The journey to cloud isn’t a one-way path – each company’s journey is unique. Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, Senior Vice President (Technology), Middle East and Africa, Oracle, explains why Egypt is one of the company’s top markets.
“At Oracle, we have built a completely integrated cloud platform that spans all layers of the cloud and is based on our foundational infrastructure products. It’s our focus on integration between these layers that genuinely sets us apart.
“Unlike any other cloud vendor, Oracle offers a complete range of services in all three primary layers of the cloud – Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
“That depth of product knowledge at every layer allows us to build the kind of seamless integration our competitors simply can’t match, with the ability to deliver real, powerful value by freeing up resources and driving innovation.
“We provide a hybrid model that allows customers to deploy in the cloud, on premises, or in their own datacentres. We believe an integrated solution must span both on-premise and cloud, because applications and information live in both and will potentially co-exist for years. Customers must address these together, and only Oracle delivers on that promise.
“Only Oracle allows customers to consume public cloud services while keeping their data behind their own firewall. This is done with the Oracle Cloud Machine that is part of Oracle’s Cloud at Customer offering.”
Rahman Al Thehaiban said that research and development is a key priority for Oracle in the region to ensure products are created to match customers’ expectations.
“We see cloud becoming central to key business sectors and the technology we offer sits at the heart of the economy,” said Al Thehaiban.
“The rate of innovation is changing the world around us at an unprecedented pace and the growth we have witnessed in the MENA region is indicative of that change.
“We have been prepared for the cloud adoption rate for years and because we have thousands of on premise customers, we have a co-exist strategy in place. There is a clear road map that we share with customers on how they can move to the cloud and we provide them with the full support they need.
“We are focused on driving cloud led digital transformation across Egypt’s public and private sector organisations. Cloud adoption is on the rise in Egypt and organisations in the country have initiated major transformation projects to offer new products, expand into new markets, hire and retain best talent or deliver an exceptional customer experience.
“Our commitment to Egypt has only grown and the impact of these investments can be seen in our size, revenue, customer base, products and partners. With the rapid rate of cloud adoption in Egypt and our unique ability to offer completely integrated solution across all layers of the Cloud, such as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, Oracle will only continue to get bigger and better.”
Rahman Al Thehaiban added blockchain will affect the business sector in three major areas.
“From an operational perspective, Blockchain can enable process improvement from simple optimisation to total transformation,” he said.
“For example, the concepts of the decentralised ledger and trusted transactions can replace traditional complex billing or settlement systems.
“The second will be from a market perspective; new services and new revenue streams can be easily generated by introducing Peer-To-Peer (P2P) business model.
“With Blockchain, trusted transactions can be made between two parties or a group of peers with the governance of digital smart contracts and peers verification.
“The third area, which comes usually with new trends, is the people. Blockchain is a great enabler for business innovation and the introduction of new talents in the market from different domains.
“New business people can think of many innovative P2P ideas; even engineers can build an energy-sharing ecosystem if they utilise Blockchain.”
Rahman Al Thehaiban says that Oracle is planning ahead to provide a big boost to the market growth by helping businesses develop their blockchain strategy and transformation roadmaps through its blockchain offering.
“We announced Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service as part of Oracle’s comprehensive Platform-as-a Service (PaaS) portfolio,” he said.
“By seamlessly integrating it with the Oracle product portfolio, we help business networks take advantage of most of their current capabilities to overcome adoption challenges and increase their ROI during the process.
“We anticipate that the blockchain landscape will eventually reshape; more service providers will come up, more alliances will form, even new types of consulting services will evolve, like legal firms to work on legalizing smart contracts.
“Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) are considered in the ‘data in’ stream while artificial intelligence (AI) is in the ‘data out’. Blockchain as a platform could safeguard against one of IoT’s biggest threats – security. It would also allow IoT devices to participate in business transactions and interconnect in a reliable manner.
“At the same time, blockchain creates a gold mine of data for technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. Simply because Blockchain is addressing the provenance of digital assets, its historical states and interactions throughout its lifecycle.
“Businesses across all sectors are expected to be impacted by blockchain. However, the question here is how fast and to what extent these sectors will overcome the challenges coming with blockchain adoption. This could be a regulatory, business or a technology preparedness challenge.
“As an example, the banking sector will benefit immensely with Blockchain innovation across many areas like payment, clearing, and settlement and paper intensive processes like trade finance.
“Blockchain will radically change how assets are maintained and stored, obligations are discharged, contracts are enforced and risks are managed.
“Furthermore, new business models may evolve within the banking sector and there will be an increase in competition from non-banking players in areas such as mobile payments and lending. Blockchain is likely to intensify such competition, as it will reduce technological barriers for nonbanking entrants.
“Many other enterprises will be revolutionizing customer experience and creating unique solutions for smarter transactions. In addition, similar to how the C2C (Consumer-To-Consumer) models like Uber or Airbnb revolutionized the market, blockchain will create the opportunity for more disruptive business model and innovations to become dominant and enhance the market dynamics.”
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