Mark Davison at Oracle OpenWorld, San Francisco – While Oracle is looking to transform businesses with its latest technologies, in Africa it is looking at the potential to transform whole economies – and seems prepared to put its money where its mouth is.
Loic le Guisquet, executive vice-president for EMEA at Oracle, says that over the coming year the company will not only open additional offices on the continent, it is also looking to significantly boost its staff complement by nearly half the number of its existing employees.
“While customers can transform their businesses using Oracle technology, there are other ways we can help with technology to transform economies, particularly in a regions such as Africa,” Le Guisquet says. “Africa is very exciting and is growing at an incredible rate. It is the fastest growing continent and seven out of the top 10 fastest growing countries in the world are in Africa.
“It is a huge place full of opportunities and where the size of middle-class households has tripled over the past few years,” he adds.
Le Guisquet says that while Oracle already has an established presence in Africa it is looking to bolster this over the next year.
“Currently, we have 1 000 employees across 14 countries in Africa and about 1 000 partners,” Le Guisquet continues. “ We decided last year to increase our investment in Africa and are looking to add another 400 employees and are opening offices in Mauritius and Botswana, as well as other countries in the region that warrant it.”
Le Guisquet points to projects such as mPesa in Kenya, whereby the rural population gained access to online banking via their cell phones, as just one instance where technology can help to transform communities and economies. And it is in areas such as this that Oracle technologies can be used to huge benefit.
“mPesa now has 13-million users doing transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars every month,” he says. “It has transformed the Kenyan economy and has had a massive impact on Kenya’s growth.”