12. Up in the cloud: the next African technology leapfrog?
By Delia Meth-Cohn
The cloud could have been invented for Africa. The pay-as-you-go SaaS model (Software as a Service -
see box for definitions) gets around financing constraints, while its scalability and variable service levels
accommodate fast-growing businesses and help handle volatile environments. In addition, the lack of legacy
systems makes the decision to opt for cloud solutions far easier than in the West where companies have
invested millions into buying servers and software.
As a result, the cloud could allow African companies to leapfrog the painful process of installing servers
and implementing software solutions. If that happened, it would transform enterprise technology over the
next decade in the same way that mobiles revolutionised consumer technology in the past one. But the
constraints in Africa remain large, ranging from the quality and cost of broadband connections to a lack of
trust in what remains a relatively unknown service offering.
The reality is that the cloud, for all its massive potential, is still virtually non-existent across the continent.
In the SaaS space, sizeable deals are few and far between – a few banks, telcos and the odd pioneer in other
sectors – mostly still in the implementation or pipeline stage. Although growing, adoption is remarkably slow.
This background paper will look at whether the cloud will become a big business opportunity for technology
companies across Africa and catapult the continent forward. It will:
• focus in on the drivers and constraints of cloud technology compared to elsewhere in the world
• look at the markets and products where pick-up will be fastest, and
• explore how technology companies will need to approach selling the cloud to boost their business,
rather than merely hollow out their margins.
The paper concludes that the cloud will transform enterprise technology use in Africa over time, although
growth is likely to be uneven and require a good few years to reach critical mass. For companies that want to
sell the SaaS model and other cloud services, however, the work in building awareness, developing new skills
and creating a feasible business model starts now. Ignoring cloud solutions as too difficult and unprofitable in
the short term is a recipe for long-term decline.
We will discuss these findings as well as your thoughts and experiences during the workshop at Oracle Africa
Partners Forum in Nairobi.
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13. Getting to critical mass: the drivers and constraints of the SaaS model
For all the hype around the cloud globally, it is just starting to reach critical mass in the US, and Europe
is trailing one to two years behind. The biggest take-up has been among small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). According to a new report by Spiceworks1
, 61% of SMEs in the US and Europe
are using cloud-based applications today and a further 5% intend to start using them in the next six
months, bringing the total to 66% (see chart). While this includes cloud-based web and email hosting,
46% of SMEs already have productivity solutions, 24% sales support and 19% business support, with
growth in these categories over the next six months well above the average.
Definitions in the cloud
Cloud computing is the art of using processing power elsewhere to meet your requirements. There
are three delivery models, each of which can be deployed on a public, private or community cloud.
SaaS: Software as a Service is designed for end-users, who pay a subscription fee to a subscriber
and receive access to a business application via the internet. The provider takes responsibility for the
provision of the software, hosting, backups, hardware support, technical upgrades and so on. The
only requirement for the subscriber is internet access and a web browser.
PaaS: Platform as a Service entails the provision of technology services such as database,
middleware, identity management, developer services, messaging and storage. This enables a
customer to build applications using this infrastructure.
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service is designed for IT departments that want to maintain their own
software environment entirely, but do not want to buy and maintain the hardware needed to
support it. Its servers are therefore virtual and paid for on a leasing basis.
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1
State of SMB IT 1H 2013 http://www.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-smb-it/
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14. SME’s use of cloud applications in North America and Europe
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2
The Future of Cloud Computing. 3rd Annual Survey 2013, North Bridge and Gigaom
http://www.northbridge.com/2013-cloud-computing-survey
Another recent survey from North Bridge2
, focusing just on the US, shows 63% of respondents using SaaS
solutions in their company, with significant growth still to come (see chart).
1
State of SMB IT 1H 2013 http://www.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-smb-it/
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15. Cloud use by type of application, US market 2013
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3
Cloud Channel Trends, 2013 to 2014, February 2013
http://www.forrester.com/pimages/rws/reprints/document/90001/oid/1-LMIK8X
Source: http://www.northbridge.com/2013-cloud-computing-survey
Translated into revenue terms, Forrester forecasts that channel partners (across all vendors) in the US
and Europe will increase their reliance on SaaS and other cloud-based services from a current average
of 22% of their revenue to 27% in 20143
. The focus is now clearly shifting from getting cloud infrastructure
in place and experimenting with pilot projects to applications.
In comparison, Africa is right at the beginning. “South Africa, the most advanced cloud market in the
region, is about two years behind Europe, and one or two years ahead of the rest of Africa,” according
to Margaret Adam, Program Director - Services for the region at IDC. “But we are seeing some innovation
in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana and Senegal, and these have the potential to catch up quickly.”
Indeed Albie Bester, Managing Director of Pamoja, a provider of wholesale data hosting and cloud
platforms, says Kenya is growing in leaps and bounds and might be leading in Africa next year.
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16. “Cloud does have huge potential – and there could be a leapfrog effect as companies embrace new models
and move directly on to the new technology,” says Frank Rizzo, Technology Partner at KPMG South Africa.
“But the take-up is very slow. The cloud should be exploding and we need to unpack why that is not the case.”
There are three sets of constraints slowing the adoption of SaaS solution – and they vary in importance
across the continent. The first is the weakness and cost of the communications infrastructure. The arrival of
numerous undersea cables in the past four years, along with significant investment into terrestrial optical
fibre networks in many countries since 2010 (estimated at some $8 billion4
), has transformed the continent’s
access to broadband internet. But bandwidth is still limited in many markets and its cost ranges widely too,
depending largely on the extent to which strong competition has pushed telcos into data. In Kenya, says
Pamoja’s Mr Bester, prices are just 10% of those in South Africa. Overall, eastern Africa offers the best
conditions for broadband connections, followed by western Africa (see chart).
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4
Lifting barriers to Internet development in Africa: suggestions for improving connectivity,
Analsys Mason for the Internet Society, May 2013
Average price of broadband connection per gigabyte for bundled packages, 2012
Source: Analsys Mason, May 2013
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17. On top of basic infrastructure problems, the lack of local data centres means that companies using cloud
services still generally rely on centres in Europe or India and face international connectivity charges as well
as latency problems – slower access to services that is problematic for mission-critical applications.
“Infrastructure is still a major challenge in Africa and cloud services are dependent on reliable and high
speed access to the internet to be effective,” says Stephen Williams, CEO of Engage IT Global in the UK,
who says his teams must still take applications to clients in Africa on stand-alone laptops due to internet
reliability issues.
Data security
The second constraint on the growth of cloud services is a large degree of uncertainty on the part of
customers around data security and regulatory issues. Customers’ worries about where and how their
data is held and what this implies for compliance have been a common phenomenon globally. Indeed in
Europe, where data privacy regulations are strong and differ from country to country, these concerns
have played a part in the continent’s lag in adoption of cloud services in comparison to the US.
In Africa, regulatory compliance is not the key issue. While Namibia and Madagascar do have onerous
legislation requiring authorisation for data to leave the country, the real challenge in most countries is that
there are no relevant regulations in place. “It’s a massive grey area,” says Ms Adam of IDC. “There are
fears that regulations will change, bringing future compliance concerns.” In South Africa, for example,
the government has been discussing a protection of personal information bill that will drive privacy standards
since 2007. Since it is still not clear how it will look, many companies are holding off on investments for
fear they may have to make big changes. On the regulation of cross-border data, countries are right at the
beginning and attempts to come up with continent-wide solutions have not progressed.
Tackling regulatory uncertainty is difficult and is bringing pressure from clients for localisation. “We’re
making the rules up as we go along,” says Austin Okere, Managing Director of Computer Warehouse
Group in Nigeria. He is starting to sell his cloud-based microfinance application to banks in other African
markets. “It would be ideal if we could centralise operations in Nigeria,” he says. “But we expect central
banks will want us to host payments data locally.”
For Bright Simons, President of mPedigree Network in Ghana, the lack of detailed regulations on
cross-border data provides an opportunity to define new standards that enable radical innovations, as
happened with the rapid spread of mobile payments by telcos in eastern Africa. “Companies that are
expanding across borders with innovative cloud-based solutions can develop their own standards, which
then catch on,” he says. “The regulation is not there yet.”
While the absence of regulations is a headache, potential customers worry more concretely about data
security and privacy – losing control over their data and laying themselves open to disclosure if their data
is physically located outside their own country, especially in the US or with American companies. Recent
revelations of the extent of US surveillance in Europe have not made the issue any easier to handle.
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18. Fears around keeping sensitive data outside the company have been a common phenomenon globally as
cloud services were introduced. But experience elsewhere shows that these concerns are likely to recede
gradually as companies realise that data held in the cloud could actually be considerably more secure than
it is on their own servers or in small local data centres. A recent survey of over 500 large companies in the
US and Europe, for example, showed that while 46% reported that security had been their biggest reason not
to move an application to the cloud, 98% said that security had met or exceeded their expectations.5
The reason is that cloud migration forces companies to review and update their own security practices
which are often weak and susceptible to error or hacking. One technology executive, currently
implementing a SaaS application with a large African enterprise, says he spent six months convincing
every level of management that their payroll data would be secure before signing the deal. He was
shocked, once they started implementation, to receive the entire payroll data by email!
Similarly, governments around the continent tend to insist on local hosting for their data, while some are
happily using Google Apps – a pure cloud-based system, with more than half of its data centres located in
the US and none in Africa – for its own email and productivity software needs (see box on SaaS for the
public sector).
Concerns around data security and privacy mean that, for the next few years at least, most SaaS
applications will be sold in niche areas and advanced processes, such as talent management, where
data is less sensitive. Few large enterprises with IT systems in place are ready to risk migrating to the
cloud entirely. But this will change too. Once there are a good number of cloud projects on the market
to learn from, client concerns are likely to shift away from security to the more pressing challenges of
managing cloud IT set-ups: managing service levels, ensuring proper integration with legacy systems
and avoiding dependence on specific cloud service providers.
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5
Cloud succeeds. Now what? CA Technologies TechInsight Report, May 2013
Public sector under a cloud?
Weak governance, lack of infrastructure and shortage of money remain the biggest obstacles to growth
across Africa. According to Bright Simons, President of mPedigree and a profound believer in the
power of technology, the cloud could be a way to get around all three problems, if Africans are willing
to think differently. “The cost of trying to replicate the kind of health and education systems they have
in the West is mind-bogglingly high,” he says. “If we want to do this well and quickly, we have to em-
brace the cloud in ways that have not been done before. We are primed to do so and we can achieve
what they did at a fraction of the cost.”
For most technology providers, the idea of selling the cloud model to the public sector raises a
wry laugh and a shake of the head, for a number of reasons. The first is localisation. Governments
generally insist on having a tier 3 data centre locally – possibly serving just the needs of its
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19. Risk vs benefit
The third constraint on the development of the SaaS model in Africa –and the one that channel partners can
do most to overcome – is the perception that the business benefits of shifting applications to the cloud do not
outweigh the risks. In the US, in particular, it is the business advantages rather than cost benefits that are now
driving rapid adoption of SaaS applications in the US, according to the authors of the North Bridge survey6
.
In Africa, this is not yet the case. “The advantages are not seen as compelling enough to take the leap,” says
KPMG’s Mr Rizzo. “There have to be strategic business reasons – some value that the company would not
have had if it had been in a legacy environment.”
Everyone likes to quote the lack of legacy as an advantage for developing the cloud in Africa, and there is
already interest in SaaS and other cloud services from fast-growing African SMEs, which are looking
primarily for cheap and flexible ways of building IT support from scratch. For these companies, where
executives are more likely to be using their own smartphones, tablets and laptops than a company PC
system, shifting straight to the cloud makes complete sense. The potential among these companies will
be huge in future, especially as they expand beyond their own markets – but most are
19
6
The Future of Cloud Computing. http://www.northbridge.com/2013-cloud-computing-survey
ministries. “It is currently very difficult to sell the idea of hosting an application or data from a data
centre outside the country,” says Jean-Baptiste Blanc, Vice President at Catalyst, based in Dubai.
Ministries also find it difficult to shift to a leasing model because they don’t know how to finance it.
It doesn’t fit the model of budget planning and it doesn’t fit the donor model, where much of the
financial support for big IT purchases comes from. And there is virtually no opportunity for slicing
a percentage off the top. Finally, a shared services model on the cloud – bringing together hospitals,
universities or ministries, for example – makes decision-making tricky. Who drives the initiative
forward? Who owns the project?
Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions. Rwanda, for example, has shifted all its ministries on to a
community cloud. Nigeria is creating a common depository of knowledge accessible to all doctors.
And many governments – in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa among others –have cloud solutions high
up on their technology agenda, according to KPMG’s Frank Rizzo.
Mr Simons believes that those seeds of interest in cloud solutions could be enough to transform public
policy in Africa, if combined with the interests of the private sector through innovative public-private
partnerships (PPPs). “The cloud could be a game-changer. It will help the private sector minimise the
risks in PPPs,” he says, pointing to non-payment, incompetent systems and corruption. “Governments
are not equipped to spend creatively, but the private sector is incentivised to use optimal technology to
avoid the downside of working with government.”
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20. not yet ready to spend the amounts needed even in a pay-as-you-go model. “SMEs are potentially the biggest
growth sector,” says Catalyst’s Mr Blanc. “They are very happy to receive SaaS offers, but the challenge is still
the pricing.”
The reality for now is that most mature customers – and certainly the ones with enough money to pay for
complex IT systems – do generally have some sort of on-premise system in place. South African customers,
especially, tend to find it hard to make a business case for migrating to the cloud. Most have invested in a
system, even if old and clunky now. Cloud services have yet to be tried and tested by their peers and foreign
case studies often appear irrelevant. “Customers in South Africa are not sure of this cloud thing yet,” says
Mohammed Zakaria, based in Johannesburg with Evosys, which has sold several SaaS solutions in the Gulf.
“They are taking a wait-and-see attitude. They have no idea how these solutions might solve their problems;
which pain areas it can address.”
In fast-emerging markets like Kenya, Ghana or Nigeria, there is significant interest in SaaS solutions among
smaller and middle-sized companies, but again the largest customers already have IT systems in place – and
these tend to be relatively new ones, sold in the past few years. Convincing clients to look at cloud options
requires a lot of hand-holding that most technology providers are still unable to provide. Pierre Lamboray,
co-founder and managing director for Africa at Popay, which specialises in HR solutions, puts it this way:
“Market maturity is also about learning how to sell – understanding the advantages of the cloud model.”
Most IT companies are used to selling complex, customisable, large-ticket products to IT directors, spend-
ing months on implementation and making a significant amount of money on maintenance, upgrades and
support. SaaS is more likely to require a service sell to a business user before the IT director gets involved,
explaining the strategic business value of the software rather than its technical specifications. It also requires
higher volumes of business to compensate for lower margins and involves faster turnaround times.
Indeed for many sellers, the introduction of SaaS is the perfect nightmare – the same kind of pressure on
margins that hit brick-and-mortar retailers when Amazon came along – and the initial reaction worldwide has
been to see the threat more than the opportunity.
A recent report by Forrester7
, looking at partner strategies in North America and Europe, puts it this way: “
After much gnashing of teeth (over marginalised profitability and disrupted cashflow) and dragging of
feet (on the decision to reinvest in and remake their businesses), channel partners have finally begun to
adopt – and build – cloud solutions into their solutions portfolios in a big way.” Its survey showed, however,
that over a third of partners still said they were not interested in getting into SaaS or managed services.
Forrester’s verdict: “Without some stake in cloud solutions, their businesses are going to decline
and lose value.”
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7
Cloud Channel Trends, 2013 to 2014: a critical mass of channel partners are embracing
cloud, February 2013
http://www.forrester.com/pimages/rws/reprints/document/90001/oid/1-LMIK8X
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Big Data in Africa
One of the cloud buzzwords electrifying both business and the public sector in the US and Europe
is Big Data. The name makes it sound complex, but it is really an extension of data analytics, with
cloud-enabled nuances. “It’s about combining internal and external data quickly and using it to add
value,” says David Ives, general manager of Karabina Solutions in South Africa, who sees Big Data
not as a luxury nice-to-have but as extremely relevant for tackling African companies’ typical
challenges. “For companies to be enabled,” he says, “they need information.”
Ask most people about the potential for Big Data in Africa, though, and they’ll start by pointing to the
paucity of data on anything. Few companies have had mainframes churning out data for years, while
finding reliable, up-to-date information from the public sector is impossible. But the internet and new
analytic tools are starting to change that by facilitating the use of real-time, unstructured data. “The
availability of data is not the big problem,” says Mr Ives. “You just need smart technologies to collect
it and classify it, dealing with variety, velocity and complexity.”
Social networks and mobile phones, for example, generate massive amounts of data in real time that,
with advanced data analytics, can be used to understand consumer needs and react quickly. Perfected
as a business tool by the likes of Google and Amazon, Africa’s fast-growing new online retailers, such
as Nigeria’s Jumia, are using Big Data to work out what to sell to whom and how to deliver.
While agile, techy SMEs are likely to remain at the cutting edge of Big Data applications, the real
potential is solving problems at the heart of established companies. An African satellite TV provider,
for example, was able to use social network data to solve one of its thorny service challenges: how
to deal with a sudden rush of angry customer complaints in its call centres when service faded due to
major storms. Data scientists were able to create software that monitors twitter feeds for clues that a
significant storm is on its way. That gives the company a warning about 20 minutes before the calls
start pouring in, allowing them to inform people proactively of the problem and prepare the call
centre for the deluge.
Mining companies, too, are starting to use complex Big Data systems to monitor their costs better,
controlling their energy use to avoid fines for overuse, for example, or optimizing the use of open
shaft and deep mines, by overlaying data on weather, labour shifts and fleet movement.
Another huge source of data that, until recently was difficult for companies to use, comes from
machines. Vehicle fleets have instruments that can be used to manage the performance of drivers,
saving fuel costs and reducing wear and tear on machines. Containers can be tracked to manage
supply chains better, speeding up the cash cycle. The Namibian port authority, for example, worked
with landlocked Botswana to create a corridor to the port, with a tracking system to monitor and
manage deliveries. That allowed Namibia to bid for business that had been going to the overrun
Durban port, and helped the Botswana Meat Commission to keep its lucrative beef export contracts
to the EU – its second biggest source of export revenue after diamonds.
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Government authorities are also starting to look at ways to collect better data through satellites, social
media and machines to verify demographic trends, control traffic, manage water resources and track
the spread of diseases – to name just a few areas. And, as governments appreciate the value of data
more, they are also starting to collect it and make it available on the internet. The African Development
Bank opened online access to all its data in 2013, while Kenya started its Open Data project in 2012 by
posting the full census results in a usable format. Ghana and Tunisia are also making data available as
part of the Open Data initiative. According to Linet Kwamboka, a Kenyan data scientist working on the
initiative, the shift to transparency is expected to improve decision-making within government, while
also affecting how the private sector interacts with government and does business.
“I see Big Data as a hot topic for Africa,” says Ashraf Gamal, Commercial Director of Egabi in Egypt.
“The market is ready – they see the value.”
All change? Strategic approaches to selling SaaS
Market conditions are not yet ripe for SaaS solutions to be dominant, even in the next five years in Africa. But
the cloud is not going away. Prabu Balasubramanyan, Executive Director of TransSys, an Indian partner selling
SaaS solutions in east Africa, expects that within that time-period every African company will be using at least
one cloud solution.
Mr Okere of CWG also believes that the trend of virtualising the delivery of software is inevitable, pushing
technology companies to transform themselves in the same way retailers or logistics companies have had to.
Executives will start to insist on having the kind of flexibility to access what they need from any device and at
any time that they have as consumers. “It will be increasingly difficult in future for any company that does not
have a strategy for virtual products delivered through a virtual channel to succeed,” he says.
If the long-term perspective is clear, the short-term one – finding a feasible business model to sell SaaS
services – is less so. “The value chain for how the cloud benefits clients, partners and vendors is not clear,”
says Ashraf Gamal, Commercial Director at Egabi in Egypt. “It’s hard to convince the client, when you don’t
understand the value yourself.”
The benefits of SaaS solutions are simple to outline. They provide the promise of high quality, easy use and a
decent price, leveraging economies of scale on state-of-the-art software. They tend to have the latest features,
better functionality, easier remote and mobile access and cleaner, more intuitive user-friendly interfaces – but
also demand more standardised processes from the client. They offer automatic updates and improvements,
easier collaboration and simpler administration – and with some help, interoperability with existing legacy
systems. The cost is designed to be lower than on-premise systems, although not – as still happens in
Africa – if companies calculate the return over 5-10 years with no upgrades.
Understanding the value for clients is more difficult and requires partners to approach clients differently,
focusing on identifying and solving specific problems, rather than selling a product.
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The need for consultative selling skills explains the relative advantage in Africa of specialists, who already
speak the language of their clients. “I barely mention the SaaS model,” says Popay’s Mr Lamboray. “I leave
open whether the solution should be on-premise or cloud-based and I don’t try to sell it around upgrades
and maintenance.” Another important consideration, he says, is to tackle the fear factor: “I show clients
that they often are already using the cloud without knowing it.”
Others focus their sell on the ease of use and lower upfront costs. “We approach the client from the point
of view that there is less headache on their side,” says Egabi’s Mr Gamal. “They just get service rather than
the hassle of buying software, implementing it and hoping it works. All you have to do is make your monthly
payment. You can forget management and maintenance.”
IT directors still play a key role in large companies in determining whether they are willing to try the SaaS
model or reject it due to worries around security and control. Here, references and ISO certifications for
data centres are crucial. But since SaaS offers the promise of service without IT staff, it is crucial to ensure
that the IT director feels empowered to leverage the broader resources of the cloud, rather than threatened
by the transfer of control. “Some of the challenges with cloud are similar to those faced with offshoring,”
says Engage IT Global’s Mr Williams. “It’s not a one size fits all. You need to come up with the right mix of
cloud and traditional and make sure that the client gets the advantages without the troubles.”
Understanding the business value of selling the SaaS model for partners is even more challenging.
Companies that have focused on selling licences, without offering services and their own additional
applications, will find the SaaS model difficult to sell and monetise successfully. The first challenge is
the pay-as-you-go model which transforms an up-front percentage on a licence into small amounts of
income spread out over three or more years, causing cashflow challenges and requiring more complex
billing. In a volatile environment it can also be particularly unattractive. “Is it better for me to get $500,000
now or $700,000 over three years?” asks Egabi’s Mr Gamal. “In Egypt, where it is so up and down, it
may be the first.”
The second challenge is that SaaS solutions need to be sold in volume to create a feasible business. If the
potential customers, for now at least, are smallish businesses, along with a few small branch offices of
multinationals and niche areas in Africa’s blue chips, then a handful of deals a year won’t be enough to
survive. “The focus needs to be on demand generation,” says Evosys’s Mr Zakaria. “The big question is:
can we turn it into a volume business? We really need to work on understanding the business model.”
Thirdly, to profit from this low-margin business, partners will also need to use it as a foot in the door to
provide additional, higher-margin support services to their SaaS clients, such as localization, implementation,
niche applications or extensions to existing applications and data hosting. For the next few years, at least,
most providers will need to build a hybrid model, selling SaaS alongside traditional products and services.
“For some channel partners, that’s a major shift, needing transformation at the level of sales organisation,
skills and management” says IDC’s Ms Adam.
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So why bother trying to sell SaaS at all? The simple answer is that it’s happening, driven by both technology
and the market, and it will gradually transform enterprise technology in Africa, adding significant value to the
economy. The potential is not hype – it will just take time to develop.
For the next few years, having SaaS skills will offer a competitive advantage, but not a viable revenue stream
on its own. Once the SaaS market reaches critical mass, however, having cloud skills will become standard,
with the quality of services becoming the differentiator. Those without the capacity will not be able to compete
in selling applications; those who enter the market once it is more mature may also find it difficult to develop
skills quickly enough.
“It will take time before it generates sales by itself and I see some companies putting it on hold and waiting
for the market to mature a bit,” says Popay’s Mr Lamboray. “But things are moving fast. There is a huge dif-
ference in the response to SaaS offerings even in the past six months. We are pushing to be there – learning
how to sell, how to organize the sales force and work with various partners. It’s quite a learning curve for us.”
Or, as Egabi’s Mr Gamal puts it: “We want to be one of the key players. We don’t want to depend on the old
traditional way of doing things.”
Some of the questions we will discuss in the interactive workshop:
• Which customers respond best to pay-as-you-go models – is it right for public sector and big players
or more for SMEs? Who responds best: CIOs, CFOs, business heads, other functions?
• Is there sufficient fixed and mobile infrastructure in place to support cloud development?
• What is the main attraction for the client: accessibility, productivity and other business advantages
or affordability, shifting from capex to opex, simplifying IT management?
• How to deal with concerns about trust, regulatory constraints for public sector customers.
• What are the main challenges in implementing and running SaaS solutions?
• Finding a workable business model for selling SaaS solutions
• Where does Big Data fit into the cloud picture?
• Could SaaS provide another technology leap for Africa, as mobiles did?
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Mobility and the cloud: Africa’s true mobile revolution
has yet to start
By Bright B. Simons
The United States economy is nine times the size of Africa’s, but Africa has twice as many mobile phones.
This tantalising statistic would seem to indicate that, in the mobile era, Africa’s time has come. But the
mobile subscriber numbers are only part of the story. So far, the buzz about African mobile has been about
the consumer side of things. I believe, though, that it is at the enterprise level that mobile could truly become
a game changer for Africa, enabling the building of massive fortunes, and perhaps even the much anticipated
recycling of innovation from Africa to the West.
The focus on consumers up to now has been perfectly understandable. That is where the results are already
visible. It is consumers that have made Africa the fastest growing mobile market in the world. It is consumer
spending that is driving all the value added services — including mobile payments — that everyone seems
so excited about. Whilst the subscriber growth has been astounding, a critical look at value creation however
show how much more needs to be done before mobile can shift African economies. For instance, the United
Kingdom, with barely 7% of Africa’s population, has a bigger telecom industry in terms of revenue. That’s why
the enterprise side of things has seized my imagination.
To the extent that the African enterprise has been relevant in the mobile story so far, it has been about the
telephone companies themselves. It is amazing how enthusiastically African telecoms have, for instance,
embraced the cloud, where “cloud” means accessing the enterprise’s intellectual assets more in the way one
accesses a utility, like tap water, instead of a local resource, like, say, a borehole.
African telecoms have in fact done more than embrace the cloud; they have unpacked their infrastructure:
selling radio masts to third parties and leasing them back; grabbing seamless, turnkey solutions for billing,
customer discovery, relationship management, and service delivery from big vendors with a gusto that would
make a western CIO gulp for air.
Much of the esoteric quibbling about private and public clouds and legacy infrastructure that has frustrated
vendors in Europe and America has been bypassed in Africa as telecom companies prioritise cost and comfort
over culture and security.
Given how open-minded African telecom companies have been about the cloud, they should have no qualms
about pushing enterprise mobility; they have no hang-ups.
This puts African telecom companies in a position to promote an open-minded, hang-up free approach to
enterprise mobility. But so far they’ve concentrated their marketing power at consumers, and invested in
selling mainly broadband-related products to the corporate sector. On enterprise mobility they’re still at the
starting line.
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Which is why the opportunity is so thrilling. The market is completely open. It could be anyone’s game.
To understand what I mean by “enterprise mobility”, look at your own recent working practices. How often do
you use your mobile phone or tablet for work-related activity? Do you have a company-issued mobile phone
or tablet? Is its use governed by company-level policies? Are you allowed access to critical company data
outside the four walls of the business? What does “four walls” mean if you are a travelling salesperson, or on
call after work hours to respond to crises? How does the company judge whether it is really you making that
call or pulling that piece of data from its vaults? In low-infrastructure settings like Africa, these questions are
double-pressing.
Most African corporations, especially in the private sector, are only now in a position to think deeply about
information technology (IT). Unlike in the West, where corporate policies on IT easily date back five decades,
and where systems deployed two decades ago are still in operation, the African enterprise has discovered IT
just at the onset of cloud-thinking. The dissolving of corporate boundaries is not science fiction to the average
African manager; she contends with the realities and frustrations every day.
Intriguingly, the African IT manager has very little influence over the enterprise as a whole. The notion of the
CIO is still in its infancy. When it becomes obvious that IT is a bottom-line matter, it is the CEO who usually has
to make the call.
If the CEO gets what’s at stake, then — given the unique advantages of the African setting for all things
mobile — the whole enterprise is likely to embrace cloud and mobility with a seamlessness and finality that
is impossible to achieve in the West. And when such a bug successfully infects one company it could very
easily affect its entire industry, because mobile has always been a viral technology.
What do we have here then? Surely, it is the perfect mix of ingredients for a massive boom: a huge, self-defin-
ing, market opportunity; incumbents without a clear plan; limited penetration by established vendors; motivat-
ing cost factors; favorable surrounding culture (ie mobile is hot); and massive latent needs. Just the sort of
environment likely to spawn a host of medium-sized innovators, always the right catalyst for a boom.
There is, however, one really big if. African economies are still hyper-dependent on government spending -
a legacy of the socialist infrastructure put in place after independence. For there to be an enterprise mobility
boom, there also needs to be a broader enterprise boom and rebalancing of economies away from
government and toward the private sector.
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Such economic change typically comes in stages. The current consumer boom in Africa is based on the f
irst steps toward private sector empowerment that were taken in the 1980s, when most African countries’
economies were shrinking. Now, with the consumer boom spurring real growth all over the continent, we
may be due for an even bigger spurt of private sector expansion.
Simply put: the consumer boom could fuel an enterprise boom which would in turn keep consumer spending
rising. And this enterprise boom offers the platform for a mobile explosion so dramatic that it could dwarf the
change and growth Africa have seen so far in the mobile-enabled space — and launch Africa into the global
economic big leagues.
There’s no guarantee that all this will happen, of course. But the ingredients are in place.
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29. Briefing Papers by:
ORACLE:
• Roundtable 1: How can partners make
money and enhance their relationship
with customers through SaaS and PaaS?
• Roundtable 2: How to save money on
implementation using Oracle Rapid Start
• Roundtable 3: Teaming up with Oracle
to win BIG deals in data centre and
integration solutions
• Oracle Support Demystified:
engineered to support customers together
• Oracle, Partners and Customers:
engineered to work ethically together
29
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How can partners make money and enhance their
relationship with customers through SaaS and PaaS?
By Liam Nolan and Sanjay Sinha
SaaS and PaaS – going to the next level
If there’s one thing certain in business it’s “change”. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the world
of technology.
In the past, a measure of the IT complexity of a business was the size of its in-house IT support team,
equipped with sufficient skills to support the business applications required to execute on strategy.
In recent years a new trend has emerged. Just as companies are happy to outsource requirements like
power supply or utility provision, it is now considered effective to outsource business application provision
and technology platforms too.
This trend started with the outsourcing of requirements such as sales automation and mail systems,
but it has now expanded into such requirements as Human Resources, Recruitment and ERP systems.
Platform outsourcing has also grown in popularity.
Why should I care?
Gartner forecasts that the global cloud market will be US$131 billion in 20138
and growing – with the largest
growth forecast for emerging markets including Middle East and Africa. Can you afford not to get involved?
Why is cloud so compelling?
Over the years, in-house IT functions have grown in order to support systems which get more complex by the
week. The value-add in such support services is difficult to ascertain and the value-add to the shareholder well
– that’s even more difficult……Our research has shown that up to 70% of IT spend goes on maintaining exist-
ing applications and platforms with the remainder spent enhancing or providing new services. So enterprises
are spending 70% of their IT budget just to stand still – that’s a sobering thought!
Cloud can have a very positive effect on total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI):
• Costs are predictable – you know exactly what the subscription costs are from day one.
• The costs are funded from operational expenditure rather than capital expenditure.
8
Forecast Overview: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 4Q12 Update
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• Specifically for SaaS, as the provider develops new features, these are typically included in the core
product as part of the offering to which the customer has already subscribed
• The cloud provider is responsible for the hardware, along with its failover provision
and maintenance.
• No resources need to be deployed to support the infrastructure.
• Typically, upgrades take less time to deploy and test.
• Elastic capacity is often included, giving the subscriber the added advantage of increased
processing power depending on usage requirements.
Rethinking the model and moving the maintenance and provision of commodity services to the cloud allows
companies to redirect some of the 70% “maintenance” spend towards provision of new services.
Oh, but it’s my data – sitting out on the web – isn’t that risky?!
A regular concern aired by businesses considering a SaaS deployment is security of data. Where is the data
centre? Do the service providers have access to my data? Is it encrypted? In addressing security concerns,
it’s important to consider a number of different levels:
- Data centre: Physical security, including who has access and what procedures are in place
for inspections. In what jurisdiction the data centre is deployed can also be relevant depending
on the customer.
- Database: How is the data stored and secured? What backup and disaster/failover recovery
options and recovery points are in place?
- Network security: When data is transferred across the network (both within and outside the
application), what encryption techniques are employed?
- Application security: Can I control who has access to what data and what activities they can
carry out with the data?
Multi-Tenancy
Many cloud operators operate under a multi-tenancy model, which means that a customer’s data is in the
same application as other people’s data. This is important to know because, in this model, the supplier must
upgrade all customers at once. There is no alternative and the customer must work to the supplier’s schedule
– not their own! Let’s say, down the road, the customer decides they want to terminate the service – how do
they get at their data, or how does the provider eliminate the data from the “single instance” when the service
is terminated?
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Oracle operates a virtual tenancy model, whereby the hardware is shared but each client instance is separate.
This offers huge advantages to the end-customer:
- Reduced risk of data being shared inadvertently
- More control and a say in how and when maintenance is carried out
- If the customer wants to discontinue the service or move to an on-premise solution,
then a copy of the environment can be provided
Who should consider SaaS?
SaaS is a wonderful option to have available but is not necessarily the ideal solution for everyone.
• If the prospect is willing to work to best-practice processes and features, then SaaS should be
considered. However, if the client feels that they need to customise the product to support their
particular requirements, then maybe an on-premise or hosted environment is a better option.
The level of extensibility and configuration options are significant influencing factors in the decision.
• If the prospect has limited internal resources to support a key business application then again
a SaaS option offers an alternative.
• If time is against the prospect, cloud options typically offer a quicker turnaround time, removing
hardware procurement and provisioning from the critical path.
But I’m a partner, what’s in it for me…
The cloud paradigm offers enormous opportunity for the system integrator (SI) community. Typically, the
cloud provider will provide the environment, but the setup and configuration of that environment is a separate
exercise. As with traditional on-premise solutions, the systems integrator must work with the end-customer to
advise on the appropriate configurations and integrations and implement these designs. The cloud removes
the need for install and maintenance skills.
In many cases the cloud solution being implemented needs to be integrated with non-cloud solutions.
The SI plays an important role in delivering this requirement, bringing both the integration skills and the
cloud application knowledge. In addition, an implementation still requires training, data conversion and
level 1 support.
Since cloud implementations lend themselves to configuration rather than customisation, there is often
repeat work from one project to the next. So from the SI perspective, the resources can quickly come up
to speed with the configuration options and move from one implementation to the next, reusing work
products when required.
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Partners can use cloud technologies to enhance their relationships with customers
Businesses need fresh thinking about the architecture of tomorrow. Merely rehabbing or adding on to the
existing plan will not meet the different and more demanding requirements of tomorrow. Oracle partners can
engage their clients at a strategic level, upgrading their current IT-centric focus into a broader vision for
a sweeping transformation of their entire enterprise.
Today’s line-of-business (LOB) executives have increasing budgetary discretion and autonomy in making
decisions about their operational applications. Nowhere is this more evident than in Sales and Human
Resources decision-makers embracing SaaS for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Human
Capital Management (HCM). For these business executives, SaaS equals speed – their application is
delivered on the browser, they get the latest updates quickly, with the ability to get new features
at a faster rate.
Oracle provides a single, consistent, cloud architecture and customisation layer for SaaS, using Oracle’s
PaaS capabilities for a complete solution built on open standards. Partners can translate their technical
skills and delivery capabilities directly to Oracle’s PaaS. Oracle’s approach to cloud deployments is
location-independent with respect to who owns and operates the data centre, giving customers and
partners flexibility and choice.
Mobility, plus social engagement with transactional capabilities, gives companies a new way to move
at the speed of their customers, new methods for engaging with customers to build entirely new revenue
streams, not just incremental transactions. The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend can be turned from
a vexing IT challenge into an opportunity for partners to engage clients to use IT as an innovation lever.
Oracle capabilities for user-interface design span from portable and device-independent rendering, to rich
capabilities on native devices. Fast growing markets around the globe have the highest propensity to
embrace SaaS applications on mobile devices, for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business
(B2B) applications.
To summarise…
Adopting cloud technologies gives an enterprise the opportunity to reduce TCO for business applications and
platforms without compromising on service. They also allow it to focus on applications and services that make
a strategic difference to their customers and, in turn, their balance sheet.
So if it’s good for the customer, well, it can only be good for the partner also….right?
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How to save money on implementation using Oracle
Rapid Start
By Sarkis Kerkezian
The SaaS delivery model represents a paradigm shift in how and for whom software is developed. Oracle’s
cloud-based Fusion Applications promise the end-user easy implementation and maintenance, cost savings
and high quality, based on the adoption of best practices inherent in the applications. The Rapid Start
Implementation methodology is designed to ensure that this promise is realised. The full name is the
Oracle Unified Method (OUM) Cloud Application Services Implementation Approach.
Why is the Rapid Start Implementation methodology important for success? What does it bring for
customers?
SaaS customers pay a monthly subscription fee for the use of software and are eager to start benefiting
from it as quickly as possible. The Rapid Start approach emphasizes getting customers up and running on
the new system in less time and at a lower cost. This rapid-time-to-value approach focuses on leveraging
the best practices and rich product functionalities inherent in the products and the implementation of
standard business rules, standard integrations and standard data loads. This is coupled with the relatively
insignificant time required for the hosted infrastructure availability and readiness.
The methodology also relies heavily on the Fusion/SaaS capabilities that give the end user the ability to
modify applications and build their own custom reports, relying on mature technology frameworks that
allow for testing and deploying application extensions at run time. These factors enable customers to
realise the benefits of the system in a shorter timeframe, achieving rapid returns on their IT investments
and a focus on their industry core competencies.
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RAPID TIME TO VALUE
How is this implementation methodology different from others?
The Rapid Start approach is release-based. Since SaaS customers expect immediate value from their
subscription, there is a critical need to deliver useful functionality relatively quickly. One of the ways this
can be achieved is to break the full scope of the functionality that the customer ultimately requires into
smaller pieces and then deliver that larger set in a piecemeal fashion over a series of releases.
Each release focuses on providing usable, and beneficial, incremental capability, until the full set of
desired functionality is in place. Early releases focus on providing baseline functionality, leaving less
critical, complementary functionality for later releases.
The OUM implementation methodology is one of the best SaaS deployment models across the globe
since it is based on best-of-breed implementation practices with the joint effort of fusion product
development and Oracle Methods team taking into
account all implementation activities and tasks.
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What critical success factors need to be considered?
There are several critical success factors to be considered by customers and partners to ensure the success of
Fusion/SaaS Solution deployments:
• Business Sponsorship: Project executive sponsorship and a project steering committee are
essential for a fast decision-making process. In some instances, business processes might require
re-engineering to align with the application functionality. Business process owners should be
available during the project in order to take key decisions related to the adoption of standard
business processes.
• Change Management: More focus and effort will be required by the project team to manage the
change associated with the shift in paradigm, standardisation of processes, regulatory policies,
hosting policies, security policies, SaaS vendor policies, environment maintenance, environment
patching & upgrades, IT organisation roadmap, resources skill set, financial implications,
training etc.
• Customer Retention: To retain customers over the long term, partners must deliver on
promises made, and invest time and effort following the implementation to stay involved with
the customer’s business and continually demonstrate value. Account growth is virtually
non-existent without proper implementation, guidance, application adoption, education and
training and subscription renewal.
• Clear Division of Responsibility: As part of the implementation methodology and to help achieve
a lower implementation cost, a number of activities performed during the project are shared
between Oracle, partner and client personnel. Where appropriate, some activities are assigned
solely to client resources, such as extracting data from client legacy systems. Also each task
description contains a Roles and Responsibility section delineating who is responsible for the
completion of that task.
Why should partners consider using this methodology?
The methodology helps partner to focus on generating consistent revenue streams from customer
engagements. Undertaking a full solution in a single project is relatively more risky and subject to
phase end milestone completion sign-offs and long project durations. The Fusion/SaaS applications
implementation approach is “release” based and is guided through the principles of interactive/iterative
agile approach, focusing on high-priority business processes and requirements with specific project
governance arrangements. By using this approach, the partner works with the customer to define
an initial baseline set of functionality benefits that can be delivered in 8 to 12 weeks or less. Based
on that foundation, the functionality can be expanded in later releases to achieve the full to be solution.
The release plans are tailored according to measured business benefits for the customer and can be
spread over a certain or complete subscription period.
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Through this approach, partners can overcome the hurdle of project budget overruns and inconsistent cash
flow injections and generate steady and guaranteed monthly revenues throughout the engagement.
How can Oracle help partners use OUM successfully?
The Collaborative Engagement Program (CEP) Team in cooperation with the Fusion product development
Center of Excellence (CoE) team has launched a “Go to Market Initiative & Implementation Assurance”
programme.
This enables partners to come up with their own Fusion Rapid Start offerings/startup packs leveraging on the
Fusion/SaaS Rapid Start implementation Methodology.
The Rapid Start offerings model is designed specifically for Oracle Fusion Applications. They provide a fixed
scope, low cost and short duration option for clients to help them get applications up and running quickly and
efficiently. From the partners’ perspective, the model is repeatable and predictable.
Some of the key features associated with Fusion Applications Rapid Start Offerings include:
• Rapid design, configuration, and deployment
• Configuration of standard functionality
• Lower configuration costs and faster time to value
• Partners must develop fixed scope offerings based on materials available from Oracle Partner
Network and Oracle Business Accelerators (OBA)
• Offerings can follow the OUM Cloud Work Breakdown Structure
• Rely on the OUM Fusion SaaS Implementation methodology
• For SaaS, solutions should emphasise an out-of-the-box philosophy
Through this programme, Oracle provides the best practice content to accelerate adoption and support.
This ensures that every implementation delivers consistent quality to the customer. But it also ensures
that proven partners are strategically aligned and recognised and that they are able to realise the Go to
Market benefits.
To get involved, partners are required to deliver competitive implementation service offerings built of
standard cloud service paradigms, simplified Implementation Methodology that promotes rapid
deployment and adoption, along with value-added services to optimise future releases and ongoing
adoption of Fusion SaaS Applications.
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Oracle
Fusion Applications
Rapid Start (RS)
Offerings
RS offerings deliver ready-to-use applications quickly, easily and
cost-effectively through an approach that emphasises an “out-of-the box”
philosophy and adoption of the best practices inherent in the product.
This approach is ideal for customers that prefer rapid time to value.
For customers desiring higher levels of customisation, the RS are an
excellent way to establish a baseline instance for the start of a
tailored implementation project.
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Teaming up with Oracle to win BIG deals in data centre and
integration solutions
By Sedat Zencirci
An optimized data centre must have the ability to go beyond data warehousing, supporting multiple use cases,
with different data latency and different transformation points.
Companies need to be able to consolidate and cleanse data to ensure it is reliable and trustworthy - and so
capable of supporting their business. They need a bulk data-loading solution, a data transformation platform
that can leverage the full power of the data centre’s resources and provide the simplest setup and fastest
overall performance.
They also need to be able to deploy new database versions and new applications without taking downtime -
and that means the best solution for streaming data into data centres in real time, and capturing changes
with very low latency and millisecond replication (if necessary, for different Oracle versions and for
converting non-Oracle to Oracle in real time).
Finally, customers need a guarantee of high availability, ideally with a read-capable standby system that
can be used for reporting and also leveraged for pre-production testing.
Why should Oracle partners be interested?
Selecting the right data integration solution (DIS) is critical to realising the benefits of cloud computing. The
DIS must provide high performance, the ability to handle spikes well and scale both easily and cost-efficiently
– all at a low cost of ownership to allow customers to benefit from cost-savings in the cloud.
DI tools assist in managing new and emerging types of data that are resulting from the data explosion.
Point-to-point integration architectures cannot keep up with business growth and represent weak links in
mission critical integration scenarios. With DIS, partners can minimise lack of integration, fragmentation,
silo-based practices, and one-off solutions, which lead to downtime and poor system performance.
This brings the customer not just a greater ROI but increased Return on Data: ie reporting accuracy.
The data integration market in Africa is experiencing high levels of growth. Oracle’s portfolio of
heterogeneous Data Integration Solutions – Oracle GoldenGate, Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle
Enterprise Data Quality and Active Data Guard – is consistently recognised by both customers and
independent analysts, such as Gartner and Forrester, as providing market-leading functionality,
performance and reliability. Adoption of Oracle DIS products continues to grow rapidly within both
the Oracle and non-Oracle database and applications customers and offers a substantial business
opportunity for partners to leverage Oracle DIS technologies for customer benefit.
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Oracle’s Data Integration Solutions provides a proven, robust and scalable “state-of-the-art” data
integration platform foundation, which enables partners to sell and deliver the best possible Oracle solutions
for customers.
The advantages to partners are that DIS:
• is easy to position, learn and implement
• brings good sales results since every meeting with existing customers provides the opportunity
to sell data integration too offerings
• offers the ability to bundle attractively with other products since, unlike legacy systems, data
integration tools have built-in connectivity capabilities enabling extraction from many source
technologies, thus extend the life of old apps.
• brings quick returns and good overall margins, since the ratio of services revenue vs licence
revenue can be very high at around 3:1
• is an excellent entry point for big projects
Future prospects
Data integration holds a central and strategic position in IT infrastructure, providing control over current and
future hardware and technology projects like consolidations and cloud migration. As a result, the buying
centers for data integration and application integration are merging into one unit – the integration competency
centre – responsible for establishing and maintaining the physical integration of applications and data, and
forecasting future requirements.
That gives an advantage to large vendors like Oracle and IBM which will dominate the market in the medium
term. To deliver this integration, Oracle is looking at how to create a single contact point, offering discounting
across all the software groups, along with one contract for support, one place of installation and one training
to attend.
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Oracle Support Demystified: engineered to support
customers together
By Rafal Dabrowski
Support is one of Oracle’s Lifecycle Services, like Consulting and Oracle University training, which cut
across traditional organizational silos to address the unique and diverse needs of our customers. The
Support Organization is present in more than 60 countries globally, with 15,500 global employees, most
of them product experts, catering to over 100,000 customers. It is the largest revenue generator for Oracle
as a line of business, so it is critical that support is a structured and high-quality deliverable.
Unlike other enterprise IT vendors, Oracle delivers support for all products using one unified services
organisation, one unified support platform and one unified support offering: Oracle Premier Support.
As a result, Oracle offers partners a level of service no other provider can—combining direct access to
vendor expertise, tools and product updates with a single point of accountability for all Oracle solution
Oracle Premier Support
Providing great customer service is as important as providing great products. That’s why technology-
enabled problem prevention and performance optimisation is included in standard support coverage for
Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle applications. The My Oracle Support platform
delivers a web-based, personalised and proactive support experience through a single point of entry
and integrated dashboard.
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Oracle Premier Support comprises the following offering:
• Programme updates, fixes, security alerts, critical patch updates
• Tax/legal updates
• Upgrade scripts
• Tailored knowledge management and guided search capabilities to quickly locate relevant
articles and technical information
• Certification with most of the new third party products and versions
• Access to My Oracle Support and the technical support analysts 24x7
• Non-technical support within local business hours
• Spare parts and onsite field engineers (HW Support)
Oracle Lifetime Support Policy
Given the sizeable investments customers make in Oracle technology, it is important that support continues
once new products are introduced. Premier Support is available for Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion
Middleware and Oracle applications for five years from the general availability (GA) date. Extended Support
puts the customer in control of their upgrade strategy by offering an extra three years of maintenance
and upgrades for select Oracle software releases at an additional fee. Sustaining Support maximises the
customer’s investment protection by providing maintenance for as long as a company uses the Oracle
software. Features include access to Oracle online support tools, upgrade rights, pre-existing fixes and
assistance from technical support experts.
Oracle Advanced Customer Support
Oracle Advanced Customer Support (ACS) Services is a global organisation within Customer Support Services
providing tailored mission-critical support services to customers and helping partners deliver such services.
Some 94% of the S&P Global 100 companies, 78% of the global Fortune 100 companies and nine of the top
ten banks use ACS Services. ACS teams cut across multiple industries from telecommunications, to finance,
public sector and government and cover every product, from hardware to database, Fusion Middleware and
applications. Oracle engineers have specific industry experience, high level business experience and a global
networking framework that can be leveraged to provide tailored solutions for each customer.
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ACS has a wide breadth of truly world class support offerings that are placed on top of the Premier Support
offering. Partners can tap into this unique global support organisation by reselling these services. Oracle
has simplified the transaction process by moving more services to the partner portal, as well as offering
pre-approved discounts.
The figure below summarises the ACS Resell Portfolio for Partners, which will expand and evolve in close
alignment with the changes in the overall ACS portfolio as well as with feedback received from partners.
The bottom line
All in all, Oracle Support is the catalyst for the growth of your bottom line. From a customer perspective,
the support organization allows a highly customised and specifically tailored offering to be built for mission
critical services. From a partner perspective, there is good potential to make margins through value-added
services as well as the servicing offering from Oracle. The key for partners is to align with the Oracle
organisation.
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Oracle, Partners and Customers: engineered to work
ethically together
By Julia Windemuth
“If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance.”
Paul McNulty, Former US Deputy Attorney General
In this panel discussion, we will explore why compliance matters to you, with an emphasis on local laws,
recent enforcement actions and trends, including the importance of sound codes of conduct and business
practices, detection and remediation mechanisms, and what we expect of our business partners.
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which has been the law since 1977, is being enforced today
with unmatched zeal. The FCPA was enacted following reports that US businesses were making scandalously
large payments to foreign officials to obtain business. In 1998, the law was amended, among other things
to dramatically expand its jurisdiction. Today, it has a very long arm indeed. Companies registered on a US
exchange or doing business in the US can be liable not just for the conduct of US personnel, but for the
conduct of all their officers, directors, employees and agents anywhere in the world.
We will discuss the impact of this on the Africa and Middle East region, particularly in light of recent cases
that demonstrate an expanded application of geographic and personal jurisdiction.
Anti-bribery laws are becoming more widespread worldwide. All 34 member states of the OECD, together
with four non-member countries, have agreed to adopt measures criminalising bribery of foreign officials.
Countries in Africa have also adopted anti-corruption and bribery laws. We look at what this means for you.
The UK Bribery Act (effective July 1, 2011) is among the first such laws to criminalise bribery, not just of
foreign government officials, but also of officers and employees of private-sector companies. Liability under
this legislation will attach to a company no matter where in the world an offence is committed, so long as the
company carries on any part of its business in the UK.
We will also discuss Oracle’s Partner Code of Conduct, an essential guide for ethical behaviour. The Partner
Code of Conduct and Business Ethics is applicable to all Oracle Partners, resellers and personnel employed by
or engaged to provide services to Partners and resellers throughout the world.
Business compliance and ethics – why it matters to you
Anti-corruption is not just a US or UK legal issue but also a global issue that affects each one of us directly.
Oracle’s employees and Partners are obligated to ensure that they comply with local laws in countries where
they do business, and that their overall business conduct adheres to the standards and expectations outlined
in their agreements with Oracle.
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Oracle relies heavily upon its Partners to provide best-in-class solutions and services to its customers across
the world, and therefore, expects that all of its Partners behave ethically. We take great efforts to ensure that
all of our partners are the best in their countries and regions, and expect that Partners know and comply with
the laws that are applicable to their businesses. Existing and recent legal developments worldwide compel
all of us to act in an ethical and honest manner. However, this should not be something new to you as an
Partner, bound by Oracle’s Partner Code of Conduct. It is important for you, as an Oracle Partner, to have
a better understanding of your responsibilities as an Oracle Partner both directly when dealing with Oracle
customers, and also indirectly when dealing with fellow partners.
It must be clear to everyone who represents Oracle in business – Oracle‘s anti-corruption policies do apply
to you and this matters. Oracle can be held legally responsible, together with Partners, for unethical or
corrupt conduct committed by any Partner employees .
This is an important dialogue and we look forward to hearing your perspective on the compliance challenges
that you face in the local marketplace and why compliance matters for you.
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
46.
47. 47
Speakers’ biographies
Janusz Naklicki
Vice President Alliance and Channels and
General Business Sales
Oracle ECEMEA
Janusz Naklicki graduated from the University of Warsaw, Institute of
Information Science. He earned an MBA studying at the University of
Minnesota, Carlson School of Management (1994-96) with a scholarship
from the Fulbright Commission. He completed executive courses on
Negotiation and Competitive Decision Process at Harvard and Wharton.
He has been associated with the IT business since the end of the
eighties. At Hewlett-Packard Poland he was Product Marketing Manager
contributing to the success of HP printers and PCs. He worked for Sun
Microsystems Poland starting as Product Marketing Manager for Middle
Europe, then as Marketing and Channel Manager for Poland leveraging
Suns rapid expansion in the Polish market. Naklicki has been working at
Oracle since December 2001, initially as Marketing & Channel Director
and currently as Vice President Technology General Business for the
ECEMEA region strengthening company leadership in the professional
business software market. Since March 2011 he has also been managing
the Alliances and Channels Organization for ECEMEA
Gürhan Kalelioglu
Vice President
Oracle Central Asia, Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria,
West & East Africa
Gürhan Kalelioglu was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1965. He graduated
from Middle East Technical University, Department Of Business
Administrations in 1988. He is fluent in English and French.
Gürhan Kalelioglu has 21 years of IT industry experience including his
positions at NCR Turkey, NCR Dayton, NCR San Diego, Digital Ankara
and Oracle.
Kalelioglu started to work at Oracle in 1995 as regional Manager-Ankara,
then was appointed as the Country Leader at Oracle Turkey in 2008 and
is now the Vice President of Oracle “Central Asia, Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria,
West & East Africa” Region.
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
48. 48
Speakers’ biographies
Arun Khehar
Vice President Application Sales
Oracle MEA
Arun Khehar is currently Oracle’s Vice President for Middle East & Africa
Applications Business covering all Industries.
Arun Khehar studied Engineering in Sweden, followed by a Master’s
Degree in International Business from University of Edinburgh -
Scotland, in 2004.
Prior to taking over the role of VP Applications for Middle East &
Africa, Arun Khehar played a pivotal role in establishing new
businesses for Oracle (Business Intelligence & Datawarehousing,
CRM, ERP, Industries specifically Retail, Automotive & Real Estate)
and executing very successful sales and marketing strategies around
Arun Khehar brings over 20 years of Information Technology industry
experience to Oracle. Prior to joining Oracle, Arun Khehar worked with
Apple Computers distributor and HP.
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
Bright Simons
President
mPedigree Network
Bright Simons pioneered a system that allows consumers to instantly
check whether their medicines are counterfeits or not by sending a free
text message. He is director of development research at IMANI, a
member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils,
Young Global Leaders, and Technology Pioneers Communities, a TED
and Ashoka fellow and a Brain Trust member of the Evian Group at IMD.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, ranging from an Archbishop
Desmond Tutu Award, Marie Curie and Commonwealth Vision Grants
to a PPARC Scholarship in Gamma Ray Astronomy. Bright is consulted
on innovation strategy by international organizations such as the World
Bank, UNECA, USAID, and the Commonwealth; and is a member of the
UN Secretary General’s taskforce on innovative models in healthcare.
He is was a Fellow and a member of the faculty of the Salzburg Global
Seminar Session 481, “Innovating for Value in Health Care Delivery:
Better Cross-Border Learning, Smarter Adaptation and Adoption” in
2011. Bright is a also a member of the Advisory Council of IC
Publications, one of the world’s leading publishers focused on Africa
and the African Diaspora.
49. 49
Speakers’ biographies
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
Delia Meth-Cohn
Managing Director
Global Rethink
Delia frequently chairs and speaks at conferences around the world.
She has moderated discussions with prime ministers in Russia,
Spain, Turkey and Egypt, and other government leaders across Africa,
the Middle East, Europe and Asia. She leads highly interactive but
focused sessions around topics including technology, healthcare and
innovation. She provides regular in-house briefings to senior executives
at global companies, focusing especially on corporate strategy in
emerging markets.
Delia also provides research, editing and content services to companies,
think tanks and international organisations. She was Editorial Director of
the Economist Intelligence Unit for Continental Europe, Middle East and
Africa until 2013.
She has an MA in International Politics from Columbia University and a
BA from Durham University. She lives in Vienna with her husband and
two teenage children.
50. 50
Partner Speakers
Prabu Balasubramanyan
Executive Director
TransSys
Pierre Lamboray
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Popay Africa
Sankar Naraynan
Executive Director
InLaks
Rafal Dabrowski
Regional Partner Management Director
Oracle ECEMEA
Lynne Gillon
Senior Director, Partner Business Development
Oracle ECEMEA
Sarkis Kerkezian
CEP Transformation Program Manager
Oracle MEA
Swaminathan Natarajan
Senior Director, Fusion Applications Business Development
Oracle ECEMEA
Liam Nolan
Senior Director, Product Development and Product Management SaaS
Oracle WW
Mohammed Owais
Senior Director, Application Partners
Oracle ECEMEA
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
Oracle Speakers
51. 51
Oracle Speakers
Gilbert Saggia
Country Manager
Oracle Kenya
Sanjay Sinha
Vice President Platform Products
Oracle WW
Cherian Varghese
Senior Sales Director
Oracle Transition Countries
Julia Windemuth
Senior Director, Legal and Regional Compliance and Ethics Officer
Oracle EMEA
Sedat Zencirci
Sales Consulting Director
Oracle Central Asia and Turkey
NAIROBI, KENYA
PARTNERING FOR AFRICA
