Q&A

Understanding the core business is becoming more relevant for enterprise customers. Technology vendors should build their business strategy on this can belief says Subhomoy Sengupta, Senior Director, Application Business, Oracle India in an interview with Delhi Bureau Head Faiz Askari

From a customer standpoint, what is the message of your acquisition strategy?
Oracle is positioning itself as a single company that can take care of the entire IT infrastructure bandwidth of an enterprise customer because increasingly, customers want to sort all their requirements out in a single place. All our acquisitions are in areas where the acquired company holds leadership in a particular vertical or technology.
 
What is the core business strategy of Oracle, especially from an applications point of view?
IT requirements are mainly driven by the needs of the business. This makes it extremely critical for us to understand the customer’s business and offer the best technology solution. Our core strategy revolves around the transformational systems of business. This enables us to deliver as per the business demands of the customers. Oracle has a very aggressive approach towards this and the results have been very good.

Could you clarify what you mean by transformational systems of business?
To understand the basic fundamentals of a business means understanding the exclusive demands of its stakeholders. We call these transformational systems of business. Our solutions are customized for the customer. Apart from ERP, there are associated areas that are mission critical. For example in the case of FMCG enterprises, logistics and transportation is mission critical. In the lifestyle industry, product life cycle is very sensitive issue. There are also aspects like pricing which is extremely important while developing a product. I see huge customer demand coming from these areas.
 
What do you feel are the common pain points for customers?
Enterprise customers want their pains taken seriously. They want special attention – they don’t want to be treated as ‘just another customer.’ Customers know their business and they are concerned about how they can maximize the growth of their business. While they do understand the role of technology, they are more interested in knowing how the technology can help their business grow. Oracle understands the business of its customers and offers solutions which fits well in their organizational environments.

What are the changes you have seen in the customer mindset?
The trend is gradually moving towards a one stop shop. CIOs don’t want to go to different places for different offerings. They prefer to get complete solution from a single vendor and this is especially for enterprise applications. This trend will continue to in the future as well.