Market Model leads for partners in entire APAC”

Who are some of your channel partners who help customers with your end to end solution offerings?

In India we work with more than 1000+ partners in the ISV, platform, service provider, VAD areas, across our entire product and solution portfolio. This does not include partners who distribute Oracle Database technology products through the 1-click ordering process (available through the Oracle VAD Remarketer program).

Some of these partners include MarketOne, Virtuos, Creative Probers, C Centric Solutions Private Limited, Hexaware, HCL Technologies, Cognizant, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Softcell, Atos, among others

What does it take to be your partner?

The Oracle Partner Network (OPN) program sets the gold standard for partnering globally. We have carefully defined levels of partnership - Remarketer, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. Each of these levels requires certain qualification criteria to be met:

Diamond is the highest level. To qualify as a diamond partner, partners must have 20 specializations. To join this elite group, partners must possess expertise that is both broad and deep. Diamond members frequently help Oracle on projects for its largest global customers.

Platinum level is for Oracle partners that possess at least five specializations. Platinum partners are recognized for their expertise across a broad range of products and technologies, and receive dedicated support from Oracle.

Gold partners are authorized to develop, sell, and implement the full stack of Oracle solutions. They can also apply to resell Oracle applications. Although specialization is optional, Oracle highly encourages it. Partners may earn up to four specializations at the Gold level.

Silver partners can resell and develop products ordered through the Oracle 1-Click Ordering program, as well as select hardware products such as Oracle Database Appliance. By providing a cost-effective yet scalable way for partners to join OPN Specialized, Silver-level membership helps partners quickly become more competitive.

Partners can also join the OPN program as Remarketers. Remarketers resell select Oracle products with help from authorized regional VADs. Membership is free, and partners do not have to sign Oracle partner agreements. Like OPN Specialized partners, Remarketers can access training and sales tools through the OPN portal.

What is your channel strategy on a national scale? Are there separate methodologies as per regions and the customer demands of the area?

Channel partners are a key part of our go-to-market strategy and we want to help provide them with complete support so they can participate in delivering the world’s most complete, open and integrated business software and hardware solutions to our customers. We want our partners to invest with us, while we will invest in them. We manage relations with our channel partners through OPN or Oracle Partner Network. Through this program, we are focused on helping our partners grow their business and be profitable. We constantly look to improve and add new levels of support. Oracle has undertaken several initiatives to develop our partner network. Some of the key ones include:

Launch of Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized program - The program is designed to allow the valued partner community to differentiate themselves and reap the benefits of being recognized by customers for their in-depth Oracle technology or services expertise. It provides a way for partners to qualify for and brand themselves as having sufficient expertise in a given area. It allows partners to formally certify specializations to differentiate themselves and their offerings, be recognized for their expertise and become preferred solution providers to Oracle customers. In APAC today, we have 6300 OPN partners of which 11100 have achieved Specialization status. These partners have gained more than 10,400 unique specializations.

National VAD distributor program - Oracle works with VADs Redington and Avnet, to market, sell and implement Oracle products and solutions through their extensive national reseller network.

Oracle Accelerate – This is an innovative solution to help midsize businesses. Oracle Accelerate is Oracle’s strategy for helping OPN members provide midsize businesses and government entities with the most complete, easy to own, industry-focused application solutions. The solutions are application bundles that are developed and can be quickly implemented by qualified partners and provide a wide range of industry-specific functionality.

Oracle Open Market Model - In an effort to optimize our distribution channel and to best leverage relationships that Oracle and its partners have with the Oracle user community, we instituted an Open Market Model (“OMM”) which offers 3 distinct initiatives which acknowledge and reward partners for registering transactions with Oracle. These initiatives are designed to acknowledge and/or compensate partners appropriately for bringing business to Oracle, either by closing a transaction, passing an opportunity to Oracle, or by assisting Oracle in closing a transaction that occurs directly between Oracle and the end user customer. Introduction of Open Market Model (OMM) for partner leads has been highest in the APAC region among VADs in India.

What measures are you taking you popularize your reach?

Oracle in India serves more than 7000 customers across the private and public sectors. These include large corporations as well as midsize firms who have global aspirations. All these customers use multiple solutions from our vast portfolio of offerings. Majority of our business transactions or sales in India and done through partners. Through our VADs we are able to make available Oracle solutions to a wider base of customers in non-metro cities in India. Additionally, very recently Oracle expanded its presence by opening branch offices in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. Today Oracle operates out of 9 offices in India.

Which region is the most prolific in terms of utilizing your product offering?

All are equally important and large for us, because we work with customers across diverse industries, and also serve midsize as well as large companies. Segregating them geographically will not be the right way to view the business. We engage with our channel partners across the board.

What kind of marketing efforts do you undertake to make your service more popular?

We undertake a wide variety of joint initiatives with our partners to improve the penetration and adoption of our solutions to a wider customer base.

Fist through the OPN program and as a result of some of our new initiatives, we offer enhanced OPN enablement resources and updated incentive programs, designed to help our partners innovate faster, service customers better, differentiate themselves in the market and grow their businesses with Oracle.

We also house an Oracle Partner Solution Center at our premises in Gurgaon. This facility will enable strategic partners build, port, enable and test their solutions on Oracle technologies, and hardware infrastructure in a secure environment. With this, independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs), value added distributors and resellers (VADs & VARs) can leverage Oracle’s in-depth product expertise, proven set of processes, tools and best practices to build their industry-specific solutions on top of Oracle’s technology and applications platforms.

Additionally we undertake joint marketing programs, like events or bundled promotions or PoC with our partners to help improve our engagement and business with customers.

Which class of enterprises has endorsed your service and solutions without any hesitation?

We have been serving some of our customers for decades, so there is no specific endorsement we can offer here. Though I can add that majority of the telecos, BFSI and insurance firms in India run on Oracle. Also more than 20 states in India and many central government projects run on Oracle solutions.

How do you measure your growth rate? What are your key innovations strategies for next year?

There are standard parameters to track our growth. Mainly, we track how much incremental business we have experienced through partners and also check incremental number of large deals we have won through partners. Then there are other growth aspects such as: how many new partners joined OPN or how many new resellers have enrolled to sell/ distribute Oracle in non-metro markets; how many partners have acquired Specialization status, how many ‘net new’ customer acquisitions have happened through partners; incremental sales in key business areas like cloud or engineered systems.

Why do you think the physical channel is undergoing a sloth in the current year?

Oracle today works with over 1000 partners in India and more than 20000 globally. They operate across a wide breadth and depth of technologies.

Oracle‘s endeavor is to ensure that they have certified themselves on multiple specializations across different product lines. Oracle also adopts its OMM policy designed to increase the profitability of our channel partners, one of the unique benefits of being an OPN partner.

Specialization is the key, increase the relevant specializations, and an ideal mix of product and services will yield the desired profitability that a partner is looking at. Pure product resell players will find the situation challenging.

Anushri Mondal (anushrim@cybermedia.co.in)