Enterprise software company Oracle is targeting SA's $10.5 billion IT market.
This was revealed by Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, Oracle's senior vice-president for technology in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, during a recent interview with ITWeb.
In November, market analyst firm IDC said it expected SA's IT spend in 2017 to reach $10.5 billion; one of the highest in MEA.
"The IT landscape in SA is fast evolving and the country offers a lot of growth opportunities," said Al Thehaiban.
He noted cloud adoption in SA is also on the rise and Oracle sees huge opportunities with the public sector, banking, retail and telecom companies.
"The SME segment in SA is also experiencing robust growth and we are supporting the digital transformation process for many SME organisations."
Al Thehaiban explained that in SA, there are organisations which have adopted cloud solutions and seen significant savings. However, he notes, some of the organisations are still evaluating the benefit of cloud. Most of the questions for the cloud adoption are around data security, data residency and data latency, he added.
"At Oracle, we have made significant efforts towards educating our customers in SA, and now we notice a decline in such concerns. Government entities and businesses in SA now realise cloud offers them speed, value and better return on investment."
According to Al Thehaiban, Oracle has consistently invested in expanding its infrastructure, workforce, partner network and community engagement in SA.
"We are committed to playing a key role in driving digital transformation across diverse sectors in SA by harnessing local talent. Over the years, we have initiated several skills development and capacity-building programmes in SA."
He pointed out that 75% of Oracle's customers around the world are SMEs. "SMEs are at the heart of any country's economic growth and we believe they need access to cloud technology at the lowest possible entry point."
Al Thehaiban said SMEs are a key focus for Oracle in SA and the company is supporting the digital transformation process for many SMEs. "With our cloud platform, optimised for high-performance and high availability, and breadth of platform services, Oracle has democratised enterprise-grade technology to support start-ups.
"We have been in the country for a long time and have gained deep experience across major sectors such as government, finance, banking, healthcare, construction, energy, retail and many more. Our investments in the region have only grown and the impact of these investments can be seen in our size, revenue, customer base, products and partners."
Although its competitors have opened data centres in the African region, Oracle doesn't have such facilities.
"The IT landscape in Africa is changing rapidly. The traditional plans for five and 10 years are not working anymore. We need to be seen as being fast and agile. We have recently announced the opening of a data centre in Abu Dhabi. This data centre is expected to go online in mid-2017. This data centre will act as a gateway for Africa. Meanwhile, we are also in the process of exploring some alternative models for Africa," he concluded.
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