by Arun Khehar, SVP Applications ECEMEA, Oracle
As we start this new year, it has become a tradition to drive predictions on future business outlook. I felt I could share with you my top 3 predictions for the year to come as our region continues to rapidly change with major transformation programs touching all—governments and citizens, businesses and employees—driven by a huge appetite for technology-led innovations or simply new legal requirements.
So here are my top 3:
As you may know, VAT will be incrementally deployed across Gulf countries in the short future. So all Finance departments from large, midsize to small organizations will have to ensure that starting 2018 they have an up-and-running system that fully complies with VAT requirements.
We will see traditional scenarios such as updating existing systems by activating the VAT function of ERPs or simply taking the opportunity to replace old systems by next gen apps as we saw in Europe in the 2000s.
I believe a third scenario will dominate with the emergence of pure cloud VAT services that will allow quicker deployments while ensuring the company is always compliant with any legal change.
We’ve used technology successfully to simplify the creation of information and access of that information. And now we turn to technology to democratize access to intelligence.
During Oracle OpenWorld last September, Oracle unveiled intelligent cloud applications that automatically offer individualized recommended actions and streamline the tasks of business users such as human resource or finance professionals. When activated, these new Adaptive Intelligent Applications apply advanced data science to learn and ingest data about an organization’s users and their behaviors to deliver targeted information to customers and employees. The insights from these deep analytics build a knowledge base that helps improve business results across organizations.
I believe the next big revolution in the world of enterprise applications will come from Artificial Intelligence.
This is probably my favorite topic. When you look back at Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption it has been predominately driven by lines of business and solutions in HR, Marketing or Service. Very good examples of how companies across industries have digitized their enterprise in the cloud can be found in the new digibooks that we have just released compiling our best stories in the EMEA region: Digibook 1 and Digibook 2.
I believe the next massive wave of adoption will be ERP in the cloud as Finance and Supply Chain lines of business start to not only see the immediate value of the cloud—such as faster innovation—but also that cloud offers a truly secure business environment. I actually see 3 key steps in the road to digital business value:
The more I think about it, the more I believe on-premises software worked very well for a stable world; but I believe even more strongly that cloud is the perfect fit for a fast-changing world. It is the only consumption model that offers such a level of flexibility combined with quick innovation cycles.
Do you agree? And what are your top 3 predictions? I would love to know them.
Arun