What’s new from Oracle?
This is not (yet) so easy to answer in the field of CRM, customer experience. That’s why we are hoping for a rethink with the new head of Germany, Stefanie Kemp. We reported quite once or twice, but the cornucopia is not as big as with SAP, Microsoft or Salesforce. So: What’s new from Oracle?
First of all, a small detour, but one that leads up the stairs: Stefanie Kemp should have started at the DMS manufacturer Easy Software on 01.03. This has been shattered due to quarrels in the board.
Then came the call of Oracle: Stefanie Kemp is now the Country Manager Germany for Oracle. The exact title, according to the CRN, is: “Kemp is now »Country Leader and Head of Technology Sales« at Oracle Germany. She succeeds Kenneth Johansen, who was appointed CEO of Oracle Japan in September.”
What is Ms. Kemp’s career?
The CRN also describes Ms. Kemp’s career: “She has many years of experience as a CIO and CDO at large user companies, has been named »CIO of the Year« several times and the Global Exchange Award« in Germany.
Kemp is also an active supporter of women in management positions. She was a member of the Advisory Board of the Digital Economy NRW of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the eco Association.”
Why does this task appeal to them?
In the most recent interview, which Ms. Kemp gave to the portal CIO.de, she describes, among other things. Her motivations for the change: “One of the big challenges for CIOs is that you never have a fully integrated portfolio in terms of database, middleware and applications. In today’s Oracle world, customers can design their company technically completely integrated and end-to-end. That was a brilliant moment for me. I said to myself: If I already change sides, then to an integrated supplier who has understood how and with which products complete business processes can be covered integratively.”
As an experienced CIO, she has also discovered weaknesses at Oracle, which she now wants to eradicate by thinking in solutions instead of just in products. Achieving this change in the thinking and actions of her new team appealed to her when she was offered the new task.
What’s new from Oracle? What is your statement on cloud strategy?
“For our cloud strategy, it is crucial that customers can map private, public, hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios with one and the same technology. The focus is on the needs of the customers. What services does he need? What data protection requirements does he have?”
A better customer approach is important
Later, she reaffirms her goal with the sentence: “We need stability in our approach to customers”. There can be several problems behind this, such as the change of employees, that many teams address the customer differently or that everyone wants to place their product exactly, regardless of whether the others are “on offer” from Oracle. These product-centered egoisms are difficult for the customer to understand.
Of course, she also knows the problems that some customers with Microsoft Azure or in the AWS cloud are difficult to get rid of.
There are discussions with every market competitor in order to find a balanced solution for the customers.
It is important to slowly dissolve the resulting complexity
“From a CIO point of view, I can say: Whether large or small company, complexities have arisen in recent years that we cannot change with a snap of the finger and set everything up anew.”
She calls the goal “to integrate things cleanly in a cloud infrastructure to 100 percent – so that the processes run end to end. That has always been my thinking: designing interfaces, optimizing processes and thus accelerating business. In the Oracle stack, we managed to do this 100 percent cleanly. Now we are approaching the software manufacturers to get their platforms cloud-ready. Our customers should have it easy to integrate the applications of different manufacturers.”
The cooperation with the user organization DOAG is also a challenge in the coming months. This is about the practices of license management.
Vorwerk is always an example where she shows what problems the Oracle customer has and what a solution can look like.
What does Oracle Corona-damaged companies offer?
“Where there are liquidity bottlenecks, we can accommodate customers and, if necessary, pre-finance the migration to the Oracle cloud.”
My conclusion on what’s new from Oracle:
In summary, I would like to highlight two statements from the interview:
“I have two roles: One is to maintain and expand the basic business around database licenses and cloud services. The other concerns improving our overall performance.”
“We’re no longer talking about the New Normal, we’re talking about the Next Normal.”
Mrs. Kemp has the ideas and the stuff to master this task. It now depends on whether she is followed by the Oracle Germany team. But that seems to be the case at the start. The employees know very well about the weaknesses of pure product sales. You can feel this on site at the customer’s site. Therefore, they feel well understood by Mrs. Kemp so far.
And what I think is good, she doesn’t have the usual stable smell. It comes from the user side, knows on the one hand the worries and needs, but on the other hand also the opportunities and possibilities. This should make it easier for her to sell, because the arguments and buzzwords have long since disenchanted her.
This will be a cultural change, she says a few times. Yes, we know this from our customer management philosophy or the thinking in the loyalty swing wheel. This requires new leadership, new goals, new skills and a willingness to work together internally in a different way. The focus is no longer on one’s own annual sales target. The Oracle team has to set common goals and achieve them. Selling solutions is the solution.
All the best for the challenges!
Image Credit: Oracle Germany
Note: This is a machine translation. It is neither 100% complete nor 100% correct. We can therefore not guarantee the result.
