Culture Change at Oracle Sees Shift In Partner Strategy
Oracle is transitioning from a “transactional” product-led partner strategy to focusing on solutions and outcomes.
![Oracle partner strategy changes Oracle partner strategy changes](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt3e77fad269219a81/6523ecc8606c0c828a6b88b6/Chess-Strategy.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
totojang1977/Shutterstock
Oracle global channel leader Doug Smith described a change in Oracle’s partner strategy to be “more proactive.”
“Five years ago or so … the thinking of Oracle with partners was more focused on ‘Hey, we’ve sold a customer on this technology. We need somebody to go implement it.’ It was much more like a transactional relationship with the partner … and in some ways … a more reactive relationship.
“We’ve really focused on being more proactive and strategic … The response from the partners the customer response, the response within Oracle to see that all come together. it’s been really fantastic.”
Elsewhere, Smith said he is focused on three key ways of creating value through partnerships. The first is solution innovation, with Oracle working with partners to bring those solutions to market.
“How do we work with our SI partners to deliver those end-to-end solutions? Think of it as digital transformation in a box. We can go into a customer and say, ‘We understand what your needs are. This is how Oracle and a partner like Accenture, Deloitte or Infosys or Wipro or IBM can come in together and deliver on your needs.”
Smith said over the past 18 months Oracle has brought more than 40 industry solutions to market with SI services partners.
“It’s fantastic because it really helps expand the relevancy and impact for Oracle’s technologies with our customers. It also helps our services partners differentiate because … they’re all looking for ways to show how they’re different than their competition. So by innovating together and creating the solution sets that’s together, we’re able to help our partners grow their business as well.”
Smith said 60-80% of Oracles technologies, depending on the product area, are deployed with through services partners.
“Services partners are an incredibly important part of our ecosystem,” he said.
Smith said Oracle was looking to engage in partnership with SIs and service providers in a deeper way.
“I saw the opportunity as an outsider to Oracle, but someone who has been in the industry for a long time, to see where Oracle with a broader, deeper partner ecosystem could deliver on those solution needs for customers.”
The second area of Oracle’s partner strategy is its go-to-market. Here, Smith said Oracle is working on program elements such as lead generation, registering partner opportunities and working customer opportunities through the sales cycle.
“The customer should experience a really great, seamless sales process,” he explained. “The ideal state is a customer, who’s sitting in a meeting with Oracle and one of our key partners, should come away feeling like, ‘I don’t know where that partner starts and ends and I don’t know where Oracle starts and ends. But this meets my needs because these two companies are working so closely together, that they’re very focused on my needs.’”
The final focus area – and most important, according to Smith – is customer success.
To that end, Oracle has created a new organization this fiscal year called Customer Success Services. Not only does it include the vendor’s training and enablement resources like Oracle University, but also a new function for partners. Oracle is putting partner success managers in place, together with its existing customer success managers, to work with partners at individual customer implementations to ensure implementations are delivering value to customers.
On the topic of the current hype around artificial intelligence (AI), Smith said the technology was “nothing new” for Oracle. He cited AI capabilities in Oracle’s databases and in its Fusion SaaS products.
“We’ve been investing in that stuff for many, many years,” he said.
And the newer hot topic of generative AI was addressed recently with a new partnership with Toronto-based ISV Cohere. Oracle will provide native generative AI services built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and leveraging Oracle’s Supercluster capabilities. The Oracle generative AI services will reportedly “span applications to infrastructure.”
Oracle has also extended its collaboration with Nvidia to run Nvidia AI applications on the new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Supercluster. Nvidia has selected OCI as the first hyperscale cloud provider to offer Nvidia DGX Cloud, an AI supercomputing service, at scale. In addition, Nvidia is running Nvidia AI Foundations, its new generative AI cloud services, which are available through DGX Cloud, on OCI.
Smith said Oracle has more than “30 generative AI ISVs who’ve made a bet on OCI as a cloud infrastructure and made financial commitments in excess of $2 billion.
“We are, as a company, in a great position with AI. And with the generative AI, both in our partnership with Cohere and other players who’ve made a bet on our cloud.” he said.
The exec said Oracle also sees a big opportunity in the other hot topic of the day – marketplaces.
“There are a couple of different ways that we’re tackling that,” he said. “We do have an OCI marketplace. today and you’re going to see us continue to grow with marketplace arrangements.
“The other piece that we see is distributors who play an active role. In EMEA, we’re working with Arrow to make sure where especially small and medium businesses that want to procure their services through a distributor arrangement as opposed to directly from Oracle, they have those options too. So we’ve got a really good relationship with Arrow, and that’s a relationship that my team has put in place.”
For Oracle’s SMB customers, Smith pointed to its dedicated offering, NetSuite. But moreover, he focused on Oracle’s vertical expertise.
“We’ve also got 11 industry verticals, like health care, manufacturing, telco, financial services, hospitality, energy and utilities. We have technologies like Cerner, which is a company that we acquired last calendar year, that delivers mission critical systems for those industry verticals.
“The opportunity to work with our partners and to integrate those into solutions is super helpful.”
Finally, Smith said Oracle would continue to recruit new partners “in significant and targeted ways.”
“It’s not necessarily about the number of partners you recruit, but the right partners in the right way who are delivering across those three elements,” he said.
One of the ways Oracle is looking to execute on that is through industry ecosystems. The vendor is looking specifically at industry vertical technologies, horizontal application technologies, and deeper down its solution stack.
“How do we work with partners to really deliver the solutions that customers want? How do we broaden and get deeper penetration with those [services partners]? How so we work with more with ISVs? You’ll see a lot more growth and a lot more opportunity with ISVs and platform providers.”
Finally, Smith said Oracle would continue to recruit new partners “in significant and targeted ways.”
“It’s not necessarily about the number of partners you recruit, but the right partners in the right way who are delivering across those three elements,” he said.
One of the ways Oracle is looking to execute on that is through industry ecosystems. The vendor is looking specifically at industry vertical technologies, horizontal application technologies, and deeper down its solution stack.
“How do we work with partners to really deliver the solutions that customers want? How do we broaden and get deeper penetration with those [services partners]? How so we work with more with ISVs? You’ll see a lot more growth and a lot more opportunity with ISVs and platform providers.”
Oracle’s global channel leader has revealed a strategic change in partner strategy from “reactive” product sales to focusing on solutions and outcomes.
Doug Smith began leading the transition upon joining the company two years ago.
Oracle’s Doug Smith
“I came to Oracle because I saw a company that has some amazing products that are so relevant in today’s world. But one of the challenges – and opportunities – is that customers want solutions and outcomes, more so than products.
“The challenge for a lot of historically product-[led] companies like Oracle is, how do you make that transition? Because we’re now in a cloud services world, not in a licensed product world. That’s where the growth and the opportunity is. You have to meet customers where they are and where they want to be in terms of delivering solutions, which means you also have to have an understanding of IT solutions [that] are broader than just the technology products that are used.”
Oracle Partner Strategy More Solutions-Oriented
Smith described the shift in Oracle partner strategy as “a culture change that everybody in the industry is going through.”
“Even when I talk to services partners, they will acknowledge that historically, they’ve been very product-centric, and they need to be more solutions-oriented. But it’s a transition that everybody’s going through. That was one of the things that was important for me and the decision to come over to Oracle,” said the Microsoft veteran. “We have the sales leadership, we have the product leadership, we have the support leadership, the marketing, across all the functions with Oracle.”
See the slideshow above to read more about the shift from a “reactive to proactive” Oracle partner strategy. Also, discover how Oracle is responding to current industry trends like generative AI and online marketplaces.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Christine Horton or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like