6 Things to Do (and To Avoid) Based on Oracle’s Model

Oracle’s SaaS solution, known as Oracle Cloud Applications, lags behind its competition big-time. The company was the leader of previous-gen software model, but it’s had a hard transition to SaaS.It wasn’t an early adopter.It hasn’t historically offered free trials.And, although a major tech player, it’s still struggling to perfect its appeal to consumers and gain on Amazon or Microsoft.It seems that the company is committed to gaining market share, but no one seems to know if it can truly pivot its approach in a way that will drive true success beyond the accomplishments that are verbally touted by founder and CTO, Larry Ellison. Here are 6 Things to Do (and To Avoid) Based on Oracle’s Model and slow move to SaaS.

Think forward.

Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, worked at Oracle for 13 years before launching the SaaS model that would change the way that we do business. He left with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s blessing and a $2 million investment. Salesforce went on to become one of Oracle’s biggest competitors, with the stated goal of ending software like Oracle’s offerings. As Salesforce continued with promoting its next gen model, Oracle held fast to its software model. In fact, Ellison was known to bash the hype of the cloud as late as 2009.  As such, Oracle was a late entrant, only launching its first IaaS offering in 2015.

Tout your own wins rather than attack the competition.

Oracle wasn’t first out of the gates to the SaaS game. As stated above, Ellison was known as a cloud-basher until about ten years ago. This left the company with a lot of catch up to do. But, rather than focusing all of its energy on building and promoting competitive SaaS services, Ellison is known to use his platform to publicly bash the SaaS competition. At the most recent Open World Conference in September 2019, Ellison spent time in his keynote bashing Amazon Web Services, specifically. Consider, however, that Amazon has about 33% and Microsoft about 13% of cloud infrastructure services market, according to Synergy Research Group.  Oracle, by comparison, has yet to capture a significant market share. And, bashing the (very successful) competition probably isn’t helping Oracle to gain ground.

Be secure.

Oracle didn’t let its massive infrastructure go to waste. Perhaps because of its own hesitancy to adopt the cloud model, it knows well that transitioning from a private network to the cloud presents security concerns for businesses. As such, Oracle Cloud Applications offers layered security, with maximum security protocols at each level. Security is something that companies should prioritize and market as a matter of course.

Tailor product and data offerings.

Oracle, which found its success building custom solutions for customers, is still striving to be customer centric. Its cloud-based applications offer differentiated, industry-specific products and services that can be deployed to address different business needs. This includes a host of data services that encourage companies to work smarter, not just harder. Another win for Oracle.

Don’t count out a free tier.

Where Amazon and Google are known for letting consumers explore their offerings with free trials, Oracle is not. At the most recent Open World Conference in September, however, it announced the Oracle Cloud Free Tier, which consists of a set of Always Free services and a Free Trial. It has done so to make Oracle’s cloud services more appealing to try, creating more new users that may or may not adopt.Oracle has added and plans to continue to add new services and features in the coming years. As it stands now, however, Oracle is not innovating fast enough to catch the competition, and it has a lot of catching up to do. Will it win more market share in the coming years?It’s planning and hoping to do so. But, only time will tell.