We recently launched a blog series to highlight the key takeaways that Navisite, Part of Accenture, outlined during our multi-part strategic workshop, “The Roadmap to AI Readiness.”  

The workshop was designed to help Oracle-run enterprises modernize their Oracle environments, adopt the cloud, and prepare for AI and automation—without disrupting operations. Each session, led by different subject matter experts, brought valuable insights, outlined best practices, and defined real-world uses.  

In the first installment of the blog series, we explored the promise of AI—generative AI (GenAI), in particular—and the revolutionary horizon it poses for Oracle enterprises. For more, check out that blog.  

In part two, we’re exploring how to build a strong foundation to position your enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, and the business, for AI and automation solutions.   

Why Getting Current is the Right Move 

In today’s digital economy, AI and automation are no longer nice to have, nor are they far-off dreams. They’re here, they’re embedded in the latest ERP versions, and they’re revolutionizing the workplace, the employee experience, and business operations.  

That said, before leveraging the full potential of AI and automation, it’s important to stop and consider whether your ERP environment is ready—and this means evaluating whether the entire platform, from infrastructure to the application tier, is up to date.  

Modernizing your digital foundation isn’t simply good practice in keeping your system agile. It lays the groundwork for future success. Beyond this, let’s take a look at the advantages of keeping current:  

1. Stay secure, up to date, and ready for AI and automation – A key benefit to regularly maintaining up-to-date environments is the ability to protect against potential cybersecurity risks. As systems fall out of date, they become more and more vulnerable to cybercriminals looking to capitalize on outdated, weakened systems. Getting your environment current ensures stronger security measures that can help prevent system compromise.  
2. Future-proofing – The phasing in of new technology and the adoption of AI and automation solutions can often mean that older systems become moot, less frequently used, and even a drag on business processes. Upgrading your ERP environment helps support evolving business needs and operations, and with AI and automation tools, you can relieve employees of menial, repetitive tasks so they can focus on the fulfilling work they prefer—setting up your operation to be a cleaner, leaner force in the market.  
3. Optimize performance – By upgrading your systems, you’re not only optimizing the performance of your ERP platform but also ensuring that you’re maximizing the value out of your technology investments by leveraging new functionality and features as they roll out. This combination provides a more reliable operation and a scalable platform better aligned with your business goals. 
4. Continuous innovation – Bringing your ERP environment to the latest release allows your organization to focus on continuously innovating. In the modern digital ecosystem, it’s important to have the operational agility to pivot and innovate as obstacles arise or demands shift. With an up-to-date ERP environment, your business can boost the productivity of your employees, enhance usage of automation to reduce human error in data handling, and scale AI components across the enterprise—where and how it makes sense. 

Continuous Adoption: A Strategy for Staying Current 

Oracle has made significant strides in decentralizing updates and upgrades, allowing businesses to follow a continuous adoption strategy. With manageable quarterly updates, companies can plan smaller, repeatable test cycles and apply updates more efficiently. This ongoing approach ensures that businesses continuously benefit from new functionalities and enhancements, fostering a cycle of innovation and productivity.  

Finding the right cadence helps prepare everyone—from employees to customers—for a more streamlined operation. Following Oracle’s timeline allows for early adoption, expected updates, and ease in maintaining current systems.  

Most of all, when adopting new features, it’s best to do so in sprints, or in sections. System overhauls can cause prolonged operational pauses or delays, which can be avoided. Taking the upgrade journey in sprints allows for incremental change that makes the entire process more palatable across the enterprise. This preparation not only ensures security but also future-proofs the business, allowing for quick pivots in response to changing requirements. 

Build a Cloud-Ready Foundation 

The foundation for all AI workloads is infrastructure. This means that now is the time to embrace the cloud, as many AI solutions are built upon the latest technology stacks.  

 With many organizations hampered by legacy tools bound to on-premises or hybrid environments, Oracle has gone to great lengths to empower its customers to benefit from AI’s ever-complexifying capabilities. Their innovations span infrastructure, data platforms, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) services, and SaaS applications.  

When considering infrastructure, OCI delivers high-performance hardware solutions, such as the “supercluster” with Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) networking, optimized for processing demanding AI workloads. OCI and RDMA are platforms tailored for AI use, allowing your organization to optimize AI inputs.  

Once on cloud, you have the option to use innovations like JDE Orchestration and AI Vector Search in Oracle Database 23ai to help remove friction, eliminate data silos, and enhance analytics. And with Oracle’s extensive library of AI services across categories—such as Generative AI (GenAI), Generative AI Agents, Document Understanding, Vision, Speech, Language, and Digital assistants—you can get started as soon as you’re ready. These services include pre-trained models and customizable options that empower businesses to address specific use cases with precision and speed. 

Enable Automation and AI 

With a current foundation in place, you have the space to map out the implementation of automation and AI tools by: 

Identifying High-Impact Use Cases 

Start with tasks that are: 

• Repetitive 

• Data-heavy 

• Time-sensitive 

When considering areas where AI can relieve friction in employees’ everyday jobs and workflows, repetitive tasks are a great low hanging fruit. Such to-dos are often the cause for eyeroll, and for good reason—they’re time holes for the things that employees prefer doing, and they drain intellectual space. Optimizing your system to take that burden off your employees doesn’t just increase productivity, it boosts employee morale.  

Upskill your IT Team 

There’s nothing like your internal IT team, so equip them with the knowledge and skills to uplift your business goals. By ensuring your team is trained in the technologies you plan to deploy, whether an OS, ERP, automation tool, or AI framework, you also help prepare for seamless transitions and updates.  

Training your team means aligning your internal stakeholders on what success with AI and automation looks like.  

Start Small, Scale Smart 

There’s no reason to overhaul an entire working system and turn over to an only-AI use. Pilot AI in a select use case, test and measure its impact, and expand when clear value is proven. Jumping to full deployment doesn’t make sense for most businesses when the full scope of the AI use case isn’t fully understood.  

The Path Forward 

The digital landscape keeps shifting, and with the disruptive powers of AI tools and automation solutions, the rate of change is accelerating. Preparing to inject AI and automation into your enterprise operations begins with getting your applications and environment current so that your business can launch and pivot as needed. 

These solutions are not one size fits all. Indeed, the proper deployment of these tools means that everything has been tested and updated as necessary, based on the platforms and applications used.  

Ready to bring your environment current and adopt AI? Schedule your 1:1 Executive Session today.  

To learn more about getting your Oracle workloads current and adopting AI , watch our workshop session, “Oracle Modernization: Before AI, You Need Upgrades.” To watch our full “Roadmap to AI Readiness” webcast, click here.