Ricoh & Oracle

Art, We are in the same boat....... guess we just get to grab our ankles...... I think we should hold back payment for the equipment for three to four months and tell them that we bought new software and can't cut a check...... I wonder how they would feel about that? This is getting to be a very serious issue that no one seems to be accountable for.... I wrote nearly 50,000 in equipment last month and couldnt bill any of it. Guess my house payment gets to be late.... This is BS. Just my two cents.

Maybe we need to get everyone here together and send a letter to the Chairman of the BOard expressing our displeasure for their lack of responsibilty.

I have already written 150,000K for this month and have no idea when I can install equipment.

We do not get paid until the customer pays!

I've got a question: Are Savin and Gestetner still getting equipment, or are they not being shipped also. Everything comes from the same warehouses...right? We have been told from some at Ricoh that the equipment is on backorder (lame excuse). However, if the equipment is backordered, then Savin & Gestetner shouldn't be getting anything either. Let's here from the Savin & Gestetner Dealers on this situation.

I would like to rally everyone to write a certified letter to:


Sam Ichioka
Chairman & CEO

Ricoh Corporation
5 Dedrick Place
West Calswell, NJ 07006

I will write mine over the weekend and then post it here.

This is a rough draft: Can anyone else add or correct

August 15th, 2005



Sam Ichioka
Chairman & CEO

Ricoh Corporation
5 Dedrick Place
West Calswell, NJ 07006


Re: Oracle Implementation


Dear Mr. Ichioka:
As a sales representative for a medium size dealership that resells the finest MFP’s (Ricoh) in the world, I am deeply concerned with the new implementation of the Oracle software.

I have been waiting for machines for almost three weeks, and no one can tell me when we are going to get them. I have spoken to other reps across the country and they tell me the same problems, along with orders that have been placed and lost. It is not only a machine problem but supplies as well.

Working for a medium size dealership is a great job, especially when you sell Ricoh, however 80% of the money I make are commissions, in a dealership we cannot get paid until the equipment has been delivered. I have been told that this Oracle implementation may take several months before everything is back to normal.

I can not four to six weeks for equipment, my customers can not wait four to six weeks either, nor can my creditors that I pay my bills to.

Some dealerships have already acted and have taken on second lines so they can sell something in the interim of the Oracle implementation. If this continues, valued Sales Reps may leave Ricoh dealerships so they can support their families.

No one has taken accountability for the Oracle mess, no one can tell us when we are getting equipment or supplies.

Please consider doing business the old way until the Oracle implementation is completed and works correctly, WE NEED EQUIPMENT.



Sincerely,


Art Post
Docusultant

We are not having any problem getting Gestetner machines at all. Received 2 DSc 651 and a 675 last week and a couple of 45s last month.
Same with supples.
I did get a call from Polek & Polek, a third party parts vendor warning me that I better stock up on parts from them as the Oracle "appocolypse" was coming we could be stranded.
So far we are not seeing any difference and I get supply and parts shipments every day. Hardly any backouders at all.

Thank you for posting this topic. It's a relief to be able to talk with other people in the same boat. My perspective is a little different, because I am the purchasing manager for our dealership and I have to deal with the time-consuming and frustrating challenges caused by this new system every day.

What Docusultant wrote about the problems with the actual operations is true. Speaking solely about what has happened to us, we've have items lost off of orders (specifically, BKO items); we've had orders that just simply get "stuck" and never ship unless I call Order Processing; Oracle picked us for a ship-in on a model we're not service trained on, then when our order processor changed to another dealer Oracle overrode her and switched it back to us without her knowledge, and when she switched it a second time, it did it again and shipped it to us anyway (she had to hunt down the truck in transit to stop it); DMAP order shipments were frozen for 10 days because Oracle was shipping items directly to the end users (collect); I'm still waiting to receive a couple of BKO items that I ordered before the transition; and, well, that's enough for now.

Re the comment about getting parts: you're getting them because parts ordering is still on the old ROL system, but be warned because your migration is on the horizon.

The people who I really feel for (besides us and our clients, of course) is the Order Processing staff. They are on the front lines of trying to deal with extremely angry dealers when they are powerless to change anything. My Order Processing contact, a happy and calm person pre-Oracle, is frequently in tears these day - that is, when I can get a hold of her because their phone call volume has increased by five times the pre-Oracle numbers (that's the number she told me today). Oracle has caused a distinct decrease in the quality of customer support because the order processors can't handle all the calls we have to make to get anything to ship.

My prediction: Ricoh will lose marketshare next year because of this.

Here's a tip, from my Order Processing person: tell your purchasing manager to AVOID using the Configurator option to order anything wholesale and use the Direct Line Entry instead. The reason is, if something is on backorder and was ordered through the Configurator, it will hold the entire order up unless you call Order Processing and ask them to cancel that item off your order. Then you're supposed to reorder the back-ordered item. If you use Direct Line Entry, things that are in stock will ship without intervention.

We are a Ricoh/Kyocera dealer and thank god we had Kyocera. In the month of July if we didn't we would not have deliver any machines. Oh, by the way, Kyocera also switch over to Oracle in July. They were down ONE WEEK and every being OK since. So I wonder were is te problem. In Ricoh land or Oracle.

I have another tip I'd like to pass along. For some unknown reason, Oracle changed everyone's freight payment method to Collect. I don't know about you, but we find it pretty irritating having to drop what we're doing and immediately cut the carrier's driver a check. Our order processing person told me to write a letter on our letterhead and ask Ricoh to change us to "prepay and add." Be sure to specify exactly - wholesale, DMAP, supplies, parts, anything and everything that Ricoh ships out to you or on your behalf. Have your purchasing manager or CEO sign it and send it to your order processing team, and they will change your terms. Your receiving team will love this change, and you reps will benefit from a smoother process in your warehouse and accounting systems.

Great info, thanx for the tips. I will pass this along to my ordering departemnt

UPDATE October 2009:

"nobody has been able to wrap their arms around the Oracle issues - which is really killing us"

Oracle, Oracle, Oracle. We haven't sold Ricoh in a few years but - dang! - just the mention of Oracle still turns my hair grey!!!

With thousands of successful implementations, it's a shame that Ricoh and a few others have soiled Oracle's name in this industry.

These are not Oracle problems any more than forgetting to ship something is a "FedEx" problem. Someone botched the implementation.

Oracle is not the issue here, it is how Ricoh tried to implement Oracle.

The problems I wrote about on this board were the mere TIP of the iceberg. When I think about the times it took me more than an hour to input a simple one-machine order because of that blasted !@#$!%^^&* Oracle system crashing...!!!

Sure, the implementation is the source of the problem, but who guided the implementation? Surely Ricoh didn't do it on its own. Then, who didn't fix anything when their system wasn't working?

Young hot shots from Accenture helped with the implementation, which was internally guided by Dennis Dispinzerie, who was promtoted to Ricoh CFO despite the disaster that was the Oracle implementation.