Five Years of Oracle Cloud and What I have truly learned about Business

Five Years ago this summer, I was in London in a City wine bar off of Fenchurch Street mulling over the future direction of Certus. “Fusion”, as it was known then, was really the only topic of discussion as I could see it was going to be a true differentiator and change the market for years to come. To say a healthy degree of scepticism didn’t exist would be a lie but Oracle’s product line, despite its many acquisitions, in my opinion was like Apple’s in the 1990s – confused, ugly, outdated with no real viable roadmap and frankly completely unexciting. To be blunt Oracle was in danger of becoming irrelevant.

Come 2016 and looking back if Oracle hadn’t embraced, what we refer to today, as the Cloud it would be fast on its way to becoming a dinosaur regardless of its cash position and healthy bank balance. Instead of posting monster revenue growth quarters, it would be losing money. Oracle needed to change, the customers it served were crying out for innovation as their industries and businesses were changing and Cloud was to be the Game Changer. Oracle needed to become “relevant” again.

Now I have written about this extensively in my previously blogs of how Certus as a business was born in the Cloud and the digital era of disruptive technology as well as the challenges we have faced and I am pleased to say successfully overcome. However the most fascinating insight I have gained is the difference between those organisations that are going to be successful and those that are not in this new era.

My Insight

The great thing about digital technology, and the Cloud in particular, it has enabled a multitude of businesses to access technology of the likes of Oracle that would have been previously out of reach. Used correctly Cloud technology will transform your business, from engaging your employees, managing your talent, through to the adoption of best practice across finance and procurement as well as giving you access to real time management information. As a consequence over the past five years we have got involved in a wide range of new and exciting industry sectors and businesses from Gaming, Technology, Mining (Gold Mining - Yes Really!), Charities, Sporting Organisations and Hospitality as well as still servicing the traditional areas of Financial Services, Telco's and Government (more about that for another day!).

I honestly believe, as I enter my 29th year in IT (I still call it that!), we are truly living in the most exciting time of all. I have absolutely never enjoyed myself so much and love seeing the status quo in markets being constantly challenged and seeing companies like Uber and Airbnb disrupt en-masse. Innovation and disruption are now the only constants in a world of chaos.

Now this might sound harsh but for those organisations who didn’t decide to go Oracle Cloud or any other Cloud or even worse the ones that decided to do absolutely nothing at all after a protracted irrelevant procurement exercise (and there have been many) I say face the greatest challenge of all – Survival!

Cutting to the chase some people get all of this “stuff” and can see how their industries are transforming and the many new business opportunities that are available and some just don't. Unfortunately they are on the road to failure and extinction.

I always say on projects the only mistake you can really ever make “is not to make a decision at all” as the impact of indecisiveness costs time, money and business opportunity. Organisations that I have come across over the last few years that are indecisive I honestly believe will not be around in 3-5 year’s time. The reason being that the Executives seem completely “trapped” by their own culture to such an extent that if they cannot make a decision to go Cloud, especially given the body of evidence regarding the benefits and the very fact that their competition is using this technology that  sometimes allows a multitude of new players with new ideas to enter the arena then frankly it is only a matter of time before their own business disappears. 

You can hear it now the famous words of the Nokia CEO being repeated “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Well sorry you did do something wrong – “You stood still and didn’t bloody do anything!” – Game Over.

It’s truly fascinating stuff that case studies should be written about, albeit granted it’s only the kind of case study that ever gets written after the event and not during it. Most of all when trying to pin point why companies fail, I think it really comes down to culture and a complete lack of ability to adapt fast enough to a changing world. You simply become irrelevant.

Digital Darwinism

Only 22% of FTSE100 companies from 1984 are still in business today (with Lloyds Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland only being saved by HM Government bail outs in the 2008 crash). Technology and digitalisation in its most extreme form has changed the rules of business. We are now in an era of pure Digital Darwinism, how many of the remaining 22% will be there in 5 years time?

““the evolution of consumer behaviour when society and technology evolve faster than our ability to adapt.” (http://www.mrryanconnors.com/adaptive-marketing-digital-darwinism-one-can-prevent-the-other/ )

The successful companies - the ones that survive are the ones that adopt and adapt. Those that stand still join the dinosaurs. For those that do survive, they have the constant challenge of staying relevant to an intelligent demanding consumer base. To do that you need to constantly innovate and that ultimately requires investment in people and we come full circle back to the "war on talent".

The Cloud Moves Fast!

Without doubt, the Cloud is the most extreme fast moving business environment I have ever experienced. Oracle was late to the Cloud but it has and continues to change its entire business model, it will not only survive it will get stronger as it has the financial resources to back its plays. Does it get everything right? far from it and it still has a long way to go (sorry Larry, Mark, Safra). We learn by our mistakes and if you are smart you adapt accordingly. Even Certus constantly has to disrupt itself not just to stay competitive but to stay relevant to an ever changing environment and to our own customer’s needs.

The Cloud story is still in its infancy and we have many more exciting times ahead. So strap yourself in and get ready as Roald Dahl writes in Matilda “Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”

So what I have learned - those that survive and excel are decisive, they know they have to adapt, are calculated risk takers, and most importantly know they must constantly innovate to stay relevant to their consumer base.

There are many more chapters in this book to come and as I have said before we all write our own story so go be brave and go write the next chapter.

The Urban Myths of Oracle Cloud Implementations – The Epilogue

The articles I wrote a couple of months ago in relation to the many urban myths around Oracle Cloud have generated so much interest that I have been approached online, at conferences and even in the street! – Famous or what he laughs! Anyway such has been the interest and the intrinsic value of a shared conversation I thought I would post part III, an epilogue of sorts to address the two questions that I have been constantly asked since publication. So for those who are interested please find my views on these subjects and in the spirit and words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th Century American Lecturer and Poet “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.

#011 – Is Coexistence Real? Can You Integrate with On-Premise Systems

Oracle can support coexistence and you can integrate and exchange data between on-premise systems and the Cloud. Some basic examples do exist but for the more complex scenarios nothing does exist directly out of the box except the standard tools and you have to design and build the integration required yourself. Getting data into the cloud is straight forward so if your integration is one way going into the Cloud then it’s easier, however if you want two-way real time integration then it’s much more difficult.

CHALLENGE: So yes it can be done, anything can be done for a price. However please be warned it could be expensive in-fact from our experience it may be more expensive than just going for a full Cloud implementation. The Implementation Partner needs a number of skills so find one who has done it before and knows what they are doing as they need to know the source system; the Oracle Cloud; the tools provided by the Cloud (e.g. HCM Data Loader / HCM extract); and know how to design and deliver integrations supporting business processes. Also keep in view integrations need to be maintained and the Cloud is changing currently twice yearly therefore there is going be the ongoing cost of ownership to consider as well. Remember one of the reasons for adopting the Cloud is low cost of ownership.

So the lesson here is simple, try and do it on the cheap or find an inexperienced partner then get ready to write a hefty cheque.

Personally unless it is absolutely necessary we always advise to consider going full cloud, we always have. However in saying that we do recognise that this may not always be possible.

#012 – Business Change is Minimal

We need to be clear and differentiate between business change and training. Implementation of Cloud is transformational. The system is so intuitive that end users need little to no training especially if they are millennials. The older demographic can be served by using short contextual “youtube” help style videos and using standard functionality to embed these into the system at appropriate points. As for Professional Users we have taken a millennial intern (age 17) given them 2 hours teaching and training and then had them flying around the system doing payroll testing! I am not saying it’s always that easy but it really is not that difficult in terms of system user-ability. (equally I am not saying here we created a payroll expert in 2 hours!)

But we need to be clear the business change effort does need to be undertaken you can’t just “wing it”. If the business is not engaged, then the implementation will fail from an adoption perspective.

CHALLENGE: Cloud is transformational and therefore you change for good. You need to understand the long term impact that Cloud brings on your business, so find a partner that can articulate the future "service" offering in such a way to win "hearts and minds".  To do that you need someone that understands the business operation and the underlying subject matter.

The ongoing challenge is the constant stream of Oracle innovation means that some organisations struggle with the amount of change coming at them. Hence moving to a place mentally where the system is constantly changing and ensuring that employees are comfortable is key. Maintaining constant awareness, engagement and adoption are the watchwords here.

From our experience the most common challenges we see organisations face in turning to the Cloud include, but no means limited to:

• Industry best practice, means streamlined processes and automation of transactions – The impact being is that your Central HR and Finance departments may need different personnel with a different skill mix as their role becomes "value add" especially as the embedded management information means the focus is on insight and informed decision making – this  means organisational change; especially where HR and Finance are involved together

• The rate of change of innovation and the capacity of the organisation to consume change alongside business as usual – this means you need a mechanism for dealing with sustainable business change

• Determining effective mechanism’s for driving and sustaining user adoption The “What’s in it for me?” question needs a compelling answer

The bottom line is don’t under estimate the effort involved if you want to be successful. Remember you only get to transform once.

Epilogue

Regardless of implementation partner a client chooses we want all implementations to be successful. So writing this article isn’t just too merely demonstrate Certus knowledge and experience with the Oracle ERP & HCM Cloud it’s to provide enlightenment and insight to prospects and clients alike in the hope that this series of articles will, and continue to, steer them down the path to success. As Benjamin Franklin said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn” – so join the conversation and share your experiences…

Positive Disruption - Want to be Really Successful in the Oracle Cloud? The Secret Is Simple…

So two weeks ago we signed our first ever office lease – something we have put off for as long as possible, but due to our growth this has now become an absolute necessity. Building for growth and scaling is one thing, building a sustainable business is a completely different matter entirely and not a day goes by when you remember that “cash is always king”. In my opinion you build a sustainable business first and then build out. You can’t grow if you have no foundation. So as another milestone is hit and the company faces the challenge of further exponential growth it seems like a good time to share how we achieved our success to date but also remind ourselves that we keep our feet firmly on the ground albeit whilst I’ll heads are always in the Clouds.

So here’s another 2 part special, but fundamentally “the ability to Execute and Deliver is Absolutely Everything”. If you cannot deliver or you get a reputation for poor quality and non-delivery frankly you're dead! As Warren Buffett said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently”.

I am often asked as to how we built a modern day consultancy cloud practice and as many of you will know Certus today is an award winning Oracle Specialised Platinum Partner, with a business model dedicated to Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud. So if you want to know the secret to our success then please read on…and hey don’t be to surprised if a lot of what now follows appears to be lifted from the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Sir Allan Sugar, James Caan amongst others! It unashamedly has…but let me try and put the Oracle Cloud practice positioning on this…

The Principals of Certus' industry reputations were always based upon the maxim “they get the job done, in the right way and they always deliver”. We were and still are the people you come to when you have an ERP project in distress. The problem with reputations is as the jobs get bigger so does the risk profile, and the knowledge that regardless of what you have achieved in the past you only need to screw up once and that is what everyone remembers!” – So for Certus to be successful it had to be seen as an extension of our own reputations and based upon a strong sense of delivering value to the customer. To achieve that you first need your own strong value set. Employees need to buy into that value set for the company to grow, and the easiest way to do that is to build a “brand”, and that is what we did and from that gained the reputation for “being a safe pair of hands”.

The Equation of Digital Disruption

Even in the era of “Digital Disruption” which without doubt is very real and tangible it’s still all about People! It’s a two sided equation, it’s about the people we employ and it’s about the people we deliver to. If you cannot deliver sustainable success for your customers then regardless of what you sell them you won’t survive long in the Cloud game. Whilst investors are chasing Unicorns (“Emperor’s New Clothes” is the term that comes to mind. Someone please explain to me why you would invest large amounts of money in continuous loss making businesses in the hope that they are supposedly going to one day generate a fortune?), the fundamentals in any service based industry remain; without customers you are nothing, and in the Professional Services industry you need to find, develop and protect your talent as they will look after your customers.

 “The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers” - Sir Richard Branson

I still would para phrase Digital Disruption quite simply as  “better, cheaper, faster” – albeit a quote if any readers have ever heard me speak I always pay homage to Colin Fisher, IT Director of Lloyds Bank in the 1980’s and trusted lieutenant to Sir Brian Pitman when asked by an 18 year old who at the time was under strict instructions from his line management to keep his mouth shut asked “How do you deliver shareholder value mean?” and his answer was “better, cheaper, faster” (I’ll leave you all to guess who that was!). Today, 30 years on the principles are exactly the same, but what we did and continue to do with Certus I like to see as “Positive Disruption” to the Oracle Partner landscape.

1. “Build a Brand”

From day one we didn’t just want to build a great company we wanted to build a “brand”. We could see where the Oracle Cloud was going (even before Oracle!) and we also leveraged our experience and knowledge as to what the traditional market players (our “future competitors”) would do, betting and knowing they wouldn’t move fast enough to invest in the product set. This would create the space that a small nimble start-up could fill and by establishing a brand early on, our prospects, customers and the industry itself would remember us! Quite simply we wanted to be a new breed of Oracle partner.

Extend the brand, not only is Certus a brand name today in its own right – its engage® services – engage® Implementation Services, engage® Business Support Services and now (launching this month) engage®.gov is intrinsically linked to Certus. We also protect this with the Intellectual Patent Office! – So Imitators Beware. 

2. Be First and Become The Leaders in the field – the Recognised Experts in the Product

Timing in business is everything, from seeing the opportunity through to day-to-day cashflow. We sort introductions and networked into Oracle Development and then invested heavily in training gaining product knowledge and experience. We continue to do so today and feel we play a significant role by feeding back to Oracle our ideas and findings of implementing the product set. We want to be seen as an extension to the development team. For many years we have been known as the partner that trains other partners, but at the start Oracle asked us to train early adopter customers and the larger tier 1 transformational partners - this in effect became paid pre-sales as we were front and centre demonstrating our knowledge of the product set. The bi-product of this was it created implementation and consultancy opportunities for ourselves. Remember when starting out you need to get highly creative to generate cash to reinvest. This laid the bedrock of the business and we still do it today. Being first is great, you make a lot of noise and it gets you noticed but then you have to stay there! and that's harder. For many Certus came out of nowhere! 

3. Be different!

Oracle Cloud was a new market trying to establish itself in 2011, early 2012. In our opinion the Oracle Partner Landscape was “tired” we couldn’t see any new innovation and there was a high degree of status quo in the UK. That in itself was opportunity and Cloud was just the enabler. As James Cann often says he builds great businesses “Observe the masses and do the opposite”. That’s exactly what we did. We worked out how to implement Cloud differently and then we started to market ourselves; instead of UKOUG and Oracle (not saying that these channels aren’t effective), but we went directly and set up stand at the CIPD – The biggest HR Event in the UK – back then there wasn’t a Cloud insight!, especially an Oracle one. 

4. But…You don’t have to Redefine The Wheel

And here is the contradiction.…do look at the past, learn and reapply from those that have been truly successful. Edenbrook was (in my opinion) the last great Oracle Consultancy Practice in the UK before it was acquired - that was of course until Certus came along (smile). I went and met Mark Robinson, Serial Entrepreneur who now runs one of the fastest growing tech companies in the UK – Kimble. I talked through our ideas, the challenges and listened to the journey he went on with Edenbrook, and its predecessor Fulcrum. No point falling into the same bear traps if someone has kindly done it for you already, albeit in another era, but he has and always is been willing to share his experience with me. As for me I just shut-up, listen and learn. 

5. Buy into the Market, this is the risky part – in-effect we had to find (difficult), convince the first customer we could deliver the project (very difficult) and subsequently turn the customer overtime into an advocate (very very difficult with the early versions)

Finding the first project, buying into the market and putting your money where your mouth is demonstrates to a prospect your level of confidence in delivery. It took us the whole of 2012 to find the first customer, and we have many hilarious stories (especially the one about the Gold Mining Company in Africa! – catch us in the bar sometime and I will tell you) that today we still look back and laugh at. This however is very much the risk part. Yes it was completely loss making and for a SME it kills your cashflow and you have to be highly creative in resolving that, but from our “investment” and successful delivery we got reference-ability and customer advocacy

6.  “Walk the Talk” - Establish Credibility through Reference-ability

Reference-ability is everything when dealing with new technology, new implementation approaches and new markets. The Cloud takes you to new and different markets, but the rule is the same. If you don’t have happy satisfied customers, then you don’t get the reference-ability. Those that follow you will find it harder to establish themselves as well as gain reference-ability. To get reference-ability you have to earn the right to ask your customers and you only get that through successful delivery. So whatever you commit to make sure you deliver it!  

 Part II to follow soon…