Ahsen Javed is Managing Director for Oracle Pakistan in South West Asia. His prime responsibility is to look after Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan. Here Javed tells IDG Pakistan about how Cloud Computing can accelerate the local business scene in Pakistan and how Oracle is set on a mission to digitize business and education sector.
Q: Under your role at Oracle Corporation, since you are also looking after regions, what do you think are the current IT trends in Pakistan and the region?
Speaking globally, Oracle grew from $37.1billion to $38.3 billion for the financial year 2014. It has been a difficult year and while we see a lot of changes happening in the industry, there is also a remarkable transformation. We are at the start of the financial year 2015 and I would like to talk about the future outlook for Oracle, the core areas which we see happening in the marketplace industry, how that’s shaping up this year onwards and how precisely Oracle is responding to that transformation. We are at the helm of the affairs in certain areas so, traditionally you know, that we have been the largest Enterprise software and systems company. However, things are changing globally as well as in Pakistan. There are many emerging trends now and Oracle has been at the forefront for that.
Yes there has been a lot of advancement in IT and technology, but that is adding a lot of complexity to the process. Speaking of a typical data center and a typical ERP project, customers buy software from a vendor and they buy hardware from another vendor. They setup their own data centers; they buy other data center equipments and networking. These numbers actually keep on adding up and overall it shoots up the cost of operating and managing these applications and yet adds complexity to it. Customers have found it very difficult to take their applications on mobile, looking at the current capacity they face in their internal organizations.
Q: What has been Oracle’s major focus keeping in view local trends and market?
Our focus is to work with these customers and try to reduce their complexity. I would also quote another study by IDC where they mentioned that 80% of IT projects are actually going into keeping the lights on. It can’t be truer than that because when I talk to customers about newer projects and emerging trends, they are all bogged down with the work they are doing internally. So imagine if somebody has only 20% for newer projects, how much time they can spend on it? With only 20% in hand, they can’t do much in research and development with more innovation put into their business.
It’s the same scenario in Pakistan as well as in other West Sage countries. Therefore, we are focusing on reducing management complexities and save money for our customers so they invest into R&D and related key areas.
Q: Do you think customers are still looking at server storage than latest solutions?
We came up with our first engineered system Data B2 four years back and according to industry study, we now own more than 50% of engineered systems market place. Currently, we are in the Q1 of financial year and we will be shipping out 10 thousand engineered systems globally. We were the only company that has the complete enterprise software as well as enterprise hardware – now we also have Cloud. Customers want to have reduced complexity and they definitely prefer engineered systems than traditional storage. Most of our customers have been deploying on-premise applications and we have been working on it. Globally speaking, we have become the second largest software as a service provider and we are focused on the other areas of cloud also which is platform services since it has good margins for us although we will continue with the low margin business as well. Because all of that, customers on SAS, Oracle SAS and Oracle PAS will continue working with us and they will also expect us to work on Oracle ISS.
Q: There was a lot of complexity generally in the market place. How has Oracle catered to that and what do you really need when you are simplifying IT?
Things have traditionally evolved in a certain way which has added complexity to the customers’ data center and variety adoption. Their systems have been lacking agility in terms of embracing newer concepts – social, mobility and other emerging trends are also in the same list. We have worked with customers on certain areas which also encompass engineered systems, which are really driving down the complexity of the customer organizations. We are converting their data centers which have various components, servers, storage and networking which we are combining together. So hardware, from Oracle’s perspective, is no more a commodity business with low IP. An engineered system from Oracle is actually a combination of both hardware and software. We are bringing down currently deployment on more than 70 servers down to four engineered systems at a local telecom company. You can imagine the amount of cost saving and the amount of impact it creates not only on price to price, but also on the related referrals like the amount of space they save as well as electric consumption. These are smarter solutions and these are in great demand.
Q: How ready is the market generally to invest in Cloud Computing?
Companies want to bring down their TCO of these systems to save money which they can invest in R&D. They want to focus on their customers rather than dealing with multiple vendors or running a complex IT environment. Cloud is another such area which has the market’s attention and customers want to know more about its deployment approach and the details of the transaction. The beauty of the Cloud is that it is cost effective – the cost comes down; the TCO comes down; even the initial cost really comes down. We see interests from customers starting from their non-core applications and moving onto bigger platforms. So I’m very bullish about the future of cloud in Pakistani market and we are receiving the same response.
Q: How has the smartphones and tablets culture at workplaces helped in facilitating the environment?
There is a bigger term to that: BYOD to the market place. It has been happening in Pakistan also and that has been pushing our customers and CIOs to adopt solutions which actually fit well with the modern emerging consumer trends. There are security areas which they have been focusing on with us and there is more to do in terms of how ready is the enterprise IT. It’s relatively easy for consumers to shift from an old phone to a modern Android phone. When you are transforming the enterprise IT to something more modern, it is a tedious process and it takes time; but the drive has come from the modern IT users.
Q: What aspects your companies have to consider before implementing mobile applications?
I think the major aspect we consider is the readiness of their internal infrastructure for the implementation. Once the enterprise IT and enterprise data are being shared on mobile devices and tablets, security becomes a concern. So obviously customers have to look into these areas with more details.
Q: You mentioned that Oracle software is soon to become the second largest in the world. How can you help organizations to move onto the cloud?
Speaking of Pakistan we have 1100 customers. For our cloud adoption, our first view is to talk to our existing customers. Let’s say an application customer, who has certain modules on running a premise such as financial and supply chain, and they want to go ahead with the HR project – we advise them to do it on Cloud with us. And keeping peer requirements relating to integration in mind, we have been working out a strategy around Oracle Cloud. It can be integrated back to Oracle on premise, allowing the customers to incorporate all the work done online on Oracle Cloud back to their financial and relevant on-premise modules. So that’s our strategy to work with our customers, who are now firmly convinced of the value of Cloud as it reduces their TCO.
Q: What is the data market like over here?
Particularly speaking of the big data, I want to say that we believe Pakistani customers are usually early in adopting newer technologies. That we have seen previously as well. For Big Data also, it is still a new technology for this part of the world. There have not been many Big Data initiatives previously but with the advent of a lot of non-structured information coming our way as well as our customers’, they say they have been looking at what to do with that information. It is unstructured and it is not in the relational database. Business decisions are usually taken based on the relational database information provided. The usability of the unstructured data matters now. So Big Data is exactly that tool, which enables customers to harness the potential of unstructured data. Speaking of Pakistani customers, at the end of last year, we had our first customer adopt Oracle Big Data in Pakistan. Besides, telcos and banks are taking a lot of interest, especially from a social angle. Speaking of public sector and our current situation, it can help the government run better intelligence also in terms of issues that we are facing right now including war on terror and security. There is a lot of information out there which the government cannot utilize and big data is simply useful for government customers. Our banks are looking at Big Data very seriously.
Q: How far has Pakistan come till the date?
From a technology adoption perspective, Pakistani customers are doing pretty well but not in terms of innovation. Most of the innovation we see today is not coming from Pakistan. Although there have been some good examples, but the overall result is not satisfactory. It brings us back again the same concept of complexity that they operate on. That’s why I said the 80% of their budget is spent on keeping the lights on. They are not left with a lot of money on their disposal to actually work on or come up with innovative products and ideas.
On the other hand, there have been good developments in profits. EasyPaisa is one fine example which was innovation at its best back then. From an overall RnD perspective, as a nation we do not spend much on education. That is something Oracle is contributing to by working with 15 universities in Pakistan. All of them use the same campus management system which Stanford uses, which is from Oracle. We started that project in 2007 and we have come a long way on that. Additionally, we have worked with our 25 partner universities in Oracle academy program where we provide tools and software training curriculum for increasing students’ marketability.
Q: What are we looking at in Oracle World 2014? And how does that change the Pakistani market?
We have new announcements that will have profound impacts on Pakistani market. During the past one year, we came up with a lot of innovative products, newer features and functionalities. The one which I want to particularly mention here is the area around Oracle Database 12C. That is the next generation database, designed for Cloud. All our customers who are looking to deploy applications on top of cloud are partners, our ISP partners, other vendors also – and Oracle Database 12C is a game changer for that. It’s multi talent architecture that leaves away all the security and sharing issues which customers used to think of before looking at a Cloud option. That is something we have cemented our position on.
In May 2014, we announced the In-Memory option for Oracle database, which remarkably speeds up the customer interaction and experience while dealing with information stored on top of database. The good thing is that, they don’t have to change the application. It’s a feature you can switch on and off. It has received a great response because it is directly solving their problems which the customers face everyday.
I would also like to add that Oracle has been evolving with the needs of the customers; what they have been telling us; what their focus is and what their industry has been working on. We have been growing our business globally. We have been forefront of bringing modern technology IP and complete solutions which the customers need. So when they deal with us, we are almost able to solve all of their problems right here in Pakistan and Sage West. We are taking the discussion forward.
We are continuously investing into modern trends like Big Data and Engineered Systems, Cloud, Social, Mobility, Internet of things, and we have been able to do that because we own the best IP in the market. It’s not just the enterprise software but also the enterprise hardware. We have changed the game entirely and we are glad that our customers are taking advantage of that. I’m very excited to see what is ahead of us and our customers in 2015 and beyond.
