In an exclusive interview with People Matters during the Oracle Cloud World in Mumbai recently, Shawn Price, Senior VP at Oracle shared Oracles's commitment to the Cloud through the launch of “On Premise Cloud”.  The drivers for shifting to the Cloud are multifold - from cost reduction and wanting to be agile, to integrating SMAC technologies in the daily processes. 

Despite the fact that Larry Ellison had publically questioned the buzz around Cloud companies, he changed his stand when he stepped into the Chairman’s role and named Safra Catz and Mark Hurd as co-CEOs and re-stated the vision of Oracle to be “The biggest Cloud company in the world”. The announcement of Oracle buying NetSuite for $9.3 billion is aligned to that strategy indeed. Founded in 1998, it is the 1st “Cloud” company that operated in a pure subscription model offering customer financial and resource planning software. The potential for NetSuite being part of Oracle will mean faster growth through the power of its global reach and scale. 

In such a volatile business business context where 52% of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared since 2000 either because they have merged, been acquired or became bankrupt, 55% of the same list failed to make a profits in 2015 as per Constellation Research. Today success requires a rethink of the core mission and business model of the organization. We can see that dynamic shift across the board. In the digital world, winner takes it all. Digital transformation is more than a technology change; it’s about transforming business models and how organizations and brands engage. We can see that accelerating across the board. Oracle has been investing in acquiring SaaS platforms and adding them to their product portfolio. In particular, in the Human Resources software space, Oracle acquired Peoplesoft in 2005 and Taleo in 2012.