Leopoldo Boado, Country Manager, Oracle España, at ESADE: 
"We have gone from selling licenses to becoming a service company"

“We have gone from selling licenses to becoming a service company. It is a cheaper, safer and more efficient approach" stated Leopoldo Boado, Country Manager, Oracle España. He gave this insight at ESADE today, in which he traced the evolution of Oracle —a technology giant — in making the digital transformation needed to ensure survival. “We invest 13% of our turnover in R&D and innovation. We have also spent close on US $60,000 million in acquiring companies over the last decade. This is a ‘do or die struggle’, he admitted.

During the talk “Learning by Pioneering Industries in the Digital World” (jointly held by ESADE and American Club of Madrid), Oracle España’s Country Manager, explained that 90% of firms were already engaged in the digital transformation to improve customer experience and operations. “Only 10% of companies that invest in digital transformation are really changing the rules of the game to create new business models”. Boado gave several examples of those firms that were game-changers. One of these was Unidad Editorial. This company is transforming the media model by putting a price on data for both the sale of advertising and the distribution of content. Another example was Amazon, which he said "had moved from e-commerce to market place and from there, to the Cloud”.

The three choices for undertaking digital transformation

Leopoldo Boado said that in the new digital settings “There are hay fewer barriers in relation to clients, who are increasingly well-informed through more channels”. Furthermore, this eco-system has fewer costs but demands shorter time to market: “To be competitive now, one has to launch a product or service in just three weeks. It is all part of the 'fail fast' culture and it is here to stay”, he went on. Boado considered that there are just three formulas for success in the digital market: start-ups (or 'unicorns’); transformation of traditional companies; digital eco-systems.

“Start-ups (or 'digital unicorns’) reflect this fast fail culture and many only have one thing in mind — selling out to another company, said Oracle España’s Country Manager. These start-ups are highly effective and among them we can find firms that digitalise exchange, such as Aribnb and Uber, and 'blue water' ventures in traditional sectors, of which fintech is an example in the Finance sector and insurtech in the Insurance industry”.

The second formula noted by Boado during his talk at ESADE Madrid was the evolution of traditional companies. Under this head, he explained various variables: innovation and the creation of internal start-ups; the acquisition of external start-ups; alliances and diversification.

In Boado’s view, the last three of these are yielding excellent results in 'blue water' markets. "Mercedes Daimler is a case in point. Mercedes has acquired two start-ups — MyTaxi and Car2Go — he said. Other noteworthy cases — this time, falling in the 'alliances' category — are BBVA and Nimble, and more recently, DHL, Amazon, and Audi”. "These are going to revolutionise e-commerce, allowing customers to do their shopping and even find supper from their cars”, Boado stressed. Under the 'diversification' head, Oracle España’s Country Manager, spoke of his own company and those already mentioned such as Amazon and Unidad Editorial. The last of these "is shifting from being a content provider to a model based on Enterprise as a Service (EaaS)", he said.

The third big opportunity and the one with the brightest future is “A radical evolution in alliances, especially those between start-ups but also for traditional companies”, argued Oracle’s seer. “We have Google, TESLA, Uber and Apple working together on the concept of the car as a service, in which various companies contribute the engine, operating system, ownership and experience within the same concept" he went on. In the same vein, he explained other concepts such as smart homes and integrated banking, on which various firms are collaborating.

'Data Scientists' are needed

“All revolutions require a lot more work than one might think at the outset”, noted Leopoldo Boado, who considered that this would make the labour market fiercely competitive. This market would focus on people, both regarding the acquisition of companies and recruiting new professionals. Here, he noted that Oracle had just begun a recruitment drive for 1,400 new professionals in Europe, The Middle East and Africa (EMEA). On this subject, he acknowledged the dire shortage of data scientists [experts in interpreting 'big data']: “We recruit recent graduates and we train them because there is a desperate shortage of people who have the know-how we need”.