Oracle OpenWorld 2016 Event Report - The Intersection of Sales, Marketing, and Data Clouds

My Constellation Research colleagues and I had the pleasure of attending OpenWorld, Oracle’s annual customer and developer conference last week.  We all cover different aspects of Oracle’s solutions and this event summary is focused on Oracle Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and the intersection with Data Cloud. 

 

Impressive Customer Keynote Speakers Showcase Move to Cloud - CEO Mark Hurd’s keynote included videos and live customer interviews with the likes of HSBC and Orange to showcase how these traditional, heavily regulated companies are embracing Oracle Cloud solutions. HSBC Global Services CFO Joanna Fielding described the bank’s goal is to gradually replace legacy infrastructure and back office systems that were largely internally built.  HSBC Global Services started with Oracle Fusion for ERP and expect that the same platform will be utilized across HSBC.  CEO Mark Hurd expanded the base of keynote customer highlights to include more SMBs and disruptive brands like Lyft.

 

Oracle Adaptive Intelligence Announcement (note not Artificial Intelligence)  - The announcement of Adaptive Intelligence apps initial use cases are centered on Marketing by providing context to personalize buyer experiences and automate offers and next steps. Larry Ellison referenced in his keynote, over 5 billion consumer profiles in Oracle’s identity graph (note these are profiles, not individuals, averaging 3-5 devices and multiple email addresses per person). This is a natural value proposition for Marketers to leverage the data from ID Graph for advanced segmentation, targeting, and personalization.  In private briefings with the adaptive intelligence team, the roadmap will later extend to sales, procurement, and financial services use cases among others. 

 

Accelerated Buying Experience - Oracle’s own internal sales process transformation - During one of the analyst sessions, EVP Doug Kehring described Oracle’s Accelerated Buying Experience.  At its core, Oracle is simplifying the way they do business to transform from a company where “no one ever got fired for saying no” with lengthy, onerous contracting processes, to leveraging their own Configure Price Quote (CPQ) technology to automate and streamline the sales process for customers .  The result is a significantly shorter, 1-2 page order summary with click-to-sign, thereby taking the friction out of the selling process.  Shortening the amount of time from quote-to-close enables Oracle’s sales teams better compete with the likes of Amazon and Salesforce. Great move to improve the overall customer experience and I applaud Oracle in this effort.

 

Sales Cloud Momentum - I had the opportunity to speak with several Oracle Sales Cloud customers both through coordinated meetings and casually during the event.  Several remarked on the changes they see with Oracle’s renewed focus on customer satisfaction and help them move off of CRM On-Demand to Sales Cloud.  Several customers including a substantial European conglomerate, are all in the process of migrating over to Sales Cloud from CRM On-Demand and happy with the results thus far. Another customer, a multinational industrial machinery company, has experienced a 300% ROI and shortened deal cycles from using Oracle’s Configure Price Quote (CPQ) solution. Their success with CPQ then led the customer to add Marketing Cloud (Eloqua), and Oracle Sales Cloud to replace a home-grown SFA product. 

 

Oracle Data Cloud in the Center of It All - The combination of the BlueKai, Datalogix, AddThis, and Crosswise acquisitions form the Oracle Data Cloud, which plays a substantial role in both the Adaptive Intelligence and Marketing Cloud areas.  Oracle Data Cloud includes a network of over 1,500 data-suppliers, media and advertising partners, and the customer’s own data stored in the Marketing Cloud, give marketers access to robust profiling capabilities to run personalized, targeted cross-channel campaigns. 

 

Marketing Cloud + Data Management Platform (DMP) = Robust Audience Targeting - Oracle Marketing Cloud is a standalone Business Unit within Oracle comprising of the acquisitions of Eloqua for B2B Marketing, Responsys for B2C Campaign Management, and Maxymiser for A/B Testing and Optimization.  Layer on the integration of the Data Management Platform (Powered by Oracle Data Cloud’s BlueKai) then provides Marketers access to billions of audience profiles and the ID Graph to connect it all together - the known and anonymous, user or household, mobile device identifiers, and emails. The use cases of tying customer anonymous web searches to a personalized website experience and targeted advertising showcase how the triangulation of data works.

 

Eloqua Enhancements  - I was a former Eloqua customer pre-Oracle acquisition, and it was and still remains, one of the strongest B2B Marketing Automation platforms. It has been six years since I’ve personally used Eloqua and Oracle has continued to build upon that strong foundation and the new features I saw in the product demos were impressive.  In particular, the visual click-through report for email engagement will save Marketer’s time looking at email results and new features focused on helping sales teams prospect better such as the Responsive Profiler and Google Chrome tool were standouts.

 

In Summary: The overall impression I left OpenWorld with is an Oracle that's embracing change. The admission that they were late to the Cloud play, but have since made heavy investments and taken giant leaps forward. New thinking on how they revamp their own internal selling process with the Accelerated Buying Experience, and focus on acquisition integration, a common customer concern during inquiry calls, particularly with the Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud.

 

CEO Mark Hurd stated that the most common feedback he hears from customers is, “I didn’t know you had that.”  There were several moments during OpenWorld when I had a similar reaction. Recommendation to Constellation Digital Marketing and Sales Effectiveness Clients: Take a look at what Oracle has to offer with Data, Sales, and Marketing Cloud and you might just say the same, “I didn’t know Oracle had that”. 

 

Scroll down for a Storify of my tweets from OpenWorld.