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Oracle: Driving Innovation in Europe
As Europe moves further into a post-industrial economy, the continent must turn itself into a centre of innovation if it is to maintain current standards of living for its citizens and continue to compete economically on the world stage. Confident of the region’s potential in this regard, the European Commission in its 2002 Lisbon Agenda made an explicit commitment to making the European Union more
productive than the United States by 2010.
The Lisbon Agenda’s ambitious aims, which also include the target of a higher employment rate in Europe than the US, cannot be achieved without Europe becoming a centre of post-industrial excellence. Innovation must become a defining characteristic of public and private sector activity across the continent, in order to drive better and more efficient ways of working, to develop new ideas for commercial development and exploitation,
and to improve the life of citizens.
As a major employer with long-standing presence in the region, Oracle is fully committed to helping Europe realise these ambitions. Innovation has been one of the major driving forces behind Oracle’s own success, which has seen the company grow from three people in 1977 to the 50,000-strong global corporation it is today. In 1977 Oracle founders Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates commercialised the world’s first relational database management system, ushering in a technology revolution in the way information is stored and managed. Today, some form of relational database is used by almost every organisation in the world to store, manage, analyse and protect the information
generated by its activities.
Oracle has not stopped innovating since its inception, and has been at the forefront of technology developments leading to the introduction of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, web-based applications, software as a service and Grid Computing. Innovation does not just spring from the company’s technological research and development centres in California, India and China, but from right across the company. Employees across the organisation continually invent new processes, tools and methodologies that allow Oracle as
a whole to work better, faster and more cost-effectively.
For many years, Oracle has been in an ideal position to extend its culture of innovation outside of the company itself, and into other software companies and entities that together form a massive ecosystem. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa alone, for example, there are more than 10,000 companies of all sizes who are engaged in providing products and services based on Oracle’s products and services. These activities range from advising Oracle customers and implementing Oracle software to developing and selling tools, hardware, services and applications that complement or enhance
Oracle’s own products.
In the same region there are more than 75,000 Oracle customers, many of whom frequently invent new ways of working through a constant collaboration with Oracle's employees and partners, using Oracle products, suggest valuable enhancements to our products, or develop complementary tools
and products that are capable of being commercialised in their own right.
It was in order to encourage, recognise and reward such innovation in its EMEA community that Oracle’s EMEA vice president for innovation and strategy development Vasu Briquez, with the support of EMEA Executive Vice President Sergio Giacoletto, established the Oracle Innovation Network in 2001. In the intervening five years, the Innovation Network has identified 1,000 innovations from inside and outside the company, which together have resulted in 15 new products and 10 major process improvements. It is estimated that 5% of Oracle EMEA’s current pipeline sales
are directly attributable to the Innovation Network.
Oracle is, of course, not the only beneficiary of the innovations identified by the Innovation Network. In 2004, it inaugurated an annual Oracle PartnerNetwork Innovation Award, for partners who have developed an innovative product or service that complements Oracle’s own. Award winners receive funds to support advertising and market development for their innovation, as well as the attention of the Oracle sales force, who often go on to recommend the partner’s innovation to suitable
customers.
A recent winner of the Oracle PartnerNetwork Innovation Award is Geodan Mobile Solutions, a software company based in the Netherlands. Geodan’s software uses Oracle Spatial database technology to provide location-based data to customers who are continually on the move. An early customer was the Dutch Police, who use Geodan’s Oracle-based software to access person, vehicle
and location information from handheld computers while on the beat.
Oracle’s proactive approach to fostering and promoting innovation in its extended European community resulted in the Innovation Network being commended in June 2006 by Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, a strategic partnership between MIT and Cambridge University. In summing up the benefits of the initiative, the report’s authors, Dr George Olcott and Professor Nick Oliver, concluded that “for Oracle, unlocking the innovation inherent in the sales and consulting force has been a key competitive advantage. The business benefits are very clear and the
Oracle experience carries important lessons for many other organisations.”
Download
the complete Judge Business School report by clicking
here.
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