Likelihood to Recommend I think CPQ had worked so well for our company because of the widespread nature of our associates and tracking orders that were being placed in multiple time zones. My team specifically needed a way of analyzing these orders to track our progress in real time and sort out any supply orders before they became an issue. If you are in a centralized location with a smaller team then this may not yield much use to you.
Read full review Oracle Customer Care and Billing is well suited for smaller to mid size companies. I don't believe that it is structured in a way, currently, that is easy to use for larger utilities. For smaller to mid size utilities, with less data and customers, Oracle Customer Care and Billing will perform quicker and appear less cluttered. The utility I work at serves 600k+ customers.
Read full review Pros Leveraged automation to minimize headcount costs despite 10% year-over-year business growth, and enabled staff to focus on more strategic tasks. Established a flexible CPQ system that scales on demand to easily accommodate the company’s multiple global locations. Improved customer relations by reducing configuration time and allowing sales more time to meet with customers and close orders. Read full review It is highly configurable. It is highly extendable and customizable. Its base batch programs allow you to perform most billing functions with no intervention. Read full review Cons Significant setup time, cost, and maintenance. We have to use an implementation partner Does not always play well with other software, even Oracle software. While this is improved and being further improved, that it was a third party acquisition means things sometimes require a little extra care Additional setup documentation and first walkthroughs would be helpful, especially if it was all in one place Read full review As much as I believe CCB is a user-friendly interface, I also believe it has room to be even simpler and easier to use and navigate. Read full review Likelihood to Renew So far it is all good with BigMachines, looking for new features since Oracle acquisition has created a lot of expectations. We have outlined our limitations (out of box functionality) in our periodic customer successor advice meetings for a while, hope we get a resolution soon. Also, the BigMachines user license fee has increased a lot in the last three years.
Read full review We spent a lot of time reviewing the Oracle products and we have invested a lot of time, money and resources into utilizing it. It is a good product and we are happy with how effective it has been for us. Good Choice!
Read full review Usability The software UI can be as complex or as simple as you need it to be (depending on the business). It does require training others on quote configuration and the order in which to build out order positions prior to configuring a quote. Once users are trained;however, it is fairly straight-forward. The UI is still more static than other new wizard/drag-and-drop models, but it get's the job done
Read full review Reliability and Availability Other than one day two years ago and an hour or two a few times since then due to data center outages, it has been very reliable
Read full review Performance It depends upon the day however there are so many failure points with online services, including our internet service, that this is probably closer to 9 with the latest version
Read full review Support Rating Some specific support personal was good and fixed some problems fast using proper solutions. But when one of them went to sleep when we had critical issues and they do unreported commits to our production environment which caused issues and they were hiding it?? you can not give more than a two (maybe even that is too much). They also failed to add a feature for us which also bring the grade down.
Read full review Good support. It's knowledgeable and best used for consulting.
Read full review In-Person Training They have pretty good training. Our business analysts have been able to go to entry and advanced level training. They have a train the trainer model. Our business analyst attended training, then trained the rest of our staff.
Read full review Implementation Rating It was a much more technical implementation than we thought. It involved much more code. Future releases have made and will make administering the tool easier. EDL consulting had one good developer, but when he was moved off, they were horrible to work with. The BMI sales team does a “BOA” or a “Business Operation Assessment” which is extremely valuable, not only for them to scope an implementation and get more reach within the organization, but it is also a documentation of business process that most organizations don’t have. It highlights inefficiencies and allows for correction during implementation. Having a dedicated team (in-house) for implementation is key
Read full review Alternatives Considered Oracle engagement is ahead. They are active in the development of the tool and provide great support after implementation. They also listen to their customers and offer opportunities to feedback and provide input through activities like the customer advisory board forum.
Read full review Previously, my company was on an aging mainframe system. The cost and effort to move to Oracle Customer Care and Billing, as well as integrate with the Oracle Utility MDM and MWM modules, was done out of necessity but also larger external acceptance and innovation. By this, I mean that Oracle's product line was growing quicker with newer features than the competitor we weighed (SAP).
Read full review Return on Investment Increased Sales Rep efficiency. Being able to create multiple quotes ACCURATELY and quickly was a game changer. Large implementation time. It's a little difficult to fit BMI into a SCRUM style build, with multiple working models and prototypes of all 3 simultaneously. A larger fee for licensing and implementation cost. ROI wouldn't be realized in the first year. Read full review I'm not aware of any negative impacts implementing the application had from a financial perspective Read full review ScreenShots