Partners top priority for Oracle

Dubai, 21 Apr 2005

Oracle is committed to partner competency and sees this as its number one priority, the company`s VP for Middle East and Africa (MEA) told guests at its PartnerNetwork day in Dubai this week.

According to Husam Dajani, over 60% of Oracle`s MEA revenue for the past year was generated by its partners, so it easy to see why the company considers partner competency to be of such importance.

"More than 90% of our e-Business Suite implementations are performed by partners and in the Middle East, 100% of technology implementations are done by partners," he says.

"Oracle launched several partner initiatives over the past year, which were about helping our partners to grow their competencies through the training, re-training or recruitment of quality staff."

He claims that the company is determined to protect its status as number one in the region, and is quite prepared to spend the money required to ensure its partners are capable of delivering the respective quality of service.

"Partner excellence is about learning to crawl, then walk and finally run. Oracle and our partners are at the point, I believe, where we are walking, but we should be running soon," says Stein Surlien, VP for alliances and channels in the region.

"We also know that we have to play our part in helping our partners to run, and - while we aim to help you to a positive impact on your organisation`s bottom line - we also need to ensure that if we promise you something, we will deliver."

Surlien also points out that the small and medium enterprise (SME) market is very important to Oracle, as it is the fastest growing market in terms of IT spending.

"The customer wants to buy from a trusted source, which is where our partners come in and I believe the SME market represents a huge opportunity for them to make money.

"Oracle realises the need for both partner relationship management, in order to help our partners maximise both their budgets and their resources, as well as opportunity management, which is about us ensuring our partners have enough business," says Surlien.

"We need to help you to succeed, because if our partners fail, we fail too."