Hosted by Chandra Wobschall and Paul Houtkooper
Hey JDE Connection listeners – Chandra and Paul here!
This episode felt a little like a reunion. Paul was back behind the mic after a week away, and while Chandra proved she could hold down the fort solo, it was good to be back to our usual rhythm – interruptions and all.
Paul’s absence wasn’t just business travel (though there was plenty of that). It also came with a personal highlight: spending time in Europe with his daughter, fresh off earning her art history degree, and seeing cities, museums, and architecture through her eyes. That mix of work, learning, and connection set the tone for the whole conversation.
Taking the JDE Message on the Road
Paul spent several weeks traveling across Europe as part of Oracle’s Applications Unlimited Sales Days, visiting cities like Madrid, Utrecht, Birmingham, and Paris. These events are essentially “conferences in a day,” bringing roadmap sessions, demos, roundtables, and one-on-one conversations directly to customers who can’t always make it to BLUEPRINT4D or INFOCUS in the U.S.
What stood out most wasn’t just the attendance (hundreds of registrants across regions), but the consistency of the conversations. No matter the country, customers were asking similar questions:
- How do we drive real adoption of JD Edwards?
- How do we modernize without disrupting the business?
- How do we manage complexity when every division does things a little differently?
Those themes echoed what we’ve been hearing at INFOCUS and BLUEPRINT4D and reinforced that these challenges aren’t regional. They’re universal.
Adoption Over Hype
One of the more surprising takeaways from Paul’s meetings was what didn’t dominate the discussion. Despite all the industry noise, AI wasn’t the main topic in most customer conversations.
Instead, the focus was squarely on adoption. Customers wanted practical guidance on how to get more value from what they already have:
- Centralized vs. decentralized operating models
- Managing technical debt across multiple JDE instances
- Rolling out new capabilities consistently without alienating parts of the organization
As we talked it through, it became clear that adoption is deeply tied to culture and structure. How an organization views JD Edwards, cost of doing business vs. strategic asset, shapes how willing they are to invest time and energy into using it differently.
The Pendulum Keeps Swinging
Chandra shared an observation that sparked a great discussion: over the years, many organizations have swung from centralized models to decentralized ones and now, increasingly, back again.
Decentralization can foster creativity and speed at the local level. Centralization can enable scale, consistency, and enterprise-wide initiatives. Neither is “right” in all cases, but both directly influence how quickly and effectively new capabilities are adopted.
As Paul noted, when companies want to move fast on major initiatives, automation, analytics, AI, it’s incredibly hard to do that with dozens of disconnected versions of the truth.
A Small World After All
One of our favorite moments from the episode came when Paul described running into familiar names and faces overseas, including customers who knew the podcast and wanted selfies to send back to their teams.
Those interactions were a reminder that even when we’re not sure who’s listening, the work we do here matters. The tools we highlight, the stories we share, and the conversations we have are helping people.
Midwesternism of the Week
We wrapped things up the only way we know how – with food, stories, and a little cultural crossover. From Parisian menus to Midwest holiday traditions, it turns out that something considered “fancy” in one place can look awfully familiar somewhere else. Sometimes it just depends on how you name it and how brave you’re feeling at the appetizer table.
Until next time, let’s keep learning, sharing, and laughing together
Toodles!
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