Oracle makes way for innovation through integrated solutions for businesses

By Cheranka Mendis

In a fast paced world with continuous evolvement in business and IT, the challenge now is to find time and space for innovation and business development.

With innovation becoming a key factor for success and growth in a company, making enough time for companies to innovate is becoming a global worry in the face of fast paced development and integration. For Sri Lanka too, this issue is becoming a threat when it comes to developing world class products catering to the latest trends and demands of the world.

Oracle Corporation, at a recent press gathering, noted that the company’s strategy helps build a best-in-class enterprise applications

Oracle Corporation Sales Director Sri Lanka and Maldives Chandita Samaranayake – Pic by Sameera Wijesinghe

portfolio that frees customers from the cost and complexity of acquiring, integrating and managing their own applications portfolio.

Highlighting how Oracle’s best in breed applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle CRM are enabling local organisations to transform and optimise their business, Oracle Corporation Sales Director Sri Lanka and Maldives Chandita Samaranayake noted that by incorporating such best practices from the relevant industries, organisations are now able to enhance their profitability, be more competitive and cater to their end customers’ satisfaction.

“We believe that the challenge in IT now is that there is no room for innovation as it takes too much time. What we are trying to do through our application strategies is to streamline our customers’ business processors so that they have time to innovate,” Samaranayake explained.

Stating that Oracle is the only vendor with a next generation application platform which is open standard, as well as being the only vendor with the industry’s most complete and the best of breed portfolio, he stated that Oracle offers both industry specific solutions as well as enterprise solutions.

“Our application strategy is based around four concepts,” he said. “We believe in engineering the IT complexity allowing customers to conduct innovative activity. We also believe in best in class portfolio enterprise phases, industry and cloud application, as well as intergrated stats.”

Oracle, which offers a complete system, integrates software to middleware to hardware and is about ‘complete solutions and complete choice’, which is the motto the company works with.

The complete solution is based on total integrated product strategy. The ultimate goal is to provide a complete integrated business processor by streamlining the business processes of the company/client. “The application is not into IT streamlining but the streamlining of business processes, giving customers enough time to engage in innovation and other business.”

Under this complete solution strategy, Oracle offers enterprise applications, unlimited applications and complete industry applications – a complete choice for customers. “We also do module by module without going all in, if that is the request from the customer. This is a unique strategy which has helped us in our success,” Samaranayake said. He noted that Oracle, together with the customer, maps out a five year plan identifying business processes, pain points etc. to formulate a plan that takes into account the various gaps in the existing system prior to choosing an enterprise application strategy or industry specific strategy. In Sri Lanka, Oracle has a blueprint with the top 50 companies for a five year plan, he revealed.

Speaking on enterprise applications, Samaranayake noted that activities such as enterprise resource planning, customer relation management, governance risk and compliance, human capital management, supply chain management and enterprise performance management all combined will help the business conduct their business processes smoothly. “We have a complete enterprise application network that looks into all these said areas and provides a holistic system for our customers.”

With over 200 applications, Oracle also has a large number of industry specific solutions that have been designed with the help of industry experts. Industries that are covered under industry specific solutions vary from telecommunication, automotives, aerospace and defence, banking, financial services, healthcare, public sector, retail, oil and gas.

“We also give lifetime support,” he said. “We keep investing in development, product enhancement etc. and when we position our solutions we do not encourage customers to get rid of their solutions. As an open standard, we have the capability to integrate with other solutions, making it easier for the customers.”

In Sri Lanka, Oracle is strongest in the telecommunication space with banking, finance and insurance identified as other key areas for the company. “The top 200 companies in Sri Lanka are using Oracle’s platform, infrastructure or business solutions in their activities.”