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CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) is the world's premier, full-service real estate services company. Operating globally, the firm holds a leadership position in virtually all of the world's key business centers.

Whether it's a local, regional, national or global assignment, CBRE applies insight, experience, intelligence and resources to help clients make informed business and real estate decisions. CBRE's strengths, which are applied to every transaction, assignment and client relationship, include:

• An intimate knowledge of virtually every major market in the world
• Intellectual capital and technology resources that develop and deliver superior analytical, research and client service tools to its professionals
• A proven track record of meeting diverse client needs
• Leadership positions in nearly all service lines
• An organizational structure that harnesses the firm's collective expertise

Together with their partner and affiliate offices, they have more than 300 offices in 50 countries. Each year, they complete thousands of successful assignments – with clients from the gamut of industries.

This volume creates market knowledge that allows them to seize opportunities, speed the business process and create the most thorough, precisely accurate picture of global commercial real estate conditions and trends.
Every day, in markets around the globe, they apply insight, experience, intelligence and resources to help clients make informed real estate decisions.

They do not exist without their clients – and they never lose sight of this fact. To that end, every employee in every office around the world lives by a corporate mission:

• Put the client first -- always
• Tailor services to the client's needs
• Think innovatively, but act practically
• Help the client make the most informed business decisions
• Deliver results

The situation

As the CBRE organization grew; it became evident that many of the technological advances available within their ERP system had not been tapped. This was due to the fact that CBRE had modified their JD Edwards World applications and had (in some cases) created individual instances of the software for individual client needs to accommodate their client needs as they grew. They needed to make some changes that would enable scalability and meet the following business requirements:

• Reduce modifications
• Reduce number of instances of the software
• Review/revise business processes
• Update technology
• Put all operations on a consistent release level
  

In addition, the users also possessed a number of goals that they were looking to achieve through a technology change:

• Improve and streamline processes across divisions
• Add efficiencies to every day tasks
• Automate manual processes

Provide scalable infrastructure for easier growth and future acquisitions.

Solution

After a review of alternatives, CBRE elected to migrate their ERP solution from J.D. Edwards World and OneWorld ‘XE’ applications to J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne application suite of products. While both product lines are a part of the Oracle family of products, the EnterpriseOne product line offered CBRE the opportunity to satisfy their business requirements. CBRE adopted a phased approach to their project:

• Phase Determination
• Phase I – Add one division to the OneWorld ‘XE’ environment
• Phase II – Upgrade the OneWorld ‘XE’ environment to EnterpriseOne 8.11
• Phase III – Migrate the World environments to EnterpriseOne 8.11
• Synchronization programs
• Process reviews
• Project plan
• Level of detail
  

In addition to the application suite plans that were a part of the CBRE project, new middleware was chosen as part of the web strategy for end user interface capabilities as part of the project for the following reasons:

• Move the Web Server off of the iSeries platform
• Adopt the first component of Fusion Middleware by implementing Oracle Application Server

After successfully completing the first phase — adding one division to OneWorld ‘XE’, the next phases are currently underway.

Benefits / ROI

CBRE has been a successful user of the World software for more than a decade now. Additionally, the OneWorld software (for one instance) has been up and running since 2001. The greatest measurable improvements attained during the implementation were and continue to be:

1. Standardized financial systems and procedures
2. Consolidated financial reporting
3. Improved month-end close
4. Significant productivity gains in warehouse operations
5. Integrated distribution and financial processes
6. Improved controls

Enviroment

1. JD Edwards World ERP, version A7.3 running on multiple IBM I-series; approximately 500 users world wide.
2. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP, version 8.10 running on IBM RS 6000, employing IBM WebSphere to deploy the application to approximately 100 users in North America.