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Garrett Ilg, Executive Vice President of Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific, on his company’s mantra in the diverse region, the role of India, security and sustainability
Database management and cloud services company Oracle, which entered India nearly three decades ago, is witnessing strong growth in its cloud business in the country. This is driven by digital innovation in the BFSI sector, small and medium businesses, and public sector initiatives. Given the strong growth prospects in India, Garrett Ilg, 62, Executive Vice President of Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific—in an exclusive interaction with Business Today’s Nidhi Singal—talks about the role the country plays in its global operations, skilling employees, the impact of macroeconomic headwinds, adoption of new-age technologies such as generative AI, and more. Edited excerpts:
A: Japan and Asia Pacific is a very broad region for Oracle. All facilities available to our customers worldwide are available in this region, from the cloud, the database, the applications, the analytics, what we do in our hardware and systems business, all the way up to consulting. It’s an exciting region, it’s a dynamic region, but it’s [also] a very diverse region. And one of the things that we’re very careful about is being global but acting local, and working with our customers in the form that they need to be worked with, so we can help them be more competitive.
We have been in Asia for decades. Our strong employee base of 50,000-plus professionals, with our partners, are laser-focussed on making sure our 90,000-plus customers have all the support they need to help them be successful.
A: India is scaling faster than almost anywhere on the planet. Its transaction rate on the stock exchange, its payments system that it has built so that it can do micropayments, the amount of data moving through the infrastructure of Indian companies—both domestically and around the world—are at levels that the world’s never seen before. We’re very fortunate to have the opportunity to support our customers—whether they’re banks or airlines or auto manufacturers or services companies—and helping them work through and better their organisations so they can take advantage and/or create opportunities to better support their customers.
“As we go into new technologies like generative AI, and continue to build on our autonomous capabilities, we are able to offer a host of innovative products and solutions to our customers”
Our Indian customers are technologically very advanced. They understand the value of a platform, they understand the value of an integrated solution. They also understand the challenges of a dynamic market. India is growing fast, both in [terms of the] size of the economy, [and] its transaction rate [that] sits on top of technology. Our Indian customers are really pushing the limits of scaleability, on how integration works, and the functionality of application infrastructure. For Oracle, we see that as a challenge, but we also see that as an opportunity. India is a dynamic market, and if you ask about fitting in, they’re helping us and teaching us to innovate, because we listen to our customers. By working with them, we get better ideas, we go to market together and we help them solve problems for their customers, which quite frankly, aren’t mostly unique to India, they’re global. So, by working, focussing, and then executing in India, it benefits Oracle, both in India and of course our customers around the world and most importantly, we help our Indian customers satisfy the needs of scaleability, affordability and security.
A: Oracle’s primary growth strategy is to be One Oracle. We’re the only company in technology that has the database, which is the data, which is a very essential component of any technology strategy; the application layer, which utilises the data to deliver outcomes; the ability to do analytics across that data; drive that with AI automation across the entire platform; and then have systems infrastructure—all built on a Generation 2 cloud, the most advanced cloud architecture in the market; and Oracle brings that to our customers as a platform. That platform is gaining recognition in the market regardless of the vertical.
A: I think the macroeconomics in this region are pretty substantial, pushing our business along in countries like India, Singapore, and across the Asean. And I think one of the things that we’re doing is we’re working with our customers to help them take advantage of this opportunity, a global opportunity. But again, being local, because each economy, each culture, has its own challenges. One of the things that Oracle really does focus on is making sure we help our customers with the outcome in their business, not just providing technology, but helping them to use it so they can deliver a better experience for their customers and better outcomes for their business.
A: Security has always been a very important point of focus for Oracle. It has been since the beginning of this company, and that is really our heritage. We’ve taken it through our database and the infrastructure to manage data all the way through the applications layer. We’ve delivered Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Gen. 2, which is an always-on security infrastructure, and by that, I mean that developers and people who come in with applications infrastructure can’t turn it off. And that’s really a safety feature to enable our customers to know that they’re always protected by their infrastructure. And most importantly, the threats come from all directions now. Sometimes they’re external, but sometimes, even internal. There’s ransomware, there’s cyberattacks, there’s all kinds of things we don’t even know about that are going to hit our customers in the future. So, we have to be ready now, prepare for the future, defend them now, but also defend them in the future. And together with our customers and our partners, we’re building a very, very big focus on security. And it’s a security-first approach.
A: Oracle’s been delivering AI, machine learning, [and] all these capabilities for quite a long time. We started with our autonomous infrastructure, which quite frankly doesn’t require human interaction... if you can put your data into a computer infrastructure and automate that, you can manage it, measure it, and then manage it again, so that you can continuously improve on that process. You can count on that to go correctly as you’ve programmed it. Not only our autonomous database technology, but we’ve got infrastructure for anomaly detection in our applications layer, we have trend analysis.
We’ve all been talking about AI and that is being driven by data, and then the data is driven across an infrastructure by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. .. So, while we’ve been working with automation, working with AI, being out there, delivering that to our customers, we’re ready and set to go out there and help them take it to the next level.
A: Oracle has over 45,000 people in India, and there’s all kinds of roles. There are field roles, there’s business support roles, consulting roles, development roles, product management roles. We have the full suite of employee expectation, experience, and staffing across our Indian business. And it’s not just the India market that we serve. There are many global responsibilities in our India team. Now that requires a lot of training, a lot of skill development and, of course, helping people future-proof themselves so that they can be ready for the next challenges. So, we have Oracle University, which conducts internal and external training programmes for employees and customers. We have job share, we have continued travel, and most importantly, we help people learn from each other and we share those experiences. So, while India becomes a business hub, it’s also a knowledge hub for Oracle. And we’re very excited because as we go into these new technologies like generative AI, as we continue to build on our autonomous capabilities—not just at the database level but in the cloud layer—we are able to offer a host of innovative products and solutions to our customers. As we see what comes next, we’re going to wrap our arms around that as One Oracle, as a team, as one business, and then work with our customers and partners to continue to innovate. That innovation comes out of learning and that learning is always going on in Oracle India.
A: Sustainability is an important topic. And before I talk about what Oracle is doing, I’d like to qualify this in that it’s everybody’s role and responsibility on this planet and Oracle can be a part of that, but we certainly can’t do any of it alone. So, what we intend to do is by 2025, deliver zero emissions technology to our customers. We know that’s just part of the journey. We have to help them go into zero emissions and then become sustainable as a community. And that community is the business community, the verticals we work in, customers and partners, the buildings, the infrastructure, and the transportation layers. Oracle is working in all those verticals with the solutions we have, the technology that we deliver, and with that zero-emissions commitment that we have, to help the world and those people that we work with, to be better, sustainable citizens. Oracle will continue to push and drive with innovations on technology, on how we use infrastructure, electricity, water, repeatable solutions that can help not just our customers, but our customers’ customers become more sustainable. And that’s really what the world needs for sustainability.
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