Kathy Gibson reports from the Oracle CIO Summit in Sandton – Today’s CIO is just about obsolete and needs to transform into the chief acceleration officer (CAO).
“Do you want to be in charge of your company’s information?” asks Kevin Attard, country leader of Oracle SA. “Today we are living in a world where IT has come into harmony with the business.
“CIOs will influence drastically the future of their businesses.”
Attard points out that company priorities at the moment are:
- Readiness for inorganic growth
- Efficiency in post-merger integration
- Growth from non-traditional markets
- Demand for faster innovation cycles
- Rapid response to non traditional competitors
- Digital transformation of the business.
“They are talking about innovating faster, about not being relegated to the passenger seat. Competition is intensifying, and not always by the traditional opposition but by newcomers.”
Digital changes everything, Attard says – and it is no different in South Africa than the rest of the world.
“Digital is passing through constant evolution. In Africa, the speed of embracing technology is moving at the speed of light. If you are not embracing it, you will be out of business.
“Digital is going to change everything.”
Users are getting used to the digital experience, he says, and they are no longer willing to compromise on that. They want to be treated as one customers regardless of the touch point they have.
“Customers are no longer tolerant,” Attard says. “If you make a mistake, you don’t lose just that customer – you lose several customers. Because the customer is king and has more access to information than you do – because there are no restrictions or red tape.”
Customers are the top priority for businesses, he adds, since they are the only reason that companies exist.
“It is becoming more competitive out there; and IT being asked to do more with less. And organisations expect to realise value without associated cost.”
The world is moving from a capital intensive market towards services, to on-demand, to a consumption-driven economy, he says.
A case in point is BMW, which traditionally sold 1 000 cars to 1 000 people – today it aims to sell one BMW 1 000 times under the company’s Now Drive programme.
“Are driverless cars a disrupter to the market?” Attard asks. “Uber was the disrupter not long ago, and they could be disrupted themselves.”
He adds that new, digital business models won’t go away; they will find ways to thrive. Examples include Uber and Tesco in the South Korea, both of which has succeeded in markets that tried to block their entry by employing digital ways of reaching customers.
Attard demonstrates how the top competitors to the banking industry at the moment are Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. “Apple did not develop the watch to challenge the Swiss watch makers, but to provide another way to do payments.”
He stresses that the customer is in charge of every company’s strategy.
For companies to develop a digital transformation strategy, Attard says the answer is to keep it simple.
“For instance, if your major priority is the customer, you need to think about customer experience. And your customers are on social networks and mobile devices. So do you offer the same customer experience to your customer on a mobile device? Are you not missing out if you are not extending your value chain to the customer.”
Attard stresses that Oracle is not talking about cloud any more. “Cloud is accepted now. And South Africa is no different. Your customers here are the same, and they are voting with their money for digital systems.”
Oracle continues to offer a choice, he adds. “And South Africa is a top priority market for Oracle, We always bring the top technology solutions to this country.”
He stresses that Oracle’s Fusion applications are designed for the cloud; but can be run on-premise or in the hybrid cloud as well.
The world’s top brands recognise that they need to stay on top of the market, to stay ahead of new and agile competitors, and cloud is one way to achieve this, Attard says,
As companies transform to digital, Attard says they need a platform to support the new digital business.
“You may decide to start small, but the vision is to grow the digital business,” he says. “So the foundation is the most important part of the project.”
A solid foundation must enable rapid innovation, deliver standardisation with open standards and keep pace with change. “In fact, I don’t want to keep up with change – I want to set the pace, be the disrupter.”
Attard adds that its important to avoid spaghetti in the cloud, with too many small projects competing for attention. He advocates rather a layered, managed approach.
Oracle provides infrastructure, platform and application layers that are all owned by Oracle. “We depend on no-one to achieve this; and offer it to our customers.
“In fact, 19 out of the top 20 SaaS players in the market are running on Oracle platforms,” he adds.
The areas that CIOs should be focusing on are:
- Invest in a digital platform. “This is not the cloud; the cloud is an enabler,” says Attard.
- Shift staff to focus on innovation. “User partners to run the systems, you focus on running your business.”
- Leverage the ecosystems. “Bank of America is an example of partnering with start-ups to enable innovation, to be change agents within the company.”
- Exploit the cloud as a technology.