Oracle Gears up to Enhance Cloud Footprint at CloudWorld

A few years ago, enterprises began to invest in cloud to beat competition and stay ahead in delivering services. It led Oracle to shift its focus to cloud solutions. Although it began its cloud journey a little late, it left no stone unturned to offer value to its customers through its line of solutions in the cloud. As a consequence, Oracle has made significant strides and increased its presence in the cloud in last few years. The company has achieved more growth in the cloud and earned business beyond its traditional base. Last year, the company got on board about 50 percent net new customers that belong to e-commerce, healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, IT/ITeS, real estate, foods & beverages, media and other industries.

From cloud evolution to revenue revolution

Globally Oracle generates about $1 billion annual review from web-based software solutions (i.e. SaaS, according to Oracle President Mark Hurd). This makes Oracle the 2nd largest SaaS company in the world. Oracle offers a broad set of horizontal and industry applications that run in a shared services private cloud model as well as public SaaS cloud model.

In order to spread awareness about its cloud strategy, Oracle organizes its annual conference called CloudWorld where its customers and partners come together to discuss and learn the scope of new trends. This year, Oracle CloudWorld is taking place in Mumbai on 7^th April.

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Shailender Kumar - Managing Director, Oracle India

Oracle's India management is bullish about the cloud initiatives in the country. As the company is increasing its customer-base even in the small and mid enterprises, the company eyes more growth. Shailender Kumar, managing director, Oracle India, explained, “Oracle was among the first MNCs to invest in India and has been in the country for over 25 years. We have come a long way in the last one year. Today, India is our second largest technical development site in the world and we have over 38,000+ employees in the country. Oracle India is the only organisation outside Oracle’s headquarters in California to represent all divisions including sales, marketing, consulting, support and education operations for domestic & global clients. India accounts for our largest research and development investment outside U.S.”

Kumar cites the recent visit by Co-CEO, Safra Catz to India where she met with the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Oracle announced three major investments that support the country’s global digital leadership. “We unveiled a massive, state-of-the-art campus centered in Bengaluru, 9 incubation centers throughout India, and an initiative to train more than half a million students each year to develop computer science skills. We strongly believe in Modi’s 'Digital India', 'Start-Up India', 'Skill India' and 'Make in India' initiatives and are determined to help India leapfrog into the 21st century through these initiatives,” added Kumar

Oracle leadership fruther emphasises that its Indian customers are beginning to realize the value cloud can bring to them.

Growth Path

According to Oracle, cloud has been identified as one of the most significant strategic technology investment for CIOs. Organizations have begun to realise that cloud is an absolute necessity in order to sustain and grow their business and cloud has emerged to be one of the biggest opportunities for companies in India. Almost every organisation in the country has or are considering to move to a cloud based solution to benefit from the inherent advantages of cloud.

“The growth of Oracle’s cloud business in India has been unprecedented. Oracle is the world’s second largest SaaS company and the only cloud service provider to offer breadth and depth of cloud solutions across Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Data as a Service (DaaS),” said Kumar.

Chalking out the business plan

Oracle claims that it is the only company which has all platforms - Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Data-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service. We believe that this provides us a competitive edge in the market. In India it claims to have multiple customers and more than 25000 seats which is a large number for a market like India, where cloud adoption is a relatively new phenomenon.

“We have clear strategies around SaaS offerings in customer experience (CX), Human Capital Management (HCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Surround. This specific business model fits very well to the local markets in India and APAC. Corporate enterprises are also increasingly looking into the SaaS model as it offers them flexibility in payment and deployment,” said Prasad Rai, Vice President, Applications, Oracle India (SaaS).

Sensing CIO's mind

The company claims that it realizes the need for upgradation in organization. Migration and integration with existing systems is one of the major challenges that need to be overcome to make a smooth transition to cloud-based environments. According to a survey carried out by Oracle, many companies have abandoned transitioning to cloud in the last three years due to cloud integration challenges. “In the absence of the right cloud integration solution, 54% have missed project deadlines and about 42% have seen data security breach in their departments associated directly with the use of cloud applications,” said Subash Nambiar, Vice President, Technology, Oracle India (PaaS). This is one of the opportunities for companies like Oracle.

Oracle is about to showcase its cloud solutions and unfold its future cloud roadmap at the Oracle CloudWorld in Mumbai where experts speakers from different areas will talk about the challenges and opportunities which cloud brings.