Seven easy steps that you can follow to transform your business from where it is today to a modern cloud-based business for the future.

Oracle Guest Blogger

September 9, 2019

5 Min Read
ladder to cloud
Ladder to clouds

Today is about speed, it’s about the race to relevancy, and it’s about driving business outcomes for your customers versus giving them what they think they need. As an Oracle partner, they want you to be their trusted advisor. They’re counting on you to point the way and be with them on the journey to the cloud.

I feel fortunate that Oracle has one of the most vibrant and competitive partner ecosystems in the market, helping our joint customers increase their competitiveness through cloud value-added services. Many of you have heard me talking about these services for the past 18 months—day-one implementation services and day-two managed services—and how they can help you build a healthy, profitable business in FY20 and beyond.

But don’t just listen to me about the future of cloud services. Forrester predicts continued growth in cloud-related services with a healthy growth rate of 21% through 2022.[i] Gartner forecasts that 55% of Oracle’s on-premise customers will move 80% of their workloads to Oracle Cloud by 2021.[ii] Many of our customers who have been slow to move to the cloud are ready now—and they need your help. Here’s how we’ll help you prepare.

Over the past three years, we’ve created different methods of approaching the path to the cloud—all consistent with our cloud strategy. Now, we’ve defined seven easy steps that you can follow to transform your business from where it is today to a modern cloud-based business for the future.

For those who watched our FY20 Global Partner Kickoff in June or the PartnerCast in August, you may remember that I spoke about these seven steps. Let’s go through them together.

  1. Get certified. To help our customers transition to the cloud and transform their businesses, it’s essential to get trained in the technologies. Partners who increase their certifications are seeing boosts in revenue. These certifications help you understand the multiple use cases, the business logic, and how the products function in a business environment.

  2. Focus on line-of-business decision-makers. In the past, the CTO and CIO were responsible for IT purchases. That’s shifting to the CFO. IndustryWeek says that CFOs are expanding their role with technology purchases—and CFOs are expected to understand the role of technology to the business.[iii]

  3. Know the latest industry requirements. There are new regulations, laws, and tax codes around the world that impact your customers’ businesses, such as International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 17. Your customers want you to be the expert, with knowledge of their industry. With this valuable industry knowledge, you stand a better chance of winning the business over your competitors.7StepsToGrowYourBusiness-300x169.png

  4. Know the geographical requirements of your customers. This means the different tax codes, business regulations, and even packaging standards. For example, an international hotel chain, with hotel properties all over the world, must manage HR and payroll functions that vary by region. With this knowledge, you become their trusted advisor.

  5. Upgrade your customers to the cloud. With day-one implementation services, this is the last upgrade your customer will ever need. Businesses are frustrated because they want to accelerate growth and take advantage of new opportunities through the 90-day cycle upgrade that Oracle offers. You can help them move fast—and they’ll never have to upgrade again.

  6. Position for growth. Once you get your customers to Oracle Cloud, day-two managed services allow you to enhance and extend customer growth and your own competitive advantage. Here’s where the power of a fully integrated, secure, single data model comes into play to re-engineer business processes to fit each organization and position it for the future. This is where you can drive the most business for your firm for years ahead.

  7. Innovate change. This is the most important step of all and our theme for 2020. Innovating change means applying your knowledge of Oracle technology to your customer’s industry and business objectives. Your customers want to know where to start and which projects are a good candidate for Oracle Cloud. Show them how to take advantage of everything the cloud has to offer and how to improve their business value. You know the potential. Help them reach it.

That’s it. That’s how easy it is. You can dramatically improve your success today and in the long term by following these seven steps.

By the way, if you’re planning to be at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 16–19, 2019, here’s what you can do to get the most out of the event.

  • Familiarize yourself with all the innovation that Oracle is accelerating for you and your customers. We’ll be unveiling several new products and services, and there will be major announcements taking place throughout the week.

  • Learn all the entry points and paths for your customers’ journeys to the cloud. There are solutions for everyone, wherever they are on their journey, to help innovate for the future. This is a huge focus this year.

  • Take advantage of our Partner Experience offerings. Visit the Partner Lounge on the Exchange Floor to learn from our Oracle PartnerNetwork program experts, attend InFocus sessions designed exclusively for the partner audience, book a Connection Table for your meetings, or simply network and recharge.

  • Use the time to establish and build relationships. Meet with customers and showcase what you can do with Oracle Cloud. Come meet with me and our team—I’d like to know how to support you better.

FY20 is going to be a fantastic year—and these seven steps will help you get there faster and outmaneuver the competition. I want each of you to find a meaningful way to participate with us, to build your business now and in the future.

Camillo Speroni, Vice President, Global Alliances and Strategic Services, Cloud Business Group at Oracle

[i] Bartels, Andrew, Dave Bartoletti, and John R. Rymer, “The Public Cloud Market Outlook, 2019 to 2022,” Forrester, July 2, 2019.

[ii] https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-6MEQZC8&ct=190503&st=sb

[iii] https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/getting-ciocfo-relationship-right

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