PLANO, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–eVerge Group, a Platinum level member of Oracle^® PartnerNetwork (OPN), announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications.

To achieve OPN Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community. By achieving a Specialized distinction, eVerge Group has been recognized by Oracle for its expertise in delivering Oracle Business Intelligence Applications consulting services through competency development, business results and proven success.

eVerge Group has been implementing Oracle Business Intelligence systems in both commercial and public sector organizations since 2002. The company had previously achieved Specialized status in Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation, has been named an Oracle Business Intelligence Pillar Partner for public sector organizations and received an Oracle Titan Award in 2011 for Oracle Business Intelligence implementation excellence. “Ten years ago, we started an Oracle Business Intelligence practice because we recognized the powerful benefits that the application delivers to clients,” said eVerge Group president, Esteban Neely. “We are pleased that Oracle has recognized our expertise and track record of successful implementations with this Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Specialized designation.”

The Oracle Business Intelligence Specialization is eVerge Group’s ninth Specialization achieved since the creation of the program. Previous Specialization recognition includes: Siebel CRM, Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation, Oracle’s PeopleSoft Human Capital Management, PeopleSoft PeopleTools, Oil & Gas Industry, Public Sector and Education & Research Industry.

About eVerge Group

Founded in 1993, eVerge Group is a leading integrator of business applications software, focused on delivering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI), Master Data Management (MDM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions. With longevity and focused expertise in both commercial and public sector markets, eVerge Group is a Platinum level member of OPN, that implements software solutions in leading organizations throughout the Americas. For more information on eVerge Group, visit www.evergegroup.com.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle’s partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners or call (888) 889-8017.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

eVerge Group was recently approved by the Federal General Services Administration as a GSA contractor. Continue reading below for the full press release.

PLANO, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–eVerge Group is pleased to announce that it has been approved by the GSA for the IT Schedule 70 contract. This designation allows eVerge Group access to bid on software implementation opportunities within the federal government. It also allows eVerge Group to be considered for state and local government contracts that procure from Schedule 70. eVerge Group is in the process of uploading its service and rate schedules to the GSA Advantage® website where federal entities search for services and service providers.

eVerge Group considers the approval to be an important achievement that presents the company with significant growth opportunities. According to eVerge Group president, Esteban Neely, “Given our 20-year history of delivering successful software implementations for both commercial and local government clients, we feel we are in an excellent position to extend our expertise to federal government projects.” In order to pursue and deliver on these additional opportunities, the company is building a federal Contracts division to be staffed with sales and sales support personnel.

According to the GSA website, “A GSA Contract is a powerful calling card even if a government agency does not buy from GSA Schedules. Having a GSA Schedule Contract means that the government ‘certifies’ your company, including its financial system, expertise and past performance.”

About eVerge Group

Founded in 1993, eVerge Group is a leading integrator of business applications software, focused on delivering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI), Master Data Management (MDM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions. eVerge Group is an Oracle Platinum Partner that implements software solutions in leading organizations throughout the Americas. For more information on eVerge Group, visit www.evergegroup.com.

With over 20 years of experience implementing Human Capital Management (HCM) applications, we recognized early on the functional, strategic and cost-saving opportunities that Oracle’s Fusion HCM offers not only our organization but our clients as well.

Why all the positive reaction surrounding Fusion HCM?  Let’s summarize the answer into three points:

• Architecture
• User Interface/Functionality
• Deployment Flexibility

Architecture:  Fusion HCM, and all of the Fusion applications—including CRM and Financials—, were developed from the ground up using standards-based Fusion middleware components.    These components and industry standard programming languages include Java, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), BPM (Business Process Management), BI (Business Intelligence) and more.  Fusion HCM sits on top of these powerful middleware components and leverages all of the reporting, analytical, security and database functionality they offer.

Another important component of the Fusion design is the ability to ‘extend’ the user experience with your organization’s specific functional requirements.  Clients have the ability to create enhanced user interfaces, reports, dashboards, etc…without touching the delivered application objects.  This ability to ‘extend’ your Fusion application is achieved within the application and middleware components using functional-friendly tools.

User Interface/Functionality:  A few of the core objectives in developing Fusion applications and HCM were a focus on best-in-class business processes and enhanced user experience.  The roles-based approach to Fusion functionality truly engages employees, managers and HR professionals.  Embedded intelligence and analytics within the delivered Fusion HCM application provide need-to-know information for defined roles within an organization. A centralized ‘Person Management’ user interface gives HR professionals the ability to maintain employees’ personal, employment, compensation, payroll, absence information and more.  The overall user experience was designed around the way people truly work, which increases overall productivity.

Current Fusion offerings within the HCM pillar include:

• Global Human Resources
• Global Payroll
• Benefits
• Talent Management
• Compensation Management
• Performance Management
• Network at Work (built in social collaboration)

Deployment Flexibility:  Fusion HCM can be installed on premise, or hosted by Oracle as a service (SaaS) in their cloud, in a private cloud or a hybrid approach to meet your organizations strategic objectives.  Fusion HCM is designed to ‘co-exist’ with existing Oracle Applications Unlimited products including PeopleSoft, E-Business Suite and JD Edwards.  For example, customers can take advantage of an existing PeopleSoft HCM install and leverage the Fusion Talent Management as a SaaS offering in the cloud.  Delivered integrations with Fusion HCM make these co-existence scenarios possible without lengthy development and implementation projects.

So why is eVerge Group investing in Fusion HCM internally to manage our resources and back-office processes?  The answer is easy:

• Architecture
• User Interface/Functionality
• Deployment Flexibility
• Reduced Cost of Ownership

We’ve just scratched the surface with Fusion HCM here.  To learn more about Fusion HCM and how we can help empower your organization with a true Workforce Lifecycle HR solution, please contact Bob Moser at 972-398-5914.

Oracle recently announced the general availability of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) release 11.1.1.6.0. The new release adds more enhancements, additional certifications, and bug fixes among other features. This release delivers a BI platform specially designed to leverage:

• Oracle Exalytics hardware’s large memory, processors, concurrency, and other hardware features and system configurations.
• Enhancements to Times-Ten for Exalytics for analytical processing at in-memory speeds
• Dynamic user interface enhancements that complement large amounts of data to present business information in meaningful and compelling ways
• A new BI Server Summary Advisor for Exalytics for aggregate generation and persistence
• Essbase memory usage optimizations and concurrency improvements for Exalytics to deliver efficient distribution of processing
• BI Publisher performance, lifecycle, workflow and report creation enhancements
• New and enhanced Scorecard views and BI Mobile improvements
• Numerous Security, Management/Diagnostic and Lifecycle enhancements
• Certified BI and EPM Applications on Exalytics

eVerge Group is an Oracle Platinum Partner with extensive BI experience. For more information about Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and our other business solutions, contact us through our website: http://www.evergegroup.com/contact.php

About the author: Garrett Carey is a Senior BI/EPM Solution Architect who has worked with eVerge Group since 2005.

Are you new to “Big Data” and the ways it affects how you manage data sets?  If so, here’s a brief primer.

In the simplest of terms, the phrase “Big Data” refers to the tools, processes and procedures allowing an organization to create, manipulate, and manage very large data sets and storage facilities.  While “Big Data” doesn’t refer to any defined quantity, the term is often associated with petabytes and exabytes of data.  Another way to describe “Big Data” is datasets that grow so large that they become awkward or uneconomical when using traditional database management and business intelligence tools.

“Big Data” usually has one or more of the following characteristics:

• Very large data volumes measured in terabytes or petabytes.
• Variety of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data.
• High velocity, rapidly changing data.

As you would imagine, the buzzword “Big Data” draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there’s a simple story.  For decades, organizations have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases.  Beyond that critical data, however, is a potential gold mine of less structured data: clickstream weblogs, social media, email, sensors, call detail records, and photographs that can be mined for useful information.

The ability to store, manage, aggregate, and combine huge amounts of data, and perform insightful analytics on the results, has finally become more accessible and cost-effective (i.e. the technical and economic barriers are falling fast).  Companies that use “Big Data” technologies to gain business insight and take action will outperform their peers.  Analyzing this data allows analysts and business users to make better decisions using information that was previously inaccessible to them.

Through inventive technologies and design approaches, computing workloads within the enterprise are finding better and even the best platforms for executing their mission. Big data is more than a challenge; it is an opportunity to find insight in new and emerging types of data, to make your business more agile, and to answer questions that, in the past, were beyond reach.

There are a number of vendors that offer a variety of Big Data Management solutions.  eVerge Group is an Oracle Platinum Partner with extensive data management and business intelligence experience.  For more information about how to manage data, or information about Oracle’s Big Data portfolio and our business solutions, please contact eVerge Group on our website.

About the author: Garrett Carey is a Senior BI/EPM Solution Architect who has worked with eVerge Group since 2005.

eVerge Group has developed a CRM On Demand solution specifically designed to address the unique needs of financial institutions.  One example of a bank deploying this CRM integration is MidSouth Bank, a super-community bank, with branches throughout Louisiana and Texas.  eVerge Group implemented a customer centric sales, service and analytics platform to all 500 customer-facing employees at MidSouth.

See MidSouth’s feedback on how this implementation impacted its business in the video above or here:
http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/1412231355001

To learn more about eVerge Group’s accelerated solution for financial institutions, click the Contact tab or call (888) 889-8017.

Using mentoring, eVerge Group links employees with experienced professionals for career development in their consulting jobs. An eVerge Group mentor facilitates a consultant’s personal and professional growth by sharing knowledge and insights that have been learned through years of experience.

The two main goals of the eVerge Group mentoring program are to improve connectivity and to increase an employee’s speed to competence. Employees of the eVerge Group work at diverse locations around the world and are largely reliant on technology to connect with staff and fellow employees at headquarters. Mentoring puts a human face on technology. Mentors are used to facilitate greater connectivity between our consultants and headquarters staff as well as between remotely-located consultants who because of geographic differences may otherwise never get the opportunity to collaborate. Mentors are the” linking pins” in the organization. They facilitate connections and communication up and down the chain, and work to knit together an efficient, homogenous corporate culture despite the distributed nature of the enterprise.

The second goal is to increase an employee’s speed to competence.  This means that an employee is not needlessly  struggling in any endeavor; be it new consultants trying to orient themselves to the company, a consultant needing specialized training and instruction, or a junior consultant looking for career guidance. A mentor is assigned to each employee to ensure that they can fulfill their career development needs in the most efficient manner possible. Our mentoring network is designed to facilitate our consultants’ success by improving connectivity and ensuring that no one struggles to fulfill their career aspirations.

The mentoring program consists of three basic components designed to support the two primary goals of the program. A 90-day structured mentoring program, a long-term individual self-development program and a social networking component.

The 90-day structured mentoring program is designed for new hires or those seeking to master a specific skill or training program in a relatively short period of time. The key to this program is the Individual Development Plan (IDP), which is essentially a contract between the mentor and mentee centered on specific learning objectives and desired outcomes.  Through a series of regularly scheduled meetings over 90 days the employee works with the mentor toward successful fulfillment of the goals and objectives agreed to in the IDP.

The next component is individual self-development. This involves an ongoing relationship between a mentor and mentee related to longer-term career goals and individual development of the competencies needed to be successful in consulting jobs at eVerge Group. The IDP is used to track and record an employee’s self-development activities and as a means for the mentor to stay in touch with an employee’s development efforts over time.  Meetings between the mentor and mentee in this program are less frequent and formal but nonetheless for the mentee, it means an ongoing relationship with a person who is genuinely interested in facilitating his or her personal and professional development.

The third component is social networking. As an organization of geographically dispersed teams, eVerge Group believes that the power of social networking in the workplace will greatly enhance our ability to handle any challenge. It improves our ability to organize and empower each individual in the company to collaborate across the enterprise faster, farther, and deeper than ever. At eVerge Group, we have embraced this technology as a perfect complement to our organizational structure.  We have an active group site on LinkedIn where employees from across the company collaborate and share ideas.  With the coming implementation of our new Fusion Human Capital Management application, we will be taking workplace social networking to the next level.   Fusion provides us with an in-house social networking application that will greatly enhance our ability to facilitate our employee’s personal and professional development and their ability to contribute to the company’s continued success.

Taken as a whole the mentoring program is designed to foster a culture of continuous learning, where every employee is supported and encouraged to become their very best. It is also representative of the recognition and value placed by the company on its employees and its commitment to ensure that we train and retain the most highly skilled consultants in the industry.

About the author: John McClaran has been involved in employee training and development for over twenty years. He is currently working for eVerge Group on a variety of initiatives and projects in support of the Human Resources and Marketing Departments.

Plano, Texas (January 12, 2012) – eVerge Group, a Platinum level member of Oracle
PartnerNetwork (OPN) with nearly 20 years experience implementing HCM applications, has selected Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) to manage its own human resources and payroll activities. According to eVerge Group president, Esteban Neely, “We are deploying Oracle Fusion HCM as a hosted, SaaS-based application and believe it will provide the functionality and flexibility we are looking for at a reasonable cost.”
By implementing Oracle Fusion HCM within the company, eVerge Group will gain an in-depth understanding of Oracle Fusion HCM capabilities, interfaces and reporting/analytics from both an implementer and customer perspective. As a result, eVerge Group will be one of the first to offer a rapid-deployment “Express” Oracle Fusion HCM solution that will enable customers to go live anywhere from eight to 26 weeks depending on the number of components implemented.

According to Neely, “We are very excited about Oracle Fusion HCM applications and believe our customers will be extremely impressed with the intuitive user interface, embedded analytics, integrated social capabilities and ability of Oracle Fusion HCM to co-exist with other Oracle ERP applications. With eVerge Group’s ‘Express’ solution, customers will be able to implement Oracle Fusion HCM in weeks.”

About eVerge Group
Founded in 1993, eVerge Group is a leading integrator of business applications software, focused on delivering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Master Data Management (MDM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions. With longevity and focused expertise in both commercial and public sector markets, eVerge Group is an Oracle Platinum Partner and implements software solutions in leading organizations throughout the Americas. For more information on eVerge Group, visit www.evergegroup.com.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle’s partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle’s products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit www.oracle.com/partners.

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle Recognizes eVerge Group for Expertise in Providing ERP and School Performance Analytics Solutions for School Districts.

(Plano, Texas) – eVerge Group, a Platinum member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN),
today announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for the Education and Research Industry.

To achieve Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of
requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner
community. By achieving Specialized distinction, eVerge Group has been recognized by
Oracle for its expertise in delivering services specifically for school districts through
competency development, business results and proven success.

eVerge Group has been implementing ERP and BI systems for school districts since
2001 and has developed a School Performance Analytics solution which provides school
districts with integrated information and analysis capabilities designed to improve
student, teacher, school and district performance. “Delivering integrated performance improving solutions for school districts has been a major focus for us for over 10 years,”
according to eVerge Group president, Esteban Neely. “Achieving Specialized status in
this industry is confirmation of the expertise and experience we bring when working with
our school district clients.”

About eVerge Group
Founded in 1993, eVerge Group is a leading integrator of business applications
software, focused on delivering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI), Master Data Management
(MDM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions. With longevity and
focused expertise in both commercial and public sector markets, eVerge Group is an
Oracle Platinum Partner that implements software solutions in leading organizations
throughout the Americas. For more information on eVerge Group, visit
www.evergegroup.com.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle’s partner
program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle
solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge
of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product
portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN
is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are
achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven
success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

To learn more about how school districts can benefit from Oracle implementation, click the Contact tab or call (888) 889-8017.

eVerge was able to adopt five families this year, each ranging from three to five family members of all ages and different needs and wants. From the generous donations of eVerge employees, we were able to fulfill the needs of all five families. We had our big shopping and gift wrapping day on December 9th. Be sure to check out the rest of our photos from that Friday in our Facebook album.

eVerge Group would like to extend our sincere appreciation to all those who helped in making this event a success. Whether you donated time or money, thank you and happy holidays!