Bukhatir Group fast-tracks growth opportunities with Oracle Cloud Applications

When the UAE emerged as a diversified regional trade center in the late 20th century, family businesses were essential to rapidly building and operating a modern economic infrastructure across all industries. Today, they represent a 90% share of UAE private companies and account for 40% of the nation’s GDP.

Bukhatir Group is one of the largest and most diversified family businesses in the UAE. Its 42 companies operate in a wide range of industries including K-12 education, manufacturing, real estate, construction, services and sports and leisure. An early adopter of Oracle E-Business Suite, the group also deployed myriad applications from other providers. As the business grew, it became increasingly difficult to deliver shared services that fit each of the company’s needs. There was no standard chart of accounts, which meant consolidation to the group level was complex and time consuming. With over 70 custom extensions and more than 100 integration points, every system patch or upgrade required downtime and brought the risk of business disruption. And, with the shared services team concentrated on maintenance, it was difficult to free up resources to focus on adding new lines of business that could help increase revenue and profit. Consequently, Bukhatir began a search for a unified portfolio of applications and technologies that could better service its business needs.

The company evaluated Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics to determine the best fit for not only its business roadmap, but also its desire to adapt to change. Bukhatir ultimately selected Oracle Cloud Applications for finance, human resources, sales, and supply chain management based on that criteria and because the group’s familiarity with Oracle would minimize challenges.

After Bukhatir went live on Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (ERP), Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Fusion Cloud Human Capital management (HCM), Oracle Customer Success Services (CSS) provided guidance on best practices for tapping  the complete portfolio of Oracle Cloud Applications to accelerate its roadmap.

The company established a single chart of accounts across its 42 entities. With full integration to all Oracle applications, Oracle Cloud EPM Planning streamlined budget approval at the business unit level while also allowing a fast roll-up to a view at the group level. Using Oracle Cloud EPM Financial Consolidation and Close, the time to close the monthly books dropped to just 12 days, with a target goal of closing in just 9 days.

By eliminating silos of information, Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) made it easier for Bukhatir’s sales and customer service team to configure the right mix of products and services for its customers as well as to uncover cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Oracle Fusion Cloud Inventory Management helped business units to build and maintain optimal levels of inventory across a diverse portfolio of businesses.

The breadth and depth of Oracle Cloud Applications allowed Bukhatir to reduce the number of vendors it works with, simplifying technology management. Also,  company used prebuilt adapters and API management services from Oracle Integration and OCI Data Integration to reduce the number of custom interfaces needed to support all the group’s connectivity needs.

The increased efficiencies gained with Oracle Cloud have freed up employees to work on initiatives that help expand the business. Oracle CSS helped Bukhatir roll out two revenue-generating lines of business, one for its K-12 schools in Bahrain and one at its industrial concrete mix company in Abu Dhabi.