Q&A: Sandeep Mathur, MD, Oracle India

August 11, 2011 at 11:49 am | Posted in The Market | Comments Off on Q&A: Sandeep Mathur, MD, Oracle India

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/qa-sandeep-mathur-md-oracle-india-/445059/

Business India
Thursday, Aug 11, 2011

Q&A: Sandeep Mathur, MD, Oracle India
‘Global aspirations of Indian firms offer an opportunity’
Pradeesh Chandran / August 07, 2011, 0:34 IST
Oracle, one of the largest database software product providers, is cashing in on the global aspirations of Indian companies, which, it feels, is an opportunity for growth. The company’s Indian business operations, which accounts for accounts for 7,000 customers in fields as diverse as telecom, banking and governance, is exploring new businesses with its new solutions. Sandeep Mathur, the newly-appointed Managing Director of Oracle India, in an interview with Pradeesh Chandran, outlines the company’s new model. Edited excerpts:

How is your India business panning out?
Our company is doing exceedingly well in India. Most Indian companies use our platforms for running their businesses. About 100 per cent of Indian telecom companies and over 80 per cent of Indian banks run on Oracle technologies.

Which are the verticals that you are focusing on in India?
We have traditionally been focusing on banking, telecom and government verticals, and these continue to be our focus verticals.
Spending on information technology (IT) by Indian companies is quite less, compared to their global counterparts. How are you adapting to their IT spending?
India is a growing market for technology adoption and it is undergoing a transformation. Indian companies have global aspirations and they are actively looking to enter global markets, either through organic or inorganic routes. Our technologies help them integrate the businesses as quickly as possible. Keeping this in mind, we are trying to make our technologies simpler to reduce the IT complexities. Our plan is to integrate every layer of the technology stacks, so that they work together as a single system.

Being a database solutions provider, what kind of opportunities do you see in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project? Are you a part of the project?
Yes. We are closely partnering UIDAI for many initiatives. But I can’t discuss the specifics of it. One thing I can say is UIDAI aims to create a database of the entire population, and this is one of the world’s largest database projects. And, we are one of the world’s largest database solutions providers.

What is the contribution of Sun Micro in your new journey?
In India, the amalgamation of Sun Networks is not yet complete. Globally, however, our integration is over. Sun hardware systems revenues stood at around $1.2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2010-11. We are doing a lot of work on Sun platforms.

In India, small and medium-sized business (SMB) is a fast-growing segment, while you focus mainly on enterprise businesses. Do you have any specific plan for the SMB segment in India?
In India, we have around 7,000 customers, which include all kinds of customers. We have a strong partner programme in India, which helps us take our solutions across all these levels. Similarly, we have a good relationship with independent software vendors and system integrators who customise our solutions for all business sizes. SMBs are fast adopters of the cloud technology in India. We have solutions for both private and public clouds, which would help us address the growing need of SMBs in India.