Oracle targets cloud sales at Asia Pacific’s mid-sized firms

• 
  Zafar Anjum
• Published: 18 Jul 2016 9:30

Oracle is investing in its resources in the Apac region, with a focus on driving cloud software sales.

Cloud adoption is on the rise in Asia Pacific, with major businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) both migrating. Oracle is investing in its hubs in the region, including one in Singapore, stepping up its sales push for cloud technologies.

Neeraj Shaabi, managing director for Oracle Asean/South East Asia, said there had been a sudden surge in interest from mid-sized firms in cloud-based software.

“Five or 10 years ago, a mid-sized company would not have been able to afford a CRM [customer relationship management] system,” he said. “Today, it is on tap. Mid-sized companies are the biggest beneficiaries of cloud applications. Implementation time is just 12-16 weeks and on average it does not cost more than $200,000 to $300,000.”

Oracle sees a big opportunity in the mid-market segment to follow up its previous success in the Asean region. Startups such as Singapore-based online grocery store Red Mart uses Oracle ERP cloud,  Southeast Asian online fashion merchant Zalora uses Oracle marketing cloud, and SMEs such as Puninar Logistics in Indonesia use Oracle Transportation Management.

Shaabi said Oracle’s cloud business throughout Asia Pacific has grown considerably, and it has helped a diverse range of organisations migrate to cloud over the past year.

To aid its cloud push, Oracle is hiring 1,000 new recruits for its digital selling team in Apac, creating similar resources to those it has deployed in EMEA and the US. It will hire about 230 professionals in Singapore, where it will open a state-of-the-art digital sales hub. Other sale hubs are planned for Australia, China, India and Korea.

Oracle’s Singapore digital sales hub will cover Asean and emerging markets. “We are going to house the team in a modern facility with digital marketing tools, demand generation, webinars, and a new customer services and sales methodology,” said Shaabi.

“We will try to attract the millennials and top talent from business and IT schools. A hub in Singapore makes a lot of sense for us. We are not trying to save money by doing this in a low-cost country – we are trying to create the next big innovation.”

The new workforce will aim to make cloud purchases quicker and easier for mid-market customers. A new role, customer success manager, is being created to ensure customers gets the most value from the cloud, said Shaabi.

The digital team’s resources will enable them to deliver real-time demos to customers anywhere in the world without leaving the office, he added.