Growth is key to continued business vitality, but it can’t be effectively achieved without a focus on visibility, control and agility.

That was the key message delivered to attendees of NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas this week by Oracle NetSuite executive vice president Evan Goldberg. 

With an additional focus on collaboration and productivity, businesses will position themselves well to “grow beyond” regardless of their current size or industry specialism, according to Goldberg and the wider messaging associated with the user conference. 

“These five attributes for success are the blueprint for growth. But, they become harder and harder to achieve as you grow,” Goldberg said. 

During his keynote speech at SuiteWorld, however, Goldberg chose to dive into the first three tenets of business success; visibility, control and agility. 

“Visibility means seeing your past, your present and your future; How your business has performed historically and how it’s operating now and trends that lead to more opportunities for efficiency and more growth in the future,” Goldberg said, adding that Suite Analytics would be a core feature of version 19.1 of the platform.

“How do you respond to what’s happening if you don’t have a steering wheel? If you can’t respond there is not much you can do re what you see. Every business wants to be able to control outcomes and to stay on mission. The greatest threat to growth is a loss of control,” Goldberg added. 

“Agility is really about capitalising on the opportunities that obstacles actually represent. Control is great – it helps you when you know your path to growth, but if your route changes, that’s where agility can keep you from going off the road. There will be inflection points. Visibility lets you see those coming and agility lets you capitalise on them.”

Goldberg said NetSuite’s key aim was all about ensuring customers are able to execute their vision and the key to that was the ability to deliver one system in the cloud that can help organisations scale at their own pace.

“That’s always been our true north,” Goldberg said, adding that NetSuite customers generally start their business life in a similar way, with a vision to invent something that either addresses a hole in the market or an untapped need for something. 

“You’ve had adversity and triumph, but you’re here and you’ve survived and you’re ready to ‘grow beyond’ and we want to help,” Goldberg added.

“If you’re here today, you’re likely in an organisation that’s trying to increase its impact. But, the journey – wherever you begin and where you hope to end – is not a straight line. It’s filled with twists and turns and side roads. Sometimes it requires paving entirely new paths and sometimes you achieve your most significant milestones by overcoming obstacles.

‘Grow beyond’ is where you see that challenge, you meet that challenge with entrepreneurial spirit and grit. When you do that, extraordinary things can happen. It’s where growth really accelerates – we’ve seen it in our own business.”

NetSuite customers were some of the most innovative companies out there, with such organisations growing three times faster than the average S&P company, according to Goldberg. 

“SuiteWorld is all about sharing your stories – with like-minded companies, with NetSuite folks, with the tremendous array of partners we have in the exhibit hall – and learning how to grow smarter and faster.”

The tag line for this year’s SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas is ‘Grow beyond.’ What that means, precisely, we will find out in the next few days.

It’s two years, roughly speaking, since I last attended NetSuite’s annual US conference in person, and just under three years since Oracle confirmed it was acquiring the cloud company. 

Quite a lot has changed in that time. Although, in speaking to some of the execs pre-conference, in some senses, not much has changed at all… There’s still a laser focus on customer and partner success, in addition to international expansion. Those focus areas were always on the radar for NetSuite before its Oracle parentage. 

However, what has become clear is the ability to execute on those plans and turn them from vision to reality not just at pace, but at scale, too. That’s what Oracle brings to the table. Largely hands-off in terms of day-to-day running and look-and-feel, the clout the cloud giant offers has helped transform NetSuite’s ability to realise its potential. 

While it would be unbecoming of a cloud company to give too much away before the main event, we can expect the usual slew of updates about NetSuite’s roadmap and what customers can expect going forward. We’re also expecting a big focus on its channel ecosystem if the pre-event announcement is anything to go by. 

In particular, the company has unveiled its aims for partners to be as successful as customers are. Akin to its SuiteSuccess customer programme, it hopes to achieve this for partners with its newly announced SuiteLife programme. 

At present, NetSuite boasts more than 550 partners across 85 countries. It has ambitious expansion plans so needs a partner programme that is fit for purpose. 

“With SuiteLife, new partners will be able to start selling and delivering NetSuite to customers in only 90 days, while existing partners will benefit from innovative new offerings to expand their NetSuite practice and amplify their growth,” the company claims. 

“The rate at which customers are moving ERP to the cloud is at an all-time high and our partner ecosystem plays a critical role in helping us meet this demand,” said Craig West, vice president of alliances and channels, Oracle NetSuite.

“By making it easier than ever for partners to join, succeed and grow in the NetSuite ecosystem, we are putting the power of the NetSuite platform into the hands of more organisations across the world. With NetSuite, organisations gain the visibility and control needed to navigate complexities and accelerate growth while NetSuite partners capitalise on the generational transition to the cloud.”

Outside of the partner focus, we’re expecting a raft of customer case studies and the usual celebs talking about how the cloud is helping them do what they do in their given industry and, thus, can help other sectors, too.

Stay tuned for all the news and views coming out of SuiteWorld this week…

Artificial intelligence will be seamlessly integrated into all cloud apps by 2025 rather than being introduced as an afterthought, according to Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. 

During the same time frame, as the world of business shifts further towards this increased use of AI and automation, there will be mass job creation rather than annihilation. Indeed, claims Hurd, some 60% of the IT jobs that will be required come 2025 don’t actually exist today. 

“The reality is cloud adoption is moving faster than predicted. Cloud is not just a technology. Cloud is a strategy, cloud is a business model,” Hurd told delegates in attendance at the firm’s Oracle OpenWorld event in London. 

What’s more, AI and robots will need to be managed and monitored in a way not too dissimilar to current, human employee/employer relationships.

“There will be a supervisor for these robots. Just like we all have bosses, the robot will have a boss,” Hurd said. 

Hurd also made other predictions about where things are headed, with a particular focus on data and security. 

“The economy is a little less than $80 trillion. IT is a very small percentage of that – about 3%. IT then splits into two sections. One is consumer IT and the other is B2B IT. This is the first year I think we will see that consumer IT is bigger. 

“One of the big battlegrounds going forward is going to be about data, about AI, about security… The disruption is constant. Most of the data in the world is owned by two companies: Facebook and Google,” he added, suggesting people would want greater ownership in the future and stressing that cloud would be both fundamental and foundational as the shift occurs. 

Leo Johnson, disruption lead for PwC and co-presenter of Radio 4’s FutureProofing served as the warm-up act for Hurd – who joined the conference by video link from the US as a lack of passport and inability to get a temp one due to the gov shutdown had prevented him from flying – also gave us a peek as to what the future of work could look like. 

“Are we moving to a new wave of technology? Not just a set of innovative technologies, but to the deployment of it?” he said.  

Liverpool FC has signed a multi-year deal with comms firm Mitel as it continues on its quest to boost the customer experience and satisfaction levels.

The idea behind the union is to make use of the cloud and communications platform to ensure fans can interact with the club using whatever medium they choose, whenever suits them best. That also includes a self-service element should fans so wish.

By focusing on Omnichannel, LFC hopes to be able to offer fans a better experience regardless of how they choose to interact with the club. The key reason, LFC CEO Peter Moore says, being because fans are the heart and soul of what makes the club successful.

He stressed the LFC is focused on three key areas: engaging fans, driving growth and investing in technology.

“We couldn’t be happier that you are part of our family,” Moore told a room full of assembled Mitel executives, partners and press.

“We can’t do this [the fan-centric vision] without technology partners. We can do it through technology and with unified communications. I know you’re [Mitel] going to make our lives and our families’ lives better.”

Moore claimed the club has a whopping 771 million fans around the world. However, with a home stadium capacity of just shy of 55,000, most of them will never get to see their team play at Anfield.

“We are powered by a global pulse and that is both a challenge and an opportunity for me… We are by far the most watched team in the world,” he said.

“How do we manage that emotional conflict between the lad from Bootle and the lad from Bangkok who both believe they deserve a ticket?”

The partnership, the financial terms of which have not been disclosed, will also have wider benefits that help enhance efficiency for those working in Anfield stadium itself as well as LFC’s head office, training grounds and retail facilities.

Employees will have the necessary tools at their disposal to work anywhere on any device to communicate with their peers and customers alike.

Moore is not shy about claiming it is the most-watched football club in the world and while the stats themselves may be contested the sentiment cannot.

“We are the number one tourist attraction in the city. The Beatles are big… So, one of the challenges I have as CEO is how do I take this incredibly unique football club [to the next level]?” He said.

“Football means more to the people in this city than it does anywhere else in the world. We take enormous pride in the fact that we have received – for the third year in a row – the Visit Football awards for the best stadium to visit… For those who work for the club, it means more than just a job. It’s not a 9-5. It is something very special.”

The partnership will involve the integration of Salesforce CRM to provide one single view of the fan so their comms history with the club is visible to agents regardless of the channel utilised. This, LFC hopes, will position it to offer a much more tailored fan experience.

“We have both evolved and both changed. You have to evolve, you have to grow, you have to change and you have to be prepared to bet on the future,” said Graham Bevington, Mitel’s executive vice president of business development.

“Customer experience is at the forefront of everything Liverpool does. And it’s at the forefront of everything we think about.”

Moore added: “I couldn’t be more excited about the partnership as to what you bring to what we need.”

Video hasn’t really killed the radio star. Indeed, the radio industry continues to boom, with listeners and advertisers alike enjoying mutual benefits. According to Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR), the majority (89%) of the UK population tune into the radio at least once a week, listening to an average of 21.1 hours during that time.

Much like many industries, though, radio stations and presenters do not work for free and, as such, networks rely on advertising to fuel the financial pipeline.

But advertisers, understandably, need to demonstrate return on their investment and ensure they are getting value for their money. As such, being able to track and monitor the existence of their advertising, as well as the impact, is key.

We looked at digital transformation and how they could improve internal processes, keep employees happy and allow them to focus on their day job – stop doing manual processes and talk to other humans, allowing computers to get on and do what they do best. We wanted to consolidate and revolutionise.

It’s often down to the in-house radio commercial team to do the grunt work of ensuring spend is maximised and accounted for. That may seem like a simple task, but for one particular global media and entertainment company – with multiple clients – the process was anything but high-tech.

Indeed, instead of searching for and booking new ad opportunities, commercial team members were bogged down listening to individual shows to try and pinpoint client on-air mentions. With each radio show lasting up to four hours, this was a ridiculously time-consuming and inefficient process.

The entertainment firm turned to Amido, a vendor-agnostic IT consultancy specialising in cloud implementations, for help. The resulting project, FreQ (pronounced free-q) won the UK Cloud Award 2018 accolade for Most Innovative Emerging Technology in the Best Digital Transformation Project category.

The approach Amido took resulted in a very simple solution to a complex problem. It can now track, compile and report on on-air mentions with the same ease consumers enjoy when using a search engine online. It has transformed the way commercial teams work with clients – replacing hours of effort with mere minutes – and, no doubt in turn, added a USP for future client engagements, too.

“Technology for us at Amido has never been about products, but about the business objectives. This is how we are able to continue to expertly deliver innovative solutions as we know how to make disparate software work together across platforms, and plug the gaps where needed rather than reinventing the wheel,” said Alan Walsh, CEO of Amido.

“We know the value in our team and constantly invest in our cloud experts, so they are constantly evolving and learning through our DevOps Academy.”

It took just eight weeks to implement and, importantly, went live on time and within budget. But, behind the resultant simplicity lies a lot of listening, talking and project work.

“We had been working with the client for around 18 months on various projects. Our initial discussions were around how to improve internal processes. They struggled with the same issues a lot of media companies have, including legacy systems that are cumbersome and don’t really work well together,” Leo Barnes, senior business analyst and UX design consultant at Amido, told Cloud Pro.

“So we looked at digital transformation and how they could improve internal processes, keep employees happy and allow them to focus on their day job – stop doing manual processes and talk to other humans, allowing computers to get on and do what they do best. We wanted to consolidate and revolutionise.”

Speech-to-text system VoiceBase lies at the core of the solution to such a problem, with AWS’ Elasticsearch service offering sophisticated analytics, search and monitoring capabilities among other things. The former transcribed each radio show, allowing commercial staff to scan rather than listen for mentions, referring back to audio snippets where relevant.

With a user-friendly front-end, users are able to search for relevant mentions, verify and then download what they need to send onwards to clients. Perhaps an unintended, but beneficial benefit, is the fact that the use of FreQ has expanded out of the commercial team and is now being used by others. Namely presenters and producers who use the tool to review their programmes and discuss content and performance.

“We work with a range of clients. Some are small, some are complex. We have a general approach to understand what the problem is. Then, we will have a proof of concept and reduce the guesswork. The client can then sell that internally and provide confidence further up the chain,” Barnes added.

“Having that recognition shows the client is happy and winning this UK Cloud Awards accolade is an added bonus.”

The public sector, and local authorities in particular, have generally been accused of being IT and change laggards who refuse to embrace what modern technologies can offer.

Not so the London Borough of Lambeth. It’s current mantra is “Why not the cloud” when it comes to any tech implementation, according to Hamant Bharadia, assistant director of strategic finance at Lambeth.

And the council has saved at least £4.5m per year and enjoyed many other benefits as a result of this fresh thinking.

Its existing technology contract was due to end in July this year and that was a key driver for change – change the council set out to form a plan for two years earlier back in 2016.

“It was very clear that as an organisation we needed to do something different, something radical,” Bharadia said, adding that the transformation efforts formed part of a wider change dubbed ‘Future Lambeth.

Future Lambeth being the public facing element and ‘My Lambeth’ being an internal focus on staff, self-service, agility and productivity.

Another driving factor was the budgetary constraints currently looming over local authorities, with many having their spend options drastically cut. In Lambeth’s case, this was a sting of somewhere in the region of 50%.

“We don’t see that changing at all,” Bharadia said, which is another reason the council has tried to make savings. That £4.5m, for example, is being ploughed back into the service side to help ensure the council can still deliver on citizen expectations for 24/7 operation.

With some 320,000 people living in the area, it was important for Lambeth to provide them with a range of options on how they interact with the council as well as ensuring the relevant associated tools and technologies were their for employees to meet those varying expectations.

One aspect of the changes required to get from vision to reality was physical, with the council looking to consolidate the number of buildings it used. It was spread out across 14 buildings – some of which were houses initially designed for residential purposes – and wanted to streamline this to just two for a number of reasons.

Those two buildings are the Civic Centre and Town Hall, which act as hubs for employees who have embraced agile working, with most working on average two days a week for home.

With staff being able to work from anyway, the right technology infrastructure, tools and services became paramount, Bharadia said.

This is where Oracle Cloud acts as a backbone, with other elements such as Microsft Office 365 and Skype playing an important but supporting role.

Leave scheduling is managed using Oracle and 1:1 meetings are recorded and stored as threads for ease of reference, for example.

“It’s also about space. Servers take up room. These are things you can store and secure in the cloud,” Bharadia said, adding that printing has now been centralised too ensuring financial and energy savings in the process.

The public sector, and local authorities in particular, have generally been accused of being IT and change laggards who refuse to embrace what modern technologies can offer.

Not so the London Borough of Lambeth. It’s current mantra is “Why not the cloud” when it comes to any tech implementation, according to Hamant Bharadia, assistant director of strategic finance at Lambeth.

And the council has saved at least £4.5m per year and enjoyed many other benefits as a result of this fresh thinking.

Its existing technology contract was due to end in July this year and that was a key driver for change – change the council set out to form a plan for two years earlier back in 2016.

“It was very clear that as an organisation we needed to do something different, something radical,” Bharadia said, adding that the transformation efforts formed part of a wider change dubbed ‘Future Lambeth.

Future Lambeth being the public facing element and ‘My Lambeth’ being an internal focus on staff, self-service, agility and productivity.

Another driving factor was the budgetary constraints currently looming over local authorities, with many having their spend options drastically cut. In Lambeth’s case, this was a sting of somewhere in the region of 50%.

“We don’t see that changing at all,” Bharadia said, which is another reason the council has tried to make savings. That £4.5m, for example, is being ploughed back into the service side to help ensure the council can still deliver on citizen expectations for 24/7 operation.

With some 320,000 people living in the area, it was important for Lambeth to provide them with a range of options on how they interact with the council as well as ensuring the relevant associated tools and technologies were their for employees to meet those varying expectations.

One aspect of the changes required to get from vision to reality was physical, with the council looking to consolidate the number of buildings it used. It was spread out across 14 buildings – some of which were houses initially designed for residential purposes – and wanted to streamline this to just two for a number of reasons.

Those two buildings are the Civic Centre and Town Hall, which act as hubs for employees who have embraced agile working, with most working on average two days a week for home.

With staff being able to work from anyway, the right technology infrastructure, tools and services became paramount, Bharadia said.

This is where Oracle Cloud acts as a backbone, with other elements such as Microsft Office 365 and Skype playing an important but supporting role.

Leave scheduling is managed using Oracle and 1:1 meetings are recorded and stored as threads for ease of reference, for example.

“It’s also about space. Servers take up room. These are things you can store and secure in the cloud,” Bharadia said, adding that printing has now been centralised too ensuring financial and energy savings in the process.

Oracle may be more than 40 years old, but it’s still young at heart and eager to help support and learn from those starting out who have the potential to create successful cloud-based businesses.

That was one of the key messages at a startup-focused panel at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco this week, where the firm detailed the history of and its future plans for the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator programme.

“Startup accelerators are not new. We realise we are a little bit late to the game. We wanted to do something unique and better. [So we asked] what can we do that brings value to the Oracle community?” Said Jason Williamson, Vice President of startup ecosystem at Oracle.

“[Innovation] isn’t just happening in Silicon Valley. Creation is happening all around the world so we set out [to tap into that]… We’re learning, we’re a start up ourselves. How do we be a part of Oracle’s change story too? If you want to reach people you haven’t reached before you need to do things you haven’t done before.”

Last year, Oracle hand selected seven startups to work with, but the demand for support was so great, it now plans on having a rolling admissions process.

The programme is backed by nine physical locations – a number likely to grow in time – but it’s optional if startups want to be based in the same space as the necessary support can be provided in other ways too.

The criteria for entry is pretty simple – it’s all about finding and engaging with ‘cool’ startups that would benefit from a relationship with Oracle. “B2B things. Things that are data heavy,” Williamson said.

“We are super interested in stories to enable startups around the world. What we’ve seen coming out of the UK has been awesome. Our goal is to really come alongside during this process and help along the way. But not just with technology – to help them get revenue. That’s what you want as a startup – revenue – and one of the unique things we can help with,” Williamson added.

But that doesn’t mean start-ups have to sell their souls to Oracle in return.

“We don’t take equity…We get to create a virtuous cycle. We’re not putting in a cash investment. We’re doing an in kind investment. You’re getting credits, space if you need it, access to our marketing team. There’s value there,” Williamson added.

“If we can put these customers in front of our startup base and they start getting revenue, they have to service these customers. If they start servicing these customers they will need more OCI etc It’s long tail and we’re fine with that.”

He added: “With the fullness of time and when they graduate from the programme, it’s not when they are going to be their best selves. They will be peaking in three years. I want to be sure we’ve treated them well. That we have that connective tissue. So, when they grow and expand they will grow and expand with us.”

The panel wasn’t just a case of Oracle talking up its efforts helping startups. A number were also in place to share their, very positive, stories, too.

One such company is iGeolise which was part of the first accelerator programme cohort and has essentially created a “travel time platform,” according to Charlie Davies, its co-founder and technology and product director.

“You can search the world around you by time rather than distance. Distance is a completely useless way to search as all of us are at the mercy of the public transport systems around us. We license this as an API to lots of companies in the UK, including Right Move,” he said.

“Oracle is so big and we are so small. Navigating this would have been impossible if it wasn’t for the startup accelerator.”

He added: “One of the challenges we’ve had being a mapping company is the amount of data became a huge bottleneck for us in terms of getting customers. We have done very well in the UK, but we wanted to attract bigger brands across Europe and the rest of the world. What Oracle gave us was a nice tick. OCI is like a secret leviathan behind you where people sit up and listen a bit more.”

Oracle may be more than 40 years old, but it’s still young at heart and eager to help support and learn from those starting out who have the potential to create successful cloud-based businesses.

That was one of the key messages at a startup-focused panel at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco this week, where the firm detailed the history of and its future plans for the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator programme.

“Startup accelerators are not new. We realise we are a little bit late to the game. We wanted to do something unique and better. [So we asked] what can we do that brings value to the Oracle community?” Said Jason Williamson, Vice President of startup ecosystem at Oracle.

“[Innovation] isn’t just happening in Silicon Valley. Creation is happening all around the world so we set out [to tap into that]… We’re learning, we’re a start up ourselves. How do we be a part of Oracle’s change story too? If you want to reach people you haven’t reached before you need to do things you haven’t done before.”

Last year, Oracle hand selected seven startups to work with, but the demand for support was so great, it now plans on having a rolling admissions process.

The programme is backed by nine physical locations – a number likely to grow in time – but it’s optional if startups want to be based in the same space as the necessary support can be provided in other ways too.

The criteria for entry is pretty simple – it’s all about finding and engaging with ‘cool’ startups that would benefit from a relationship with Oracle. “B2B things. Things that are data heavy,” Williamson said.

“We are super interested in stories to enable startups around the world. What we’ve seen coming out of the UK has been awesome. Our goal is to really come alongside during this process and help along the way. But not just with technology – to help them get revenue. That’s what you want as a startup – revenue – and one of the unique things we can help with,” Williamson added.

But that doesn’t mean start-ups have to sell their souls to Oracle in return.

“We don’t take equity…We get to create a virtuous cycle. We’re not putting in a cash investment. We’re doing an in kind investment. You’re getting credits, space if you need it, access to our marketing team. There’s value there,” Williamson added.

“If we can put these customers in front of our startup base and they start getting revenue, they have to service these customers. If they start servicing these customers they will need more OCI etc It’s long tail and we’re fine with that.”

He added: “With the fullness of time and when they graduate from the programme, it’s not when they are going to be their best selves. They will be peaking in three years. I want to be sure we’ve treated them well. That we have that connective tissue. So, when they grow and expand they will grow and expand with us.”

The panel wasn’t just a case of Oracle talking up its efforts helping startups. A number were also in place to share their, very positive, stories, too.

One such company is iGeolise which was part of the first accelerator programme cohort and has essentially created a “travel time platform,” according to Charlie Davies, its co-founder and technology and product director.

“You can search the world around you by time rather than distance. Distance is a completely useless way to search as all of us are at the mercy of the public transport systems around us. We license this as an API to lots of companies in the UK, including Right Move,” he said.

“Oracle is so big and we are so small. Navigating this would have been impossible if it wasn’t for the startup accelerator.”

He added: “One of the challenges we’ve had being a mapping company is the amount of data became a huge bottleneck for us in terms of getting customers. We have done very well in the UK, but we wanted to attract bigger brands across Europe and the rest of the world. What Oracle gave us was a nice tick. OCI is like a secret leviathan behind you where people sit up and listen a bit more.”

It’s long been acknowledged that information is power, but the cloud combined with AI offers organisations – in particular the enterprise – more opportunity than before to really extract value and drive success.

Indeed, by 2025 all cloud apps will incorporate AI in one form or another.

So claims Oracle CEO Mark Hurd who used his keynote session at the firm’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco this week to highlight myriad of benefits on offer when the two are combined.

Proclaiming that “Cyber teams are the new future,” Hurd added “As cloud and integrated technologies like AI [evolve] information becomes incrementally more valuable.”

Hurd stressed to delegates that cloud was now a foundational aspect of business; something “irrefutable.” What’s more, Hurd also believes spicing up the cloud mix with additional ingredients such as AI will only serve to help accelerate the pace at which organisations embrace what cloud has to offer.

“The cloud market is accelerating, it’s moving faster than predicted. Just last year alone 15% of US corporate owned data centres shut down. If you run that out and it was linear, the prediction I made of [it happening by] 2025, would be off by three or four years,” Hurd said.

“Cloud is accelerating and those datacentres are shifting from companies to core cloud providers. [But] we don’t see AI as an individual solution. There are many vendors that do. We see AI as a core feature that will get embedded into every solution, every application.”

Hurd added that the advent of AI brought with it enhanced productivity and innovation potential, reducing the time it takes humans to do certain tasks today or simply being able to do things humans just cannot fathom.

“Customers are [already] using cloud and now you’re going to see a new era as we integrate AI,” Hurd added.