Oracle Getting Partners On Board with Customer Success

ORACLE CLOUDWORLD LONDON — “We put your success in the heart of everything we do. It’s really a new Oracle. And we’re really here to serve.”

This was the message from Oracle’s EVP, corporate operations, Doug Kehring to customers and partners at Oracle CloudWorld London on Thursday. There, he focused on the creation of Oracle Customer Success Services (CSS) in 2023.

“We built this organization … with the goal of ensuring that once you’ve made a purchase decision with Oracle, that you get the value out of those technologies,” he said.

Pushing Customer Success Out to Oracle Partners

This means extending a strong internal push around the concept to Oracle partners, said the firm’s global channel lead, Doug Smith. For partners, this has included putting partner success managers in place, and providing tools and training to ensure customers properly leverage their investment.

Oracle's Doug Smith

“The big change this year is, how do we really package these things up into programs and offerings and engagement with the partners?” Smith told Channel Futures. “So, a larger partner may have an established methodology that they use for deployment and ongoing services. We’ve taken the intellectual property that Oracle has built over the years and used in our Oracle consulting practice, and we’re converting that, saying, ‘Here’s what we’ve learned in terms of best practices, partners, and we’re going to share them with you.’”

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Smith added that in the past, some partners felt like they were competing against Oracle’s consulting services.

“That’s a pivot that we’ve been making over a number of years. And I think this is just one more step in that direction," he said.

Oracle Seeking Greater Collaboration With Partners

At its Partner Summit prior to the event, Oracle said it was looking to better collaborate with partners.

“How do we be more collaborative in go to market? How do we get more involved with the partners earlier in the sales cycle? So that ultimately will do a better job of delivering a great sales process for customers,” said Smith. “The customer should have a hard time figuring out where Oracle starts and ends, and where the partner starts and ends.”

Smith said this is all part of “a significant move towards being very partner-centric and partner-focused. It’s the reason I came to Oracle three years ago to help lead in that transformation. And it’s probably a journey with no end. But we’re continuing to reinvent how we do things in that way.”

"There’s been a lot of talk[about] how Oracle can enable us to be able to sell quicker and better,” said Chris Mason, CEO of Oracle partner, Namos.

Namos' Chris Mason

Mason said Oracle was emphasizing “the massive increase of projects that are now being delivered by partners.” Otherwise, he said, they won’t be able to scale in line with growth targets.

“There’s been a real focus from Oracle about how they work with partners and how we can grow that together,” he said.