by Lisa Schwartz, Sr. Director, Cloud Applications Product Marketing, Oracle |

Talk to any cloud provider in Silicon Valley or anywhere around the world and you will hear catchphrases such as “digital disruption”, “digital transformation” and “business transformation.” All of these phrases can strike fear into the hearts and minds of preoccupied business people that are just trying to keep the lights on with a positive cashflow.

Their most frequent response often is: “How do you expect me to transform my business? Where would I start? And why would I do that…especially if my business works fine now!

Yet as Bob Dylan once sang, “the times they are a-changin.’ And a-changin’ they are once again.”

McKinsey states that “since year 2000 over 50% of Fortune 500 companies have been acquired, merged or declared bankruptcy. With no end in sight.¹

With those odds even Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry would hesitate to utter the words, “Do you feel lucky?”

Yet luck is often described as: when preparation meets opportunity. 

So how prepared is your business for a future that relies on cutting edge SaaS cloud application innovation? Is your business equipped to:

• reduce time to market
• reduce costs
• provide intelligent pricing and demand sensing
• tailor your workforce
• have “machines” intelligently handle repetitive financial processes
• provide exceptional, empathetic customer experiences
• manage your global digital supply chains with ease… ..

…all concurrently?

All while easily uptaking emerging cloud technologies, when you are ready, such as:

• artificial intelligence
• machine learning
• digital assistants
• data clouds
• chatbots
• blockchain and
• Internet of Things (IoT) and more…

The question at hand is: “How do you shift the business paradigm from a slow, do it yourself, IT maintenance mentality (with all its associated costs) to a paradigm of business transformation and innovation in the cloud with scale and speed?”

The advantages are clear: The CIO of a major financial group recently estimated $385,000 in savings annually by moving 80 on-premises applications to the cloud. He also notes that the organization is processing commission payments five times faster than before and has increased IT budget spending on innovation from 20% to 60%.²

As in this case, we are seeing more and more customers recognizing the opportunity to augment their current business model quickly by using the cloud. 

How do you get started: Start planning to create a connected intelligent business with a complete Oracle Cloud SaaS Application suite. The easiest way to transform your business fast.

To learn more about how to transform your business in the cloud with connected intelligence, go to www.oracle.com/applications.

Stay up to date on the latest cloud news and subscribe for FREE to the Quest Cloud e-newsletter. Get weekly updates on the many cloud educational and networking resources Quest delivers to its user community.

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/why-digital-transformation-is-now-on-the-ceos-shoulders
2. Interview with CIO, Australian Finance Group, Jaime Vogel