Oracle's Evolution - Database Leader to AI Innovator

 Oracle's Evolution - Database Leader to AI Innovator  

• Market Cap – 290.15 Bn
• EV – 369.18Bn
• Debt - $88.94Bn (High), Cash – $12.08Bn 
• P/B – 122.43 (intangibles in the book) 
• P/E (Trailing) – 31.05 (Growth) 
• P/E (Forward) – 19.43 (Growth)
• Economic Moat: Wide (product sales, under threat)   
• Domain: Enterprise Software and Database
• Comp. (Business Apps) – IBM, SAP, Workday, MSFT, Salesforce
• Comp. (Database) – MongoDB, MySQL, Cassandra, AWS, Azure, IBM 
• Growth Segment – OCI (Up) 

Oracle's Facing Headwinds - In the Age of No SQL

The emergence of Digital Transformation in the early 2010s has brought multiple challenges to Oracle's relational database segment.

Today, it is facing stiff competition from both commercial and open-source vendors. It must constantly innovate and create new products and services to stay ahead of the database market. Despite the challenges, it is rising to the occasion by developing its own cloud-native database products and investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the intelligence and autonomy of its databases.

Oracle  - Where is the Growth

Oracle  Nvidia Partnerhip

 

Oracle's Gen AI Play - Partnership With Cohere 

Oracle, a major player in the technology industry, has been comparatively late in adopting the latest advancements in Gen AI, especially as compared to the major hyperscalers. However, it is now attempting to make up for the lost time by partnering with Cohere (LLM provider), while also leveraging its strong relationship with Nvidia, a global leader in the GPUs. This strategic move is expected to enable Oracle to enhance its AI capabilities and remain competitive in the market.

My other posts on Generative AI and Strategic Analysis of Key Players

• AI Value Chain 
• TSMC - The Chipmaker That Runs The World
• Amazon the King of Retail -WhyAWS is the Crown Jewel
• Microsoft the King of AI in Software, Salesforce under the AI Cloud 
• Tesla - It's not a Car, Its an AI Device on Wheels
• Google the King of Search - What the Future Beholds in the AI World
• Nvidia Godfather of AI - Why the Market is Bullish
• Generative AI can transform Telecoms, Energy and Utilities

Source: SeekingAlpha, Bloomberg, Martinfowler.com, Databricks.com, Nvidia, Google, AWS, Fourweek MBA Blog, Amazon, Ashwath Damodaran, TSMC

Salesforce and Google Cloud Deal What it Means

Salesforce and Google Cloud Deal What it Means

Source: Seekingalpha.com

Weekend Reading

 From 7 Rules of Power: Surprising — but True — Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career. His seven rules are: 

• get out of your own way — that is, 
• speak with confidence and do not undersell yourself, 
• break the rules — do the unexpected, 
• show up in powerful fashion — with conscious body language and actual language, 
• create a powerful brand, network relentlessly, 
• use your power — do not be afraid to wield power once you have it, 
• and finally, remember that “success excuses (almost) everything” — the powerful attract and retain support.” 

 

Why Buyers chose your Customer 

When buyers were asked to select their top 5 reasons for choosing the winning vendor over other vendors they considered, the top response was that the winner demonstrated a stronger knowledge of the buyer’s company and its needs (68%). (In fact, lack of knowledge of a company and its needs has separately been cited by buyers as their top deal-killer.) 

Focus on Outcomes 

Growing faster than the market - what questions the C-Suite Should ask 

Where is my growth going to come from? 

How do I grow now and tomorrow? 

How do I set up my growth engine? 

17 Common Virtual Selling Mistakes to Avoid

Pricing Strategy - Mistakes to Avoid

 

Weekend Reading

Digital Business Ecosystem Under The Hood 

In an ecosystem, we typically see three types of horizontal business models emerge - Aggregators, Integrators, and Infrastructures - which may be distinguished based on their position in the value chain. Additionally, firms may specialise and act as capability providers.

Five Anxieties of Tech CEO

• The first is dealing with increasing individual and team performance. Technology moves at such a rapid pace that is challenging to keep up with evolving new concepts. 
• The second is with doing more with less – either with resources (people and budgets) or time to meet the company goals. 
•  Most technology organisations have developed specializations over the years and the CEO experiences the third anxiety of leveraging with partner organisations as specializations are all over. 
• Often, either the organization, the investors or the board has a new vision, and the CEO now needs to deal with the fourth anxiety of how to synchronize one’s execution with a new vision. 
•  Finally, the technology world has grown global and technology teams take the job to where the talent is. This now means managing and leading the global workforce, the fifth anxiety.

Want More Deals - Teach your Sales Rep to Write

Why B2B Marketers Must Stop using the Jargon

“Don’t hope to impress customers with the language they won’t understand. Instead, impress them with how much you understand them,” the post said. “The reality is that jargon varies so much from organization to organization – and even from department to department inside of an organization – that it’s always better to speak in plain terms than to risk fanciful obscurity.”

Replacing the Sales Funnel with Flywheel 
Using a flywheel to describe a business allows us to focus on how to capture, store and release our own energy, as measured in traffic and leads, free sign-ups, new customers, and the enthusiasm of existing customers. It’s got a sense of leverage and momentum. 

The metaphor also accounts for the loss of energy, where lost users and customers work against our momentum and slow our growth. 

The two dynamics that make our flywheel spin fast: are force and friction.  

Early B2B Deciders

 Persona of B2B Early Deciders are following:

• Younger millennials, with more responsibility. 
•  Employed in larger, enterprise-scale companies that are growing fast. 
•  Technophiles who spend more on IT. 
•  Decisive, authoritative, and deliberate. 
•  Promoters of customer experience (CX), innovation, and brand.

Source: Forrester Blog

Weekend Reading

• Get it done
• CIOs sound off how vendors can measure up
• The role specialisation in B2B
• Define and measure the ROI of content marketing
• Strategy for startups
• Productivity isn't about management

Telecoms - IT Strategy, Managed Services and Implementation View

 

Telecom Verticals - IT Strategy, Managed Services, and Implementation View on 1Page.

(source: Gartner)

Hype Cycle for the CSPs Network Infrastructure 

Brief Context and Background on Sales

 

Sales 

Origin 

Word sale came from the old English word sala - "a sale, act of selling", which originated from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse sala, which originated from Proto-Germanic source "salo". The use of this word first appeared in texts around 1866, and by 1910 word Sales Representative was defined. 

Definition 

A sale is an activity between two or more parties in which the buyer receives tangible or intangible commodities, services, or assets in exchange for money. It is a commitment between the buyer and the seller to be exchanged for monetary consideration. When this activity is repeated multiple times for goods, it is defined as a Sale. Sale is a successful transaction between a buyer and a seller reaching a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA). The interaction between the two individuals or parties underpins the success of this transaction. If two individuals are comfortable interacting with each other, they will transact or do business. In other words, relationships play an essential role in closing a sales transaction. 

Sales Today 

Today, a sale can be executed in multiple ways through a direct, indirect, electronic, agency, B2B, B2C and other channels. With the rise in technology adoption underpinned by digital enablement, sales in B2B and B2C segment is becoming more technology-enabled and less human-centric. However, buyers in the B2B domain still prefer human interactions for complex and large deals. In the context of business, sales are the lifeline of any business, and to succeed in B2B sales or convincing others, one must learn how to navigate other people's mind. 

Beyond Sales 

Today selling has become an integral part of our daily life because we sell every day to others. How to influence and win over others is a skill that is fundamental to success in life and every task we undertake. Selling is everyone's business, and this is something that is not taught in any school. To succeed, the art of sales needs to be learned and practiced from early childhood. 

 

Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading

• Do Product Roadmap needs a Date
• Seven Myths of Business Experimentation
• Difficult Conversations at Work 
• Closing the Cultural Gap
• Sales Prospecting Tips

B2B Sales Tips

• How to Avoid no Decision Deal
• The New Sales Imperative
• Sales Blocker?
• Revenue Target needs 3x The Sales Pipeline
• Overcoming 3 Common Sales Objections 

Types of Digital Ecosystems

 

Source: Gartner

Weekend Reading

 Weekend Reading

• B2B Sales Trend - For Buyers and Sellers
• Strategic Debt - killer for startups
• How products can speed up development
• Myths in Negotiation - Debunked 
• B2B Sales - Leaders use data to drive better sales performance

Post COVID - Know Your Dynamic Demand Profile Trigger

 Post-COVID - Know Your Dynamic Demand Profile Trigger to Identify Growth Areas 

Source: HBR October 2020 Edition

B2B Sales - Sellers From Mars and Buyers From Venus - III

Excerpt from the upcoming book at amazon.com  - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales"

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Negotiations - Influence to Win  

The business to business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement that is beneficial to both. To reach a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back and forth nature of these discussions are driven to gain an upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), or their BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) or any useful information which will assist in bargaining.

To win negotiations in sales a lot of preparation is required. This includes the collection of information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are minimal. Having said that, sometimes even after gathering information and preparing, negotiations can still be lost or suspended indefinitely because of change in the political landscape, financial upheaval, change in priority, a pandemic outbreak or any other unseen factors. 

The gathering of information and preparation for negotiations is time-consuming and is often challenging. To overcome this challenging task, elements of nature and their attributes are leveraged in preparing the groundwork to influence and win negotiations. 

Let us explore how a seller or a buyer leverages elemental attributes, learned in previous sections, to position and influence their respective stakeholders with the intent to win.

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Space (Ether, Metal) Natives Negotiation

 

Part 2 on Persona Mapping in B2B Sales can be read here 

Part 1 on Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales can be read here 

Post COVID - B2B Sales Acceleration