A Customer Connection
An interview with Oracle CMO Judith Sim
by Margaret Terry Lindquist, July 2007
With more than 20 years at Oracle to her credit, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Judith Sim has had a tremendous effect on the way the company is perceived by customers, partners, analysts—every part of the Oracle ecosystem. Her thoughts about the company's culture, brand, and customer-centric focus provide new insight into the history—and future—of the largest enterprise software company in the world. Profit spoke with Sim on the occasion of Oracle's 30th anniversary.
PROFIT: Customer focus is at the core of Oracle's message right now—can you tell us more about that?
SIM: Customers have always been a priority for us. We have many customer focus efforts across all divisions at Oracle, which bring the voice of the customer into virtually everything we do. We have customer outreach and survey programs that collect feedback on every aspect of our customer relationships, products, and services. We have a highly structured approach to collaborating with our 420 user groups, customer advisory boards, and key customers around the world. These programs are all about working with our customers to ensure the best possible experience with Oracle. We're successful when our customers are successful. And that means putting a face to Oracle, making sure they get the information they are looking for, and helping them to help us set product direction.
It's incredibly rewarding to contribute to customer success, at a personal level. When you spend time with customers face-to-face, they know right away that they have made a connection and you can really feel it. Then you have a relationship with a customer. Even if customers don't quite have the answer yet and we are still working on it, they already feel like we are working with them. That's what makes the difference, and I notice that it happens every single day. That's one of the best things about working directly with the customers.
PROFIT: Larry Ellison is considered a celebrity as well as a visionary—what does that bring to Oracle to have that kind of leader?
SIM: Larry has the vision and talent to know where to drive our business. He also knows how to run the business with the management team that we have in place. He has picked some very strong leaders who can translate that vision and know how to drive it for our business on a day-to-day basis. It is the combination of that vision and that leadership skill that I think really makes him the best leader in the industry.
PROFIT: Can you talk about the culture here at Oracle when you first started and the type of people that you worked with and how that inspired innovation?
SIM: I think the culture at Oracle today isn't all that different from when I started. When I first started at Oracle we always hired people who never knew what it was like to fail. We wanted to put them in an environment that was very aggressive. Oracle is still very entrepreneurial. We're like a small company where you can try different things, but you have the backing of a multi-billion-dollar company. It is the best playground for us to be able to accomplish our jobs, and the management team lets us do that. They let us make mistakes. They let us try something different. Because of that, it's an environment where I want to come to work every morning. I love my job, and I love what we are able to create.
