will surely excite many data management professionals.  Before discussing further, it’s worth mentioning that he definitely got it right in his book, Master Data Management, when he said: “The key to a successful MDM initiative isn’t technology or methods, it’s people: the stakeholders in the organization and their complex ownership of the data that the initiative will affect.”

Indeed!

All too often, Master Data Management (MDM) initiatives are led by IT departments that prioritize architectural and technical considerations above business enablement.  It is well known among seasoned MDM professionals that Data Quality (DQ) initiatives can create significant business impacts without MDM, but MDM initiatives always requires DQ to fully realize their potential.  For this reason, we recommend leading with DQ to deliver business value in conjunction with MDM evaluations. This strategy would provide feedback into the evaluation to help ensure priorities are informed by real-world examples.

The seven characteristics David presents are:

  1. Identity resolution
  2. Physical versus virtual
  3. Master entity modelling options
  4. Synchronization
  5. On-premises versus cloud based
  6. Data management approach
  7. Data governance

The linked article provides a concise introduction to each topic.  While none of these concepts are new, vendors are constantly exploring innovative approaches to delivering MDM software products. Early adopters should evaluate the MDM/DQ business solutions when using next-generation products before deploying them.

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Chat bots have been in the news lately – not something like “Clippy” from Microsoft, which was universally loathed, but bots capable of providing natural language processing.  These bots can be placed in your customer-facing service center for assistance in different capacities, such as help centers, social media, travel planners, location finders, and more.

The article below explores how some companies, like Facebook and Microsoft, are working on providing these bots to their customers through APIs.  This allows companies to build bot integrations into other CX tools to enhance the value of existing products, effectively adding virtual assistance to any application that can tap into web services. 

Check out the next thing in automation!

http://www.itproportal.com/2016/05/01/talking-chatbots-time-to-enhance-customer-experience/ 

A few weeks ago at the Gartner MDM conference, more than one presenter noted that IT departments will typically cite “on time and under budget” accomplishments for data projects without providing measurable, demonstrated business value.

This Forbes article references Gartner’s Magic Quadrants and speculates on the promise of modern enterprise data initiatives, albeit less directly.  They were correct in that the key is to involve businesses early to ensure that both tools and projects are aligned to improve insights and decision making.  However, it focuses mostly on business intelligence and analytics, even though a strategic approach also requires investment in master data management and data quality.

To learn more, click here.

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A centralized CX model is a natural starting point for new process implementations. A shared team can manage requirements for the larger organization. However, the larger an organization becomes, the more difficult it is to successfully implement new processes and tools that will benefit all business areas. There is a limit to how much change a centralized team can implement to provide a positive impact across large organizations.

Enter the federated implementation model: a mechanism that empowers business areas to enable and benefit from CX tools and processes. This effective model allows a CX journey to occur across each business area. With the assistance of a coordination team, this model enables an accelerated, yet coordinated, CX implementation that benefits the organization as a whole.

To read more, check out this article.

In February, Serene tacked on 126 new certifications! Now, Serene has an additional:

2 Sales Cloud 2016 Sales Specialists: Nutan P. and Satish D.

4 Sales Cloud 2016 PreSales Specialists: Satish D., Sagar P., Vishnu S.V., and Vikas B.

6 Sales Cloud 2016 Support Specialists: Bharath M., Rishi G., Ravikumar V., Shivangi A., Supriya B., and Santoshreddy B.

5 Cloud User Experience 2016 Implementation Specialists: Gobinda M., Ramana K., Satish D., Sagar P., and Vishnu V.

1 Sales Cloud Data 2016 Implementation Specialist: Satish D.

1 Sales Cloud Security 2016 Implementation Specialist: Satish D.

5 Sales Cloud Reporting 2016 Implementation Specialists: Harsha V., Ramana K., Satish D., Sagar P., and Vishnu S.V.

21 Sales Cloud 2016 Implementation Specialists: Sonal P., Anushree C., Shruti G., Gobinda M., Sudarshan R., Srinivas, Krishna R., Chetna S., Megha S., Saurabh M., Priyanka B., Ranjana, Shobikha J., Prachi A., Prateek J., Rashmi A., Santosh P., Tushar S., Purusothamaiah V., Swati S., and Rohit A.

5 CPQ 2016 Sales Specialists: Puneet K., Priyanka L., Sourabh B., Satish D., and Sachin G.

8 CPQ 2016 PreSales Specialists: Akhil A., Puneet K., Priyanka L., Parasad M., Ravikumar V., Sourabh B., Satish D., and Sudeep P.

4 CPQ 2016 Implementation Specialists: Harshit M., Prasad M., Sudeep P., and Vaibhav V.

6 CPQ 2016 Support Specialists: Bharath M., Rishi G., Ravikumar V., Shivangi A., Supriya B., and Santoshreddy B.

16 RightNow 2016 Sales Specialists: Akhil A., Anupama P., Bharath M., Gireesh B., Juhi V., Lalit S., Priya H., Rohan K., Ravikumar V., Richa N., Supriya B., Santoshreddy B., Sagar P., Shreeya R., Vikas B., and Vidya K.

16 RightNow 2016 PreSales Specialists: Akhil A., Anupama P., Bharath M., Dharmasagara S., Gireesh B., Juhi V., Lalit S., Rohan K., Ravikumar V., Richa N., Supriya B., Santoshreddy B., Sagar P., Shreeya R., Vikas B., and Vidya K.

3 RightNow 2016 Implementation Specialists: Arun R., Pradeep C., and Praveen P.

12 RightNow 2016 Support Specialists: Anupama P., Bharath M., Gireesh B., Juhi V., Krishna R., Rohan K., Richa N., Santoshreddy B., Sagar P., Shreeya R., and Vidya K.

2 MDM 2016 Sales Specialists: Asif A. and Ritesh S.

2 MDM 2016 PreSales Specialists: Asif A. and Ritesh S.

6 MDM 2016 Support Specialists: Bharath M., Rishi G., Ravikumar V., Shivangi A., Supriya B., and Santoshreddy B.

3 CRM OnDemand 2016 Sales Specialists: Niken P., Paresh K., and Satish K.

1 CRM OnDemand 2016 PreSales Specialis: Paresh K.

1 CRM OnDemand 2016 Implementation Specialist: Mike M.

6 CRM OnDemand 2016 Support Specialists: Bharath M., Rishi G., RaviKumar V., Shivangi A., Supriya B., and Santoshreddy B.

Congratulations to all those newly certified! We are extremely proud of all these team members for their accomplishments. Keep up the good work!

 

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Serene is proud to announce that it has achieved Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized status for Oracle CPQ Cloud Service!

Partners must meet an intense set of product-specific business and product competencies by selling and implementing solutions that dramatically improve the way project-driven organizations work using Oracle CPQ Cloud Service. This Specialization, as recognized by Oracle, acknowledges Serene’s dedication and commitment to delivering successful and impactful CPQ Cloud solutions.

“Serene is very proud of the quality of Oracle Cloud solutions we have delivered since our inception. CPQ Cloud Specialization recognizes our expertise and long-term, successful track record in Configure, Price, and Quote solutions for both vertical and horizontal implementation packages that deliver tremendous value to our customers,” said Niken Patel, CEO of Serene.

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Serene Corporation had an outstanding year in 2015, with a total of 137 certifications!

In addition to a slew of certificates earned in Sales, Pre-Sales, and Support are:

  • 21 Sales Cloud Implementation certifications
  • 5 CPQ Implementation certifications
  • 7 Service Cloud Implementation certifications

We are so proud of our team members and are looking forward to an equally successful year in 2016!

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Serene Corporation, an AST company, announced today that it has achieved Platinum Level Partnership with the Oracle Partner Network. By attaining Platinum Level membership, Oracle has recognized Serene for its in-depth expertise and excellence in delivering Oracle CX Cloud (Marketing, Sales, Service, CPQ, and MDM), On Premise solutions, and for uniquely addressing the challenges of joint customers. Serene’s dedicated focus on Oracle Cloud and On Premise solutions ensures its joint customers achieve their desired results with measurable outcomes.  

“Achieving Platinum level status with Oracle Partner Network is a very important milestone for Serene,” said Serene CEO Niken Patel. “The relationship is recognition of our singular dedication to Oracle Cloud and On Premise solutions, combined with our knowledge, expertise, and business relationship capabilities. We are honored to receive this recognition, which reinforces our relationship with Oracle as a Partner and demonstrates Serene’s commitment to our joint business customers. It is clear that OPN certification matters to our customers when deciding on a Partner to deliver solutions that will partner and lead them during their business process enablement implementations.” 

Platinum Partners must complete a minimum of five Oracle Specializations. This can only be done by Partners who demonstrate excellence in selling and implementing Oracle solutions. Specialized Partners meet stringent competency and business requirements, giving them in-depth product and industry knowledge to deploy successful implementations. These partners have the knowledge, experience, and commitment to ensure customer businesses succeed. AST and its family of brands hold 25 unique Specializations. 

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