Oracle upbeat on India business

When Charles E Phillips, president of the $10 billion Oracle Corporation, started his whirlwind tour of Mumbai and Bangalore today, he would have enough reasons to say cheers.

The company's performance in India has been stupendous (the Indian operations topped the list of the company's fastest growing business regions last year), and Oracle expects India to move up to the third position from fifth now in its list of the top 10 Asia-Pacific business destinations.

The importance that the company attaches to its India operations is evident from the huge hoarding just in front of the main convention hall at the four-day Oracle Open World, which started here on Monday. The hoarding says the National Stock Exchange of India, which runs on Oracle software platform, has been able to reduce its settlement time by 57 per cent. Phillips, who is the highest-ranking Oracle executive so far to visit India, knows all this quite well.

When a journalist here pointed out if he was nervous about the grilling he might face from the Indian media, Phillips, who joined Oracle last year, replied with his characteristic wit: "I am eagerly looking forward to that".

Not that Oracle's top executives are unaware of the pitfalls. The company has 6,000 employees in India but the revenues are far lower than the company's operations in China, which has only 600 people on its rolls.

Derek Williams, executive vice-president of Oracle's Asia Pacific division, attributes this to the huge gap between China and India's per capita software spend. But Williams says things are changing fast in India.

Oracle's two development centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad form part of the company's global development team providing software research and development across the company's product family for Indian and global markets.

India also hosts a number of global operations that make it possible for the company to conduct 24x7 consulting, finance and administration, marketing and support operations, in addition to software development, Willams says.

The Indian customers are responding quite well, it seems. Says Arvind Kathpalia, group head, operations, technology and finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank: "Without all business applications being integrated., in a growing bank like ours, delivering world class service is a tough task. Oracle has provided us the flexibility and the power of integration, enabling us to align our technology to business objectives."

Lakshmi Machine Works (LMW), India's largest textile spinning machinery company, is also equally enthused. The company has increased revenue by 20 per cent last year after implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite. LMW's wholetime director Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu says the Suite holds promise to help the company maintain such growth.

For example, Oracle executives say, LMW is targeting a 15 per cent reduction in time to market new products by creating a globally accessible information repository.

Across the wall

• The company has 6,000 employees in India but the revenues are far lower than the company's operations in China, which has only 600 people on its rolls.
• Oracle attributes this to the huge gap between China and India's per capita software spend. But things are changing fast in India.
• Oracle's two development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad provide software R&D across the company's product family for Indian and global markets.
• India hosts a number of global operations that make it possible for the company to conduct round the clock consulting, finance and administration, marketing and support operations.

(The writer is in Shanghai at the hospitality of Oracle Corporation)