Tag: Oracle

Singapore – Oracle has announced the launch of its AI centre of excellence in Singapore to help organisations keep pace with the rapid advancements in AI. The Oracle AI Centre of Excellence will serve as a resource and hub for innovation and collaboration, bringing together leaders at the forefront of AI to drive AI adoption and success across Southeast Asia.

Backed by Oracle’s team of experts and an extensive network of partners, the centre is designed to equip organisations with the tools and expertise needed to upskill teams, explore AI-driven solutions, and modernise critical business operations. 

Through specialised training programs and certifications offered by Oracle University and its ecosystem partners, organisations will have the opportunity to develop expertise in the latest cloud and AI technologies. This initiative aligns with Oracle’s pledge to train 10,000 students and professionals in Singapore by 2027.

The centre also serves as a hub for AI experimentation, allowing businesses to test early-stage AI innovations in a secure cloud environment powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

With applications spanning industries such as the public sector, healthcare, finance, and telecommunications, organisations can explore cutting-edge AI solutions, including autonomous AI, generative AI, machine learning, and AI-driven analytics. Additionally, the Centre provides a platform for organisations to develop proof-of-concept projects, enabling them to assess AI solutions before full-scale deployment.

By leveraging Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, enterprises can rapidly integrate predictive, generative, and agent-based AI into essential business functions such as finance, HR, supply chain, sales, and customer service. These AI-driven enhancements aim to boost productivity, reduce operational costs, and improve both employee and customer experiences. With the launch of the AI Centre of Excellence, Oracle continues to strengthen its role in advancing digital innovation and AI adoption across Southeast Asia.

Dr Tan See Leng, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry, Singapore, said, “To remain economically competitive, we need to build an agile and adaptable workforce that is equipped to leverage new technology effectively. The new Oracle AI Centre for Excellence is a good example of how businesses can take the lead in workforce transformation, empowering our workers to become future-ready.”

Meanwhile, Garrett Ilg, executive vice president of Oracle Japan & Asia Pacific, commented, “AI will fuel the next wave of opportunity and growth. The Oracle AI Centre of Excellence will empower individuals and organizations of all sizes across Southeast Asia with cutting-edge cloud and AI technologies, world-class training, and a dynamic environment for experimentation and innovation. It further strengthens our commitment to train thousands of students and professionals in Singapore and provide readily-available digital talent for the local workforce.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Oracle has announced plans to invest more than US$6.5b to open a public cloud region in the country. The upcoming cloud region will enable Oracle customers and partners in Malaysia to leverage AI infrastructure and services and migrate mission-critical workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

The planned public cloud region will help organisations in Malaysia modernise their applications, migrate all types of workloads to the cloud, and innovate with data, analytics, and AI. 

With this, customers can have access to OCI Generative AI Agents with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities; accelerated computing and generative AI services to help keep sovereign AI models within country borders; and OCI Supercluster, the largest AI supercomputer in the cloud.

Moreover, with the planned public cloud region in Malaysia, customers and partners can gain low-latency access to cloud services to help them derive better value from their data and securely store data and run applications to help address regulations and requirements for data residency within Malaysia. 

In addition, OCI’s sovereign AI capabilities provide customers with increased control over where they locate their data and computing infrastructure and how they manage it. As a result, customers can achieve AI sovereignty by gaining the assurance that their use of AI is aligned with digital sovereignty frameworks.

YB Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, minister of investment, trade and industry (MITI), Malaysia, said, “We warmly welcome Oracle’s US$6.5b investment in Malaysia, which represents yet another expansion of their 36-year footprint in Malaysia. This investment will empower Malaysian entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, with innovative and cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies to enhance their global competitiveness.”

He added, “It is also a significant step towards realising the country’s New Industrial Master Plan’s ambitious vision of creating 3,000 smart factories by 2030. Oracle’s decision to establish a public cloud region in Malaysia underscores Malaysia’s infrastructure readiness, and its growing position as a premier Southeast Asian destination for digital investments.”

Meanwhile, Garrett Ilg, executive vice president and general manager, Japan & Asia Pacific, Oracle, commented, “Malaysia offers unique growth opportunities for organizations looking to accelerate their expansion with the latest digital technologies. Our multi-billion dollar investment affirms our commitment to Malaysia as a regional gateway for cloud infrastructure as well as a comprehensive suite of SaaS applications deployed within Malaysia.” 

Singapore – Global multinational computer technology company Oracle has announced that it is exiting the advertising business by the fourth quarter of this year, as announced by the company during its latest earnings announcement.

According to Safra Catz, CEO at Oracle, its advertising business had declined to about US$300m in revenue in fiscal year 2024.

It is worth noting that Oracle aimed at building up its advertising business by acquiring multiple firms like Vitrue, Eloqua, BlueKai, DataLogix, and Moat to build out its advertising capabilities. However, a mixture of industry changes like halting third-party partners for ad targeting as well as lawsuits has resulted in Oracle slowly shutting down its advertising initiatives in recent years.

Nonetheless, Oracle notes in its latest earnings report that its cloud and data center business is seeing significant growth, with executives noting that fiscal year 2025 will see cloud infrastructure services to grow faster than the 50% they reported this year.

“We believe our momentum, our current momentum will continue as our pipeline is growing even faster than bookings and our win rates are going higher as well,” Catz stated.

Singapore – Omnichannel communications platform MessageBird has recently appointed Rohan Chandhok as its new head of marketing.

Chandhok will be bringing his years of experience in the fields of B2B marketing, data-driven digital marketing, and media relations, amongst others, to his new role.

Before joining MessageBird, Chandhok was previously director of marketing at the multinational computer technology corporation Oracle, serving the JAPAC region. He was responsible for creating actionable marketing plans for revenue generation through integrated digital marketing, content marketing, and field marketing.

He also held senior and leadership roles at the IT company Dimension Data and IDG Media Pvt. Ltd., amongst others.

MessageBird is a communication solutions provider that helps businesses streamline conversations through their customers’ preferred channels such as email, SMS, WhatsApp, WeChat, and more.

Singapore – As reopening of borders have now allowed more travellers to visit choice locations, a large majority of Singaporean travellers want to have their hotel stay offer some tech-related service for reasons of accessibility and low-frequency contact with other people, according to the latest study conducted by Oracle Hospitality and Skift.

The research notes that 80% of people in Singapore want hotels to offer tech that minimises contact with staff and other guests, and 86% are interested in hotels using AI to deliver more relevant offers.

Meanwhile, 52% want to order room service from their phone or a chatbot, 52% are also looking for contactless payments with only 5% wanting to pay in crypto, and 46% wanting a fully self-service model, with staff only available upon request.

In terms of travellers’ perspective of a contactless hotel experience, 46% said they want a fully contactless experience for all basic hotel transactions, and 38% said a staff shortage, and resulting slow service, would be their first deterrent to rebooking a hotel. However, just 20% noted that a lack of daily room cleaning is an issue, showing consumers have accepted that this pre-pandemic mainstay is never coming back.

Staff-wise, 72% of Singapore’s hoteliers said incorporating new technologies for staff best describes their strategy to weather labour shortages and attract new talent. Meanwhile, 62% added that their highest priority is to adopt tech that improves or eliminates the need for the front desk experience between now and 2025. 

Patrick Andres, regional vice president for hotels and food & beverage in JAPAC at Oracle, said, “We have seen how technology has reshaped and enriched guest experiences in new ways. Guests have now come to expect highly digital, self-service experiences across all aspects of their lives, including travel, and the hospitality industry must move at the same pace by adopting and integrating new systems in order to better serve the modern traveller.”

Over the next few years, travellers are also looking to personalise their journey even more by picking their exact room and floor and paying for only the amenities they want – and even wanting to pre-screen properties in the metaverse (76%). Moreover, 86% are interested in hotels using AI to better tailor services and offers, such as room pricing or food suggestions and discounts. Around 52% of hotel executives in Singapore see this ‘unbundled’ model as the future of hotel revenue management. 

Whether ordering room service or signing onto Netflix, Singapore travellers want the ease and convenience of home while travelling, with 51% saying on-demand entertainment access that seamlessly connects to their personal streaming or gaming accounts is their #1 must-have during their stay. Likewise, 48% of hotel executives said this in-room entertainment set-up is what they’re most likely to implement by 2025.

Meanwhile, 87% of travellers are interested in using automated messaging or chatbots for customer service requests at hotels, 41% want voice-activated controls for all amenities in their rooms, and 37% want room controls that auto-adjust temperature, lighting, and even digital art based on pre-shared preferences. 

United States – Global data technology giant Oracle has started laying off an undisclosed number of its employees in marketing and the US customer experience units, which started last Monday, 1 August 2022.

In a report made by Bloomberg, a few workers from Oracle were told that their position had been removed on Monday, while junior sales employees and a division sales director were amongst those dismissed. There are also rumours of pending cuts which were swirled through the division in recent weeks, but the management said the positions were safe.

Moreover, the same report said that a former senior manager of sales engineering said on LinkedIn that Oracle has ‘decided to reorganise’ its customer experience group. Meanwhile, in a separate post, another manager, whose position was cut, shared the restructuring for the job reductions. Another former senior manager and group vice president also cited on LinkedIn that some marketing positions were also dismissed.

The layoffs follow Oracle’s recent acquisition of health information technology firm Cerner Corp., for $28b. The company looks to health care to spur its effort in the competitive market for cloud technology.

Singapore – Last April 28, MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with Oracle, gathered marketing leaders from the Southeast Asia region in the webinar, ‘The Future of Marketing: Loyalty-led strategies in a cookie-less world’, to discuss and uncover how loyalty-led strategies can help brands thrive in digital advertising amidst the elimination of third-party cookies. 

Lisa Collins, director of strategy, Oracle Customer Experience, through a keynote presentation, shared how web 3.0 will transform the way consumers interact and engage with brands and the implications on data collection in this new world. She further explained how loyalty marketing seamlessly fits into the picture as a viable alternative to obtaining quality data sans third-party cookies. 

Collins shared how the present evolution in digital advertising presents opportunities for loyalty programs to be transformed as a key to achieving healthy data exchange. Where loyalty only used to mean rewards and points at best, Collins shared the different innovative ways that brands can deliver them now amidst the increasing popularity of NFTs and cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, the topic was further delved into with a panel discussion that was participated by marketing heads from Malaysia and the Philippines. Together with Collins; Norsiah Juriani Johari, vice president for product marketing at Astro Malaysia, and Anvey Factora, head of marketing communications, e-commerce and retail at Canon Philippines, shared their expert views and insights into implementing first-party data strategies and data’s role in developing loyalty marketing for the future.

Each of the panellists also highlighted the trends they believe will have the biggest impact on performance and loyalty marketing in 2-3 years, resulting in an insightful discussion about NFTs, ‘revenge’ travel, and the ‘revolution’ of e-commerce. 

The webinar drew 153 marketing professionals from a variety of industries, including retail and e-commerce, media and entertainment and CPG. Most attendees hailed from the markets of the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, and those who took part were from companies Bosch, Estee Lauder, Hmlet, Loob Holding, Mastercard, Sanofi, Sunway Malls, The Ascott Limited, True Digital Group, and Xendit. 

On the webinar, Collins commented, “Providing delightful contextual customer journeys [is] critical to customer acquisition, retention and loyalty. As marketers, we’ve always relied on a rich array of data signals to inform these journeys. However, with the imminent demise of third party cookies, a key ingredient for consistent personalised targeting hangs in the balance.”

“But let’s take a step back to understand the root cause of this issue: Consumers are fed up with giving over their personal and behavioural data with their only reward being more personalised advertising. This was arguably what led to a raft of privacy changes and also why the web3 ethos is resonating so strongly: people want to feel meaningfully rewarded for consuming content, for engagement, and for their own creative contribution,” Collins added. 

Meanwhile, Shaina Teope, regional editor of MARKETECH APAC, and also moderator of the panel, remarked, “With the rapid changes in digital, we made sure that with this webinar, we covered good ground on such developments, so it’s not just about discussing cookies, but how these privacy changes will affect brands as we enter a more decentralised internet.” 

“With the combined presence of our marketing leaders, we were able to get into what the future looks like in digital advertising, web 3.0, and loyalty marketing. We’re confident that with this discussion, we’ve become more ready to sail uncharted waters,” added Teope. 

On-demand access to the webinar is now available. Get your access HERE.

Singapore – Ever since tech juggernauts such as Google and Apple have announced that they are putting down an iron fist on privacy, the world of digital advertising has been shaken with brands and marketers suddenly thrust to the challenge of uncompromised campaigns even with the absence of what have been their cornerstone – third-party cookies. 

Due to this looming challenge, conversations around viable solutions spurred, but the industry, looking ahead to being crippled by an end of an era, would need more definitive answers to break down the perplexity of a cookie-less world.

This is why MARKETECH APAC, the digital media for the marketing and advertising industry in APAC, in partnership with Oracle, is taking the wheel to steer the discussion into what presents to be a top effective strategy for this dilemma – loyalty marketing. Happening on April 28, 2022, the webinar ‘The Future of Marketing: Loyalty-led strategies in a cookie-less world’, aims to unravel the practicability and sensibility of loyalty-focused solutions on keeping the quality of brands’ marketing intact amid a more privacy-driven digital landscape. 

We have gathered marketing leaders in the region from the industries of media, imaging, and technology, to help shine light on how loyalty, put at the heart of our marketing arsenal, can help us thrive in this entirely new environment. 

Joining the industry discussion are Norsiah Juriani Johari, the vice president of product marketing at Astro Malaysia; Anvey Factora, the head of marketing communications, e-commerce and retail of Canon Philippines; and Lisa Collins, the director of customer experience strategy at Oracle. 

Each of them will be sharing their expert views on why loyalty is never dead, and why it matters in a cookie-less world as well as the personalisation strategies that work best to boost brand loyalty in Southeast Asia markets. Furthermore, they will also be discussing the role of data in creating future-ready loyalty marketing. 

Shaina Teope, the regional editor of MARKETECH APAC, commented, “I believe that as we put an end to what has been a fixture in our marketing gameplans, we are called to be overprepared and be more than ready for such tricky independence. This is the worthy price to pay for a much safer digital landscape, and we’re here to show you how loyalty marketing can warrant an answer.” 

The webinar, ‘The Future of Marketing: Loyalty-led strategies in a cookie-less world’, will be held on April 28, 2022, 2:30 pm SGT. Secure your spot at the webinar HERE.

Tel Aviv, Israel – In-game advertising solution Anzu and Oracle Moat, a measurement and marketing analytics suite that is part of Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX), have announced the launch of its first-to-market viewability measurement for in-game ads. 

This means advertisers working with Anzu have access to third-party viewability verifications and in-view metrics by Oracle Moat when running in-game ads, either direct or programmatically, on mobile and PC.

The in-view ad impressions within in-game take into consideration the percentage of the creative on-screen, the ad size, time in view, and the angle of the ad to ensure a robust and accurate measurement is made. 

Moreover, these metrics are also available globally, no matter where advertisers are running their campaigns from. In addition to in-view metrics, Oracle Moat will also continue to verify impressions delivery and detect invalid traffic (IVT) across Anzu’s in-game banner and video ad formats.

Ben Fenster, chief product officer at Anzu said, “Providing third-party measurement is essential to building effective media strategies, industry confidence, and wider adoption of in-game advertising, helping to establish it as an ad category. We’re excited to be the first to bring Oracle Moat’s viewability measurement for in-game ads to advertisers, and we look forward to helping them establish clear benchmarks when it comes to viewability so they can see how their in-game campaign performance compares to other channels.”

Meanwhile, Mark Kopera, head of product at Oracle Moat added, “As advertisers continue to invest in in-game advertising, it’s crucial that they can measure key viewability metrics, like the percentage of an ad that appeared on-screen, time in-view, and more. By expanding our collaboration with Anzu, we’re able to give advertisers the measurement tools they need to make more informed buying decisions to reach these highly engaged audiences across gaming environments.”

Singapore – Global technology computer corporation Oracle has launched a new solution called the ‘Oracle Fusion Marketing’, a part of its ‘Oracle Advertising and CX’ suite that enables marketers to automate lead generation and qualification from campaigns that span traditional marketing and advertising channels.

Fusion Marketing uses artificial intelligence (AI) as well to automatically score leads at the account level, predict when consumers are ready to talk to a salesperson, and generate a qualified sales opportunity in any customer relationship management (CRM) system.

For the company, CRM has become the system that both sellers and marketers love to hate, due to disconnected workflows, too much manual administration, and siloed data often preventing sales and marketing teams from working with each other to engage customers and drive revenue. They also added that because of this, the experience for most salespeople is that their CRM system doesn’t help them sell – and this disconnect between sales and marketing teams is a growing challenge as the B2B buying process becomes more complex. 

“Customers and prospects are now interacting with organizations across an increasingly broad range of digital channels, buyer expectations are growing, and the need to access information at any time means much of the purchasing decision is now made before a salesperson is engaged,” Oracle said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, for Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager at Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience, said that this newly-launched solution lines up with their vision of making this time that the industry needs to think differently about marketing and sales automation so that they can transform CRM into a system that actually works for both the marketer and the salesperson.

He also added that this is not about forecasts and rollups or a reporting tool to see how the sales force is performing, but instead about turning CRM into a system that helps sellers sell.

“A huge part of that change is bringing marketing and sales teams together and eliminating the low-value, time-consuming tasks that distract from building customer relationships and closing deals. That’s why we have invested so much time engineering a system that will help marketers fully automate lead generation and qualification and get highly qualified leads to the sales team faster,” Tarkoff stated.

Fusion Marketing aims to simplify and accelerate the creation and execution of marketing campaigns by automating the end-to-end process of lead generation and qualification. With Fusion Marketing, marketers can build and run campaigns with consistent messages across advertising and email channels, all in a matter of minutes. This helps marketers improve the performance of campaigns by increasing the output of highly qualified sales opportunities.

Part of the solution’s campaign execution features includes building the target audience of known contacts, audience expansion, customer reference identification, simplifying campaign configuration, campaign launch, and results monitoring. Then, Fusion Marketing works by doing the automation of the lead generation, including personalized campaign microsites, AI-powered lead qualification, and delivering qualified opportunities to CRM systems.

As part of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, Oracle Advertising and CX connects data across advertising, marketing, sales, and service to make every customer interaction matter. Going beyond traditional CRM, Oracle Advertising and CX helps business leaders create, manage, serve, and nurture lasting customer relationships.