Oracle points to the Cloud to help Indian companies prepare for GST
At its OpenWorld event held between 9 – 10 May in New Delhi, Oracle made a number of announcements on cloud computing and said cloud was the way to go for Indian companies who are preparing for GST and tax reforms. Oracle’s focus on cloud is evident with the significant announcements it made at its maiden OpenWorld event in the country.
“We are truly an integrated American Indian company,” Oracle’s CEO Safra Catz said in her keynote address at the recently-concluded event. Catz also said that India is “potentially” the largest market in the world for the company.
It announced the availability of Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud in India to help companies prepare for the country’s transformational tax reforms – Goods and Services Tax (GST). “Global adoption of our leading Oracle ERP Cloud continues to accelerate. We expect this trend to grow in India as customers can now take advantage of Oracle ERP Cloud’s comprehensive tax management capabilities, fully integrated with core ERP functions, to help make better business decisions and address regulatory changes driven by the new GST,” said the 55-year-old CEO.
GST regulations are set to be implemented from 1 July, which will enforce simplified and uniform tax rates across states. Analysts believe GST could indeed prove to be a game changer for Oracle. “As the maturity of cloud adoption grows, companies who can take a solution-driven approach, create a strong channel partner ecosystem, and invest in cutting-edge use cases will lead the market,” says Praveen Bhadada, Partner & Global Head, Digital Transformation, Zinnov.
“It is interesting that Oracle is identifying the current challenges in markets like India and is making bets in those directions. The impact of Oracle cloud offerings is yet to be seen and GST could be that inflection point for Oracle as well as for other vendors in this space. Oracle has usually not been very strong in the Indian SMB market and that might remain as a key challenge for them to succeed in the cloud market in India,” Bhadada adds.
But, lately Oracle in India is seen focusing a lot on the SMB and startups segment. For instance, to make it easier for organisations of all sizes to move to the cloud, last year Oracle launched its Cloud At Customer offering which allows customers the flexibility to the put their data on-premise while being completely compatible with Oracle Cloud, providing the same services, performance, and scale. Oracle counts Myntra, Ferns & Petals, Safexpress, and Ujjivan Financial Services among its new cloud customers in the SMB segment.
Recently, Oracle also announced the successful completion of two batches of startups through the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator Program in Bengaluru. The program which has now extended to Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and other international markets, provides startups with six months of training and mentorship, technology, co-working space, access to Oracle customers, partners and investors, and free Oracle Cloud credits. Through this initiative, Oracle is looking to boost entrepreneurship, economic development and further the country’s digital agenda.
“Unlike traditional accelerator programs, this is a next-generation acceleration initiative driven by Oracle R&D, and has a focus on reimagining enterprise innovation through true partnership with startups. The initiative targets medium-sized firms, including MSMEs (micro, small, medium enterprises) and startups, which encompass a highly vibrant and dynamic sector of the Indian economy, contributing more than 37 per cent of India’s GDP,” Oracle said.
Reinforcing its commitment to cloud in India, Oracle also announced its first cloud data centre in the country to be launched over the next 6-9 months. The cloud data centre in India will help Oracle penetrate to the highly-regulated sectors such as BFSI, telecom, and government, Shailender Kumar, MD of Oracle India told BW Businessworld.
Over the coming months, Oracle will be reviewing proposals from government and business partners to provide customers with the capability to build and move workloads to an India-based cloud. “The services will offer uncompromised security and performance at a significant price advantage over both existing on premises infrastructure and competitive cloud offerings,” the company said in a statement.
Well, Oracle isn’t the only player eyeing the lucrative cloud market in India as major technology MNCs like IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services are competing for the same pie. Around the same time that Oracle launched its GST-compliant ERP Cloud, SAP announced the Saral GST solution in partnership with Reliance Corporate IT Park (RCITPL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. The competitors have also established big data centre footprints in India over the past two years.
