Cloud technologies growing fast in India: Prasad Rai

Companies are looking at blockchain, artificial intelligence and data to help improve results, Prasad Rai, Vice-President, applications, at Oracle, tells Shubham Raheja in an interview during Brand Studio Live. Edited excerpts:

How is the Indian market different from those of developed countries for you?

Indian companies are now keen to experiment and try out latest technologies. Five years ago, Indian companies wanted technology to be used multiple times before they deployed it. Now, if there is new technology out there, they want to use it.

They also want to go into fairly detailed analysis of the features and functions of software, which is good because they know exactly what they are getting into. That is something I see as different from many other countries.

Indian companies also want value for money—they want to balance out the value that they get for the price that they pay.

However, there are more similarities than you would imagine. Cloud-based technologies are growing as fast if not faster than any other part of the world. Indian companies are also looking at blockchain, artificial intelligence and data for better results.

What distinguishes Oracle from what other companies are offering?

We have the entire range of software solutions in our portfolio which helps customers in avoiding buying different pieces from different vendors and stitching it all together and then managing that on a long-term basis. Because we have the entire suite, we manage, we integrate and we run the system for the customer and they get the benefit more at a lower price.

We built our products through internal development and acquisitions. What the customer has is the ability to pick and choose the best suite of software for their particular requirement.

How do you use new disruptive technology within your organisation before it is offered to your customers?

Using new technology helps us automate a lot of repetitive jobs, which in turn helps us be more efficient and faster in what we get done.

It also helps us with insights. Oracle is present in over 100 countries across the globe. There is a vast amount of information about the market and about our own customers. We leverage that information to get the right kind of insight and rights kinds of decisions. That is why data management tools, artificial intelligence and machine learning help us understand what the trends are before they become visible. Hence we have the opportunity to take early steps in the market.