Oracle Press Releases

Oracle Retail will convene a European community of retail leadership at the Oracle Retail Industry Forum (ORIF) in Budapest Hungary with a program tailored for retailers by retailers and an opportunity for strategic networking to continue discussions on strategies and successes.

“Oracle Retail Industry Forum is about bringing together our retail community to foster continued growth and innovation. We are pleased to showcase local customer success stories. Within the forum, we highlight real software, delivering real value,” said Chris James, vice president of Europe, Oracle Retail.

At Oracle Retail Industry Forum, retail executives gather to share deep domain expertise and best practices on the mission-critical applications that are core to their businesses and their success. Program content is focused on customers providing perspectives on identifying and overcoming complex industry challenges.

Retail speakers include:

• Delphine Brabant, Head of Buying/Product IT Department, ÏDKIDS Community

• Bhavesh Chavda, Enterprise Architect, John Lewis

• Andrew Parr, IT Director, Wyevale

• Mathilde Paul, Chef de Projet Chez, Auchan

• Piotr Pawlowski, Strategic IT Director, CCC, S.A

Retail continues to be mercurial as consumers react and adapt to technological developments, in order to help customers navigate shifting attitudes and customer behaviors Oracle will reveal the findings of a global consumer research report.

“For us, the Oracle Retail Industry Forum is a critically important event because the focus on the European community. We view Oracle as an important partner and our collaboration with Oracle is a key part of our strategy,” said Platinum Sponsor Gabor Tozser, Chief Executive Officer, Quickborn. “Oracle’s solutions have the capabilities that we believe are supporting critical retail capabilities without which retailers will not succeed today.”

Oracle will be joined by 11 strategic solution integrators as sponsors for ORIF in Budapest. These partners contribute to and help deliver success within our community. Our partner community includes platinum sponsor Quickborn; gold sponsors Accenture, Logic, Retail Consult and Veltio; and Adyen, Cognira, First Friday, HRS, OLR and SkillNet as silver sponsors. 

For more information about how Oracle is committed to empowering organizations through best-in-class, industry-specific business solutions, visit oracle.com/retail. To learn more about Oracle Retail Industry Forum 2018, go to www.oracle.com/goto/orif18. Registration is limited to retailers and our sponsor community.

Oracle today announced that it has achieved the highest market share by revenue in Gartner’s “Market Share Analysis: Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide, 2017” report1. This report follows Oracle being named a Leader in Gartner’s 2018 “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service” report2 in April.

“We believe our market share demonstrates the value Oracle Cloud Platform delivers to thousands of enterprises every day,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president of development, Oracle Cloud Platform. “Our comprehensive iPaaS offering has eliminated the barriers between various Oracle and third-party ERP, HCM, and CX applications to provide a seamlessly connected business spanning cloud and on-premises. This comprehensive and easy-to-use offering, combined with strong synergy with the rest of the Oracle Cloud portfolio, continues to help our customers successfully transform and evolve their businesses by leveraging modern integration technologies, including artificial-intelligence and machine learning-powered services.”

“GE leverages Oracle Integration Cloud to streamline commercial, fulfilment, operations and financial processes of our Digital unit across multiple systems and tools, while providing a seamless experience for our employees and customers,” said Kamil Litman, vice president of software engineering, GE Digital. “Our investment with Oracle has enabled us to significantly reduce time to market for new projects, and we are excited about Oracle’s autonomous cloud capabilities.”

Oracle’s iPaaS offerings include Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle Data Integration Platform Cloud and Oracle SOA Cloud, all part of Oracle Cloud Platform. Oracle Integration Cloud is a simple and powerful integration platform targeting ad hoc integrators with tools such as process automation, while Oracle SOA Cloud delivers a high-control platform for specialist integrators. With more than 100 adapters, customers can quickly integrate and scale Oracle, third-party, and on-premises applications, APIs, people and devices. Additionally, Oracle has many other cross-PaaS offerings that can be combined with Oracle’s iPaaS services to deliver greater productivity.  Those services include Oracle Data Integration Platform Cloud, to support real-time data streaming, batch data processing, and enterprise data quality and governance; and Oracle API Platform Cloud, for API-first design and management. Oracle API Platform Cloud, leveraging Apiary’s unique API-first design tool used by over 300,000 developers and 400,000 APIs, is designed to eliminate the complexities associated with transforming on-premises API solutions into the cloud, so companies can thrive in the digital economy.

Oracle also previously announced autonomous capabilities across its entire Oracle Cloud Platform portfolio, including application and data integration. This includes self-defining integrations that help customers rapidly automate business processes across different SaaS and on-premises applications, as well as self-defining data flows with automated data lake and data prep pipeline creation for ingesting data (streaming and batch).

1. Gartner, “Market Share Analysis: Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide, 2017,” by Bindi Bhullar, Massimo Pezzini, Keith Guttridge, Elizabeth Golluscio, Eric Thoo, August 7 2018

2. Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service,” by Keith Guttridge, Massimo Pezzini, Eric Thoo, Bindi Bhullar, Betty J. Zakheim, April 18, 2018

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Perry Ellis International, Inc. is a leading designer, distributor and licensor of a broad line of high quality men's and women's apparel, accessories and fragrances. The company's collection of dress and casual shirts, golf sportswear, sweaters, dress pants, casual pants and shorts, jeans wear, active wear, dresses and men's and women's swimwear is available through all major levels of retail distribution. The company, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, owns a portfolio of nationally and internationally recognized brands, including: Perry Ellis®, An Original Penguin by Munsingwear®, Laundry by Shelli Segal®, Rafaella®, Cubavera®, Ben Hogan®, Savane®, Grand Slam®, John Henry®, Manhattan®, Axist®, Jantzen® and Farah®. The company enhances its roster of brands by licensing trademarks from third parties, including: Nike® for swimwear, and Callaway®, PGA TOUR®, and Jack Nicklaus® for golf apparel and Guy Harvey® for performance fishing and resort wear.  Additional information on the company is available at http://www.pery.com.

 

Oracle provides retailers with a complete, open, and integrated suite of best-of-breed business applications, cloud services, and hardware that are engineered to work together and empower commerce. Leading fashion, grocery, and specialty retailers use Oracle solutions to anticipate market changes, simplify operations and inspire authentic brand interactions. For more information, visit our website at www.oracle.com/retail.

Colombian Fashion Retailer STF GROUP has deployed Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization Cloud Service to support the growth of channels and operations by introducing best of breed, advanced planning solutions with supporting retail science to optimize inventory and financial plans. STF GROUP curates a unique fashion shopping experience of high quality apparel, footwear, handbags, accessories through an online shop, boutiques and certified wholesalers that serve customers in Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru. After experiencing strong growth in recent years, STF GROUP looked to the cloud for a single source of performance, market and vendor data that will be critical to improving the accuracy and depth of inventory plans while maximizing margin potential and mitigating unnecessary markdowns.

With a footprint including 317 physical stores across Latin America, 4,500 direct employees and producing more than 6 million pieces per year STF GROUP understood the need to invest in cloud technology to support continued growth and provide better service for their customers.

“We knew we needed a modern solution that could scale and grow with our business to support our plans to close the year optimizing resources,” said Polo Marin, Operations Director, STF GROUP. “Oracle Retail Consulting helped us implement Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service and Oracle Retail Assortment Planning Cloud Service.”

“According to Euromonitor International, the middle-class of Colombia is consolidating and changing its relationship with retail brands and expecting more personalized service and inventory,” said Carlos Victoria, Vice President of Latin America, Oracle Retail. “Oracle is poised to help retailers like STF GROUP empower their teams to take advantage of new digital opportunities by enabling omnichannel strategies and support alliances with international competitors.”

With Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization Cloud Service, STF GROUP can now take advantage of a proactive planning process that creates transparency of cost in the buying process and a consolidated view of key performance indications in one place. Merchandising planners can manage and organize their assortment plan in units with correct time to market and a structured process based on science that is key to evaluating what to replace first and keep on top of the latest fashion trends and consumer preferences.

“STF GROUP is a dynamic fashion retailer. Throughout the implementation process, we appreciated the importance of the user experience and a robust solution that met their needs to better serve a sophisticated consumer,” said Lou Frio, Vice President Consulting, Oracle Retail. “Our teams worked closely together to achieve a common goal, better customer service.”

 

STF Group implemented Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization Cloud Service in November 2017.

Today, Oracle Academy announced new curriculum offerings and learning modules to advance computing education globally. The latest offerings put Oracle Academy at the forefront of public-private partnerships in education with a variety of enhanced, flexible formats that help educators teach computer science, bring emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the classroom, and inspire students with lessons from successful innovators and entrepreneurs.

“As technological innovation increasingly drives our global economy, computer science becomes a critical component of any well-rounded education,” said Alison Derbenwick Miller, vice president, Oracle Academy. “Oracle Academy’s new computing coursework and learning experiences will augment that education, open more opportunities and further inspire our emerging generation of innovators.”

Setting the Standard for the Next Generation in Computing Education

Building a bridge between instructor-centric learning and student-directed discovery, Oracle Academy today introduced Oracle Academy Education Bytes. Designed to support personalized learning, Education Bytes are short-format, flexible learning modules that offer instructional materials on database, programming and data science concepts and skills. Education Bytes can be used alone or to enhance Oracle Academy curriculum and provide self-directed learning experiences in programming, SQL, PL/SQL, big data, R, Hadoop and more. Education Bytes support varying learning modalities with different content in three formats: Hands-On Labs, Projects and Challenges, and Videos and Presentations.

Recognizing the importance of emerging technologies, Oracle Academy also launched new course curriculum in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying computing, the course asks students to design, implement, and demonstrate a machine learning solution in Java that could help a business or organization tackle a real-world challenge. This project-based course expands upon concepts and skills gained in Oracle Academy Java Foundations and Java Programming classes.

Finally, in collaboration with the Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem, Oracle Academy introduced a video lecture series that includes classroom discussion questions for Oracle Academy institutional members and shares personal, real-world lessons from successful entrepreneurs on following their dreams, living fearlessly, and finding success.  Developed for anyone who is or wants to be an entrepreneur, the series features executives participating in the Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem, a program that reimagines enterprise innovation through partnerships with startups that foster co-development and co-innovation.

These new offerings follow a period of unprecedented growth and reach for Oracle Academy. During the past fiscal year, Oracle Academy worked with more than 15,000 institutions across 128 countries to advance computing education and impact 6.3 million students.

Specialty retailer Podruzhka has deployed Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization to engage and grow a loyal customer base with competitive pricing. With the help of Oracle Partner Network Platinum Partner Veltio, Podruzhka streamlined a pricing process that offered automation, best practices and flexibility to respond to the market demand with Oracle Retail solutions.  Podruzhka had previously implemented Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting and Veltio Allocation and Execution solutions which led the retailer to further their investment as they sought to improve the accuracy and agility of their pricing strategy.

Podruzhka is uniquely positioned within the Russian drugstore market with 210 stores catered to providing women with inexpensive personal care products, cosmetics, perfumes, jewelry, accessories and cleaning products. Each Podruzhka store carries up to 15,000 SKUs within a compact 140-180 square meter footprint in residential areas, establishing the drugstore as a local staple.

“In the Oracle Retail 4-Dimensions of Retail research, we discovered that 84% of global consumers say that competitive pricing and promotions first and foremost are the most important aspect of their shopping experience,” said Chris James, Vice President EMEA, Oracle Retail. “In Russia, market conditions can change quickly and with Oracle Retail Podruzhka has created ability to manage multiple price zones that appeal to the consumer in the moment of intent.”

“With our responsive pricing approach, we hope to increase customer loyalty through competitive pricing and selling opportunities while respecting the financial targets of the company,” said Alexander Golubev, IT Director, Podruzhka. “Oracle Retail provided us with an industry rich solution with flexibility and scale. Veltio delivered the implementation on-time and on-budget with a deep understanding our business needs.”

“This project was a great milestone for Veltio in the Russian market by highlighting the opportunity of Oracle Retail solutions in regional context. Local market conditions and the crash of the ruble forced Russian retailers to start thinking more about the efficiencies offered by advanced pricing, assortment and supply chain management,” said Kostya Prays, EMEA Business Development Director, Veltio. “We are happy to help retailers like Podruzhka leverage this technology to find a competitive advantage.”

The City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, (DWSD), a Michigan municipal utility that provides water and sewer services to the residents of Detroit, today announced major decreases in operational costs along with improved availability and performance after transitioning its traditional on-premise data center to Oracle Cloud. In total, DWSD calculated a 15-17 percent decrease in operational costs since it began its collaboration with Oracle.

Oracle works with numerous state governments and local municipalities to deploy innovative solutions designed to provide government agencies more agility and options as they manage operations and deliver constituent services. These new savings for DWSD further highlight Oracle’s ongoing commitment to modernizing services that impact citizen services.

“Moving to Oracle’s Cloud puts us on a modern database platform for the first time,” said Dan Rainey, CIO, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. “Oracle is a strategic partner for us and has transformed our platform to be highly available, resilient, and affordable.”

The citizens of Detroit expect improved service delivery and better response to questions about essential services—without the burden of increasing costs. The utility saw an opportunity to meet this need by fully integrating technology into daily work functions to modernize DWSD, enhancing customer service to internal and external users while reducing predictable IT costs. At the same time, DWSD’s Oracle Cloud deployment creates greater flexibility to meet changing requirements from the board and the city. Now, the 185-year-old utility relies on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Applications as the foundation for its digital transformation.

As a result of Oracle Cloud and other tools implemented starting in May 2017, DWSD has reinvested capital dollars, otherwise spent on traditional IT hardware and software, on tools to improve customer service. Cloud technology has proven essential for DWSD in enhancing the level of performance of its systems, transforming the water utility into an organization that provides highly responsive customer service.

“Our work with the city of Detroit is an example of how we can quickly help our public sector customers realize greater efficiencies,” said Mark Johnson, senior vice president, Oracle Public Sector. “By reducing their cost structures with modern technology, DWSD can focus business strategies and priorities toward their number one priority—their customers.”

To support DWSD’s efforts to lower costs and enhance the customer experience, the utility is leveraging a number of additional technologies, including Oracle Database Backup Service, Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle SOA Cloud, Oracle Storage Cloud and Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service.

Oracle Construction and Engineering today unveiled its Innovation Lab, a unique facility designed to accelerate efforts to help project- and asset-intensive organizations explore the latest technologies and drive digital transformation.

A simulated project worksite with integrated technologies, the Construction and Engineering Innovation Lab enables visitors to interact with leading-edge solutions, including connected devices, autonomous vehicles, drones, augmented reality, visualization, and artificial intelligence tools. By presenting these hands-on experiences within a simulated connected worksite, the Innovation Lab is able to powerfully bring to life the performance improvements and data insights these technologies can deliver.

“Advances in technology are reshaping the industry landscape at an accelerating pace. Our Innovation Lab enables organizations to experience firsthand how new technologies can help drive better project outcomes in critical areas such as safety, productivity and quality,” said Mike Sicilia, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Construction and Engineering. “We are excited to welcome our current and prospective customers, partners, the academic community and others to our Innovation Lab to help them experience the future of projects.”    

The vision for the Innovation Lab, which is located outside Chicago in Deerfield, Ill., was shaped in part by input from several Oracle Construction and Engineering customers as well as technology providers. The Innovation Lab experiences will feature technologies that integrate with Oracle solutions to enable collaboration and unlock critical project intelligence to enhance outcomes and drive continuous improvement.

Technology providers that will participate in the Innovation Lab at launch include:

• Assemble Systems, an Autodesk company, provides a SaaS solution that enables construction professionals to condition, query and connect BIM data to key workflows across bid management, estimating, scheduling, site management and finance.

• Bosch is empowering more productivity on the job site through their connected tools and asset solutions.

• DAQRI empowers workforces by linking digital content to the real world to accelerate productivity, communication, and key business processes.

• HERE, the Open Location Platform company, enables people, businesses and cities to harness the power of location. By making sense of the world through the lens of location, HERE empowers its customers to achieve better outcomes.

• Jovix, a material readiness application developed by Atlas RFID for the construction market, keeps crews productive with accurate and real-time information about material availability relative to the construction plan and schedule.

• Reconstruct provides a 3D timeline that tracks visual progress, labor productivity, and predictive analytics that empower executives and their project teams to take actions to stay on time and on budget.

• Triax’s platform connects the construction jobsite and provides real-time visibility into workers, safety, equipment, and asset management.

• In addition, the Innovation Lab will feature a demonstration of Oracle Live Experience Cloud, showcasing modern engagement for cross-worksite experiences.

“Oracle Construction and Engineering continues to drive digital transformation with initiatives such as our new Innovation Lab, empowering customers with the technology and insights they need to improve outcomes across the project and asset lifecycle. Oracle will continue to collaborate with our customers and partners to foster new advancements that help organizations navigate challenges and capitalize on new opportunities,” added Sicilia.

Continuing its support for American tennis, Oracle announced today it is adding a Houston event to the Oracle Challenger Series at the George R. Brown Tennis Center at Rice University on November 10-18, 2018 in conjunction with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

The Oracle Challenger Series launched earlier this year with events in Newport Beach and Indian Wells, Ca., with the mission of providing new opportunities for up-and-coming American tennis players to secure both ranking points and prize money.

“Houston is a terrific addition to the Oracle Challenger Series, coming shortly after the event we announced in Chicago for September,” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “Tennis players in the United States need more chances to compete at home and more chances to earn a living from the sport. Oracle is committed to creating more Challenger events to give the nation’s best players the opportunities to be successful. We’re also hosting the events at some of the best venues in the country where fans can get an up-close look at some outstanding tennis.”

The Houston tournament will be a joint ATP Challenger Tour/WTA 125K Series event and pay equal prize money ($150,000 per Tour) for a total of $300,000. Both the women’s and men’s draws will consist of 32 singles players, 16 qualifying players and 16 doubles teams. The event will be free and open to the public.

“We’re thrilled to welcome the Oracle Challenger Series to the George R. Brown Tennis Center in Houston this November,” said Efe Ustundag, Head Men’s Tennis Coach at Rice University. “Having a combined professional tournament at our venue is a terrific opportunity to continue growing the sport in our city, and we look forward to welcoming all of the players and fans for a fantastic event,” added Elizabeth Schmidt, Head Women’s Tennis Coach.

The 2018-2019 Series will begin in Chicago (September 2-9, 2018) and continue in Houston, culminating at the 2019 BNP Paribas Open, the largest ATP World Tour and WTA combined two-week event in the world held annually at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The two American women and two American men who accumulate the most points over the course of the Series will receive wild cards into their respective singles main draws in Indian Wells.

The Oracle Challenger Series also looks to make a positive impact on the communities where its events are held, and will be donating $5,000 to the local Houston chapter of the National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) network. The NJTL provides free or low-cost tennis and education programming to more than 225,000 under-resourced youth in the United States.

The Oracle Challenger Series builds on Oracle’s commitment to support U.S. tennis at both the professional and collegiate level. Oracle sponsors the Oracle US Tennis Awards, two $100,000 grants awarded annually to assist young players as they transition from college into the professional ranks. In addition to sponsoring the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, Oracle also hosts the Oracle ITA Masters tournament in Malibu, California and the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships which will be held at the Surprise Tennis Center in Surprise, Arizona in 2018.

For more information about the Oracle Challenger Series, visit oraclechallengerseries.com.

Oracle NetSuite today announced three new members have joined the NetSuite Alliance Partner Program to meet the growing demand for cloud business management solutions. As part of the NetSuite Alliance Partner Program, Kodella, Riveron and ITOrizon will launch new cloud ERP practices to help customers across industries improve operational efficiency and accelerate growth.

“Kodella, Riveron and ITOrizon bring a wealth of industry knowledge and a successful history of providing customers with the advice and solutions that best fit individual business needs,” said Craig West, Vice President of Alliances and Channels, Oracle NetSuite. “We’re excited to add them to our partner program and look forward to working closely together to provide customers with the expertise they need to successfully grow, scale and adapt to change.”

Kodella Builds Cloud ERP Practice for Southern California Manufacturers and Distributors

Kodella LLC (https://www.kodella.com), a Newport Beach-based NetSuite development firm, is launching a dedicated NetSuite practice to help manufacturers and warehouse distributors across Southern California scale, improve workflows and maximize return on investment. With more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, Kodella differentiates itself by providing a robust portfolio of resources and customizations that meet the specific business needs of its customers.

“Manufacturers and distributors are increasingly looking for solutions to streamline the management of financials, inventory and reporting in order to grow their businesses,” said Ryan Albretsen, Kodella’s Chief Customer Officer. “The opportunity to work closely with NetSuite to support our customers’ growth and success is one we’re very excited about. We’re pairing the best in cloud ERP with Kodella’s high-end, talented resources to help our customers drive maximum value.”

Riveron Launches Cloud ERP Practice for Private Equity Firms, Corporations and Lenders Across Various Industries

Riveron (https://riveronconsulting.com/), a business advisory firm, has launched a dedicated cloud-based ERP practice, helping their customers successfully leverage technologies in order to achieve diverse and evolving goals. Riveron provides its customers with a unique combination of consulting, public accounting and industry experience.

“Every industry has unique business needs and objectives they are trying to achieve. Delivering accurate data and supporting analysis is critical for high-performing organizations to remain competitive. We are committed to enabling technologies that provide the greatest return on investment,” said Ryan Senter, Executive Managing Director, Riveron. “By combining business process leading practices with Riveron’s extensive technical acumen around systems like NetSuite, our customers can streamline and scale their businesses like never before.”

ITOrizon to Deliver Cloud ERP to Fast Growing Companies Across the Globe

ITOrizon (www.itorizon.com), an Atlanta-based fast-growing IT services company, is building a cloud ERP practice to promote, implement, and customize NetSuite for its global customers in various industries, including retail, manufacturing and banking.

"Global companies face increasing operating complexities with foreign currencies, taxation, and reporting and compliance guidelines,” said Shan Muthuvelu, President of ITOrizon. “By joining NetSuite’s partner program, we are delivering a solution that helps our global customer base address these complexities. Our customers know they can rely on us to select the right technologies that will provide a competitive edge and accelerate their growth."

Global retailers of all sizes have significant concerns over their ability to keep pace with new technologies and shifts in consumer behavior according to a new report by Oracle Retail. The 2018 Retail Mobility Insights report revealed that 60% of respondents believe that their organization will likely face disruption from more innovative, nimble and customer-centric organizations. While retailers believe their company embraces digital and mobile technology, 60 percent of respondents recognize that they are not investing quickly enough to keep pace with the speed of technology change and consumer expectations. The trends identified in the report highlight that retailers have been slow to realize mobile’s potential and question their logistical capabilities in the countdown to the busiest sales cycle of the year.

“Despite a strong improving sales performance, retailers continue to feel overwhelmed by their infrastructure limitations, decision paralysis has further prevented them from realizing their omnichannel potential,” said Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail. “Having a single view of customer, inventory and order is no longer optional for retailers to deliver their brand promise.  Organizations that complete this journey first will create stronger relationships with customers, create space for new innovation projects and make more strategic decisions that maximize their growth.”

Alignment on Mobile’s Role in Retail

In the study retailers seem to have reached a general consensus around the role of mobile technology and opportunity for capturing sales and removing friction from the purchase experience.

• Conversion: Retailers affirm (47 agree) that their mobile strategy is to increase shopping basket size in store and online by catching customers at the point of intent.

• Productivity: Mobile also is impacting associate productivity, 45 percent of respondents note that they are empowering employees with mobile capabilities so they can perform their jobs regardless of where they are.

• Payments: New payment options like contactless checkout, self-checkout and mobile payments are either in use today or part of roadmaps for most retailers (54 percent).  Hardline retailers (less than 32 percent disagree) seem to be behind grocery and fashion brands (over 55 percent agree) in enabling these new payment options.

Personalization Challenges

Brands large and small have recognized the tension between consumers’ contradictory attitudes around privacy and their growing need for personalized engagement.

• Discounts: New policies around data privacy have impacted retailers’ growth potential, 62 percent believe that they may be leaving money on the table by offering general discounts to shoppers instead of tailored offerings.

• Forecasting: Despite this most retailers, 77 percent believe that customers expect them to anticipate their needs by analyzing their loyalty, purchase history and brand interaction data.

Scaling Omnichannel Logistics

Retailers have historically prioritized front-end aspects of the Omnichannel shopping experience and cobbled together backend infrastructure. Neglecting the merchandising, planning and supply chain aspects of Omnichannel retail prevents brands from being able to profitably execute, have clear visibility into their customers’ journey and inform new digital experiences like augmented and virtual reality. 

• Consumer Journeys: Less than half (46 percent) of retailers believe they are well positioned to support an Omnichannel shopping experience with distribution centers to fulfill orders placed online or through mobile for delivery to any preferred destination.

• Logistical Confidence: Increases with the size of retail organizations, 67 percent of respondents from organizations with more than $10B in sales and 52 percent of respondents from organizations with $1 to $10B in sales note this capability.

• Growth: Conversely logistical doubt trends towards major growth milestones, only 38 percent of respondents from organizations with $250 to $500 million in sales and 30 percent of respondents from organizations with $750 million to $1 billion believe they are well positioned.

Retailers are invited to take the free assessment to see how their organization's mobile retail strategy ranks among global peers.

Methodology

The Mobile Retail Insights report was conducted in 2018 among 258 retail professionals from Fashion, Grocery, Hardlines and Specialty brands. Respondents represent an international perspective with responsibilities across North American (35 percent), LAD (6 percent), European (14 percent), JAPAC (2 percent) and Global (40 percent) retailers. Fifty-four percent of respondents are from companies with greater than $500M in sales and 67 percent hold a Director level and above title. Fifty percent of the respondents represent IT, while the other half represents business executives.

Today, for the second time, a Federal Court in Nevada granted Oracle's motion for a permanent injunction against Rimini Street for years of infringement of Oracle’s copyrights. In an opinion notable for its strong language condemning Rimini Street’s actions, the Court made clear that since its inception, Rimini’s business “was built entirely on its infringement of Oracle’s copyrighted software.” The Court also highlighted Rimini's “conscious disregard” for Oracle's copyrights and Rimini's “significant litigation misconduct” in granting Oracle's motion for its attorneys' fees to be paid.

“As the Court's Order today makes clear, Rimini Street's business has been built entirely on unlawful conduct, and Rimini's executives have repeatedly lied to cover up their company's illegal acts. Rimini, which admits that it is the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, has proven itself to be disreputable, and it seems very clear that it will not stop its unlawful conduct until a Court orders it to stop. Oracle is grateful that today the Federal Court in Nevada did just that,” said Dorian Daley, Oracle's Executive Vice President and General Counsel.

The Court noted that it was Rimini's brazen misconduct that enabled it to "rapidly build" its infringing business, while at the same time irreparably damaging Oracle because Rimini's very business model “eroded the bonds and trust that Oracle has with its customers.” It also stressed that for over five years of litigation, “literally up until trial”, Rimini Street denied the allegations of infringement. At trial, however, Rimini CEO Seth Ravin, who was also a defendant, changed his story and admitted for the first time that Rimini Street did in fact engage in all the infringing activities that Oracle had identified.

Finally, the Court declared that over $28M in attorneys’ fees should be awarded to Oracle because of Rimini Street’s significant litigation misconduct in this action. Rimini comments to the market that this award would have to be returned to Rimini have proven to be false and misleading, like so many of its actions and assurances to customers and others.

Oracle today announced Virtual Artifacts has launched its mobile application network, Hibe, with Oracle Cloud. The company has developed Hibe as a new social network for mobile applications that lets consumers communicate with each other from their social platform of choice. To prepare for rapid growth, Virtual Artifacts invested in Oracle Cloud, including Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Platform, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Hibe helps different mobile applications to seamlessly communicate with each other without fear of data or privacy spillage. Built on an AI-driven proprietary privacy engine, users are able to easily connect, interact, and transact together, each from their own favorite communication tools. The new network removes the inconvenience of having to switch between applications by keeping communications synched and in one place.

"With 4.7 billion users on 6 million mobile apps, our ability to grow our database exponentially and globally was critical,” said Stéphane Lamoureux, COO, Virtual Artifacts. “We wanted a cloud provider that shares our values on privacy, is agile, and can work closely with us to build specific solutions. Oracle was the only vendor that could meet all of our requirements. With Oracle Autonomous Database, we no longer need to worry about manual, time-intensive tasks, such as database patching, upgrading, and tuning.”

With Oracle Autonomous Database, the industry’s first self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing database, Virtual Artifacts can avoid the complexities of database configuration, tuning, and administration and instead focus on innovation. Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud provides an easy-to-set-up and use data store for Hibe data, enabling Virtual Artifacts to better understand customer behavior.

The Hibe platform uses a number of Oracle Cloud Platform and Infrastructure services to support its current operations and anticipated growth. Using Oracle Mobile Cloud’s AI-driven intelligent bot on Hibe, Virtual Artifacts will be able to answer developers’ questions and make it easy for app providers to access the platform. The integration of Oracle’s mobile applications and chatbot technology on Hibe will also enable customers to directly engage with consumers, making it possible to quickly understand key audiences and improve the mobile experience.

Additionally, Virtual Artifacts will work with Oracle to develop the Hibe Marketplace, including an advertising engine to match items with interested consumers connected to Hibe through their respective mobile applications. The Hibe platform will also host and distribute content. By using Oracle’s blockchain platform, Virtual Artifacts and other content contributors on the platform will be able to track usage, distribution, and copyright attribution to help ensure it is being used and credited properly.

“The launch of the Hibe platform showcases the capabilities of Oracle’s Autonomous Cloud,” said Christopher Chelliah, group vice president and chief architect, Oracle Asia Pacific. “We essentially become the back end globally, leaving Virtual Artifacts to concentrate on the Hibe platform. This means that as a native cloud startup, we are supporting Virtual Artifacts from zero-to-production, and beyond. The combination of the strength of Oracle Cloud and Virtual Artifacts’ innovative privacy engine has the potential to revolutionize the app-to-app ecosystem.”

Oracle today announced that it has been named a Leader in Gartner’s 2018 “Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management” report1 for the second consecutive year. The recognition is further validation of Oracle’s continued leadership in this category and unique approach to helping enterprises streamline content management and build immersive digital experiences for users.

“As the world increasingly adopts internet and mobile-first strategies, the ability to create a cohesive, seamless experience across an enterprise’s properties is critical,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Platform. “Customers recognize the importance of their content and the benefits of Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, including its expansive features and ability to easily manage content and deliver exceptional user experiences across all platforms.”

According to Gartner, “Leaders should drive market transformation. They have the highest combined scores for Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. They are doing well and are prepared for the future with a clear vision and a thorough appreciation of the broader context of digital business. They have strong channel partners, a presence in multiple regions, consistent financial performance, broad platform support and good customer support. In addition, they dominate in one or more technologies or vertical markets. Leaders are aware of the ecosystem in which their offerings need to fit. Leaders can:

• Demonstrate enterprise deployments
• Offer integration with other business applications and content repositories
• Support multiple vertical and horizontal contexts”

Oracle Content and Experience Cloud is the modern platform for driving omni-channel content and workflow management as well as rich experiences to optimize customer journeys, and partner and employee engagement. It is the only solution of its kind available with out-of-the-box integrations with Oracle on-premises and SaaS solutions. With Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, organizations can enable content collaboration, deliver consistent experiences across online properties, and manage media-centric content storage all within one central content hub. In addition, Oracle’s capabilities extend beyond the typical role of content management, providing low-code development tools for building digital experiences that leverage a service catalog of data connections.

Access a complimentary copy of Gartner’s 2018 “Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management” here.

1. Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management,” by Mick MacComascaigh, Jim Murphy, July 30, 2018

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

To help customers succeed in an increasingly complex global economy, Oracle today introduced new releases of Oracle Transportation Management Cloud and Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud. The new releases enable customers who seek to reduce costs, streamline compliance with global trade regulations, and accelerate customer fulfillment, to manage these significant needs on a single, integrated platform.

The latest releases of Oracle Transportation Management Cloud and Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud provide real-time, data-driven insights into shipment routes and automated event handling. They also offer expanded regulatory support for fast, accurate screening and customs declarations. For example, Nahdi Medical Company has been able to improve truck utilization by five to ten percent since implementing the latest release of Oracle Transportation Management.

“We now have greater visibility into shipment demands and delivery status, which means we have the flexibility to quickly re-do plans as new requirements arise,” said Sayed Al-Sayed, supply chain applications manager, Nahdi Medical Company. “The accuracy of Oracle Transportation Management Cloud’s recommended plans and route optimizations has enabled us to increase truck utilization rates, which has allowed us to cut time on shipments, while also saving money.”

Enhancements to Oracle Transportation Management Cloud and Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud include:

• Enhanced routing: Enables customers to make better decisions when routing shipments by accounting for factors such as historic traffic patterns, hazardous materials, and tolls when planning shipments

• Expanded regulatory support: Enables customers to better meet their global trade needs in today’s dynamically changing, regulatory environment by supporting expanded regulatory content, allowing more accurate screening, and providing enhancements for summary customs declarations

• Advanced planning: Enables customers to better map out and improve transportation planning in end-to-end, outbound order fulfillment by providing enhancements to sample integrated flows with Oracle Order Management Cloud and Oracle Inventory Management Cloud

• Driver-oriented features: Enables customers to improve the handling of assignments for shift-based drivers by providing enhanced support for planning and execution of private and dedicated fleets, including driver-oriented workflow in the OTM Mobile App

• IoT Fleet Monitoring integration: Enables customers to have real-time visibility into a shipment’s location through automatic event handling

• UX and collaboration: Enables customers to have a simpler and more configurable user interface, including integration with Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, which streamlines collaboration with peers

• Graphical diagnostics tool: Enables customers to easily research and resolve questions in real time that may arise from the shipment planning processes by providing them with a visual diagnostic tool, which highlights areas that warrant further investigation

“The global trade and logistics landscape is dramatically changing and organizations need to be able to accommodate a complex web of regulations and customer expectations for each shipment in order to be competitive,” said Derek Gittoes, vice president, SCM Product Strategy, Oracle. “The combination of Oracle Transportation Management Cloud and Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud gives our customers an innovative platform to reduce complexity and effectively improve the efficiency of their global trade compliance and transport operations.”

The enhancements further extend Oracle’s leadership position in the transportation management category. Oracle Transportation Management Cloud provides a single platform for transportation orchestration across the entire supply chain. Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud offers unparalleled visibility and control over orders and shipments to reduce costs, automate processes, streamline compliance, and improve service delivery.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is extending its partnership with Oracle for another three years. This partnership is through a research-and-development program set up by the laboratory, called CERN openlab; it provides a unique research framework in which scientists and leading IT companies can work together. One of the aims of the partnership with Oracle is to develop a high-performance cloud infrastructure capable of storing and analyzing vast quantities of controls data, such as that generated by the gigantic research infrastructures used at the laboratory to probe the origin of the universe. Oracle can also make use of insights gained from the program to provide its customers with extremely powerful and future-proof cloud technologies.

CERN openlab has provided a unique setting for cooperation between science and industry since 2001. In this program, CERN cooperates with leading IT companies on the joint development of high-performance technologies for basic research in physics. Oracle has been a partner in the program since 2003 and started another three-year project cycle in 2018. As one of the largest members, the cloud provider is involved in four current CERN openlab projects. In addition, every year 40 students from all over the world get an opportunity to work on current projects during a nine-week summer school program.

“CERN openlab is a win-win project for everyone involved,” said Eric Grancher, Leader of CERN’s Database Services Group. “It gives our collaborators a way to get valuable feedback by testing their solutions in one of the most complex and demanding technology environments. And we at CERN can assess the potential that new technologies have for future applications during the early phases of their development. In addition, CERN openlab provides a neutral scientific environment where businesses can engage in dialogue.”

“We are pleased to extend our partnership with Oracle for another three years,” said Eva Dafonte Perez, Deputy Leader of CERN’s Database Services Group. “In addition to our 15-year partnership through CERN openlab, we have been working with Oracle since 1982. We will continue to need high-performance and, above all, quickly scalable solutions in the future in order to store and analyze the growing amount of data recorded by our instrumentation. Oracle offers flexibility because its solutions are available both on-premises and in the cloud.”

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is dedicated to basic research in physics. CERN uses its Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, to investigate fundamental structure of the universe. In the LHC, subatomic particles are accelerated and caused to collide, simulating the conditions just a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The LHC experiments currently produce approximately 50 petabytes of data annually, a volume corresponding to roughly 2,000 years of HD video content.

However, our current understanding of physics only explains the visible matter that makes up about 5% of the Universe’s total energy. The LHC is therefore to be made even more powerful, generating even more particle collisions and boosting efforts to investigate phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy. CERN also needs to have correspondingly powerful IT infrastructure in place; the laboratory’s cooperation with Oracle plays a key role in ensuring this.

“CERN’s research goals are extremely exciting, with technologies developed at the laboratory having had significant impact on our every-day lives. For example, technologies developed at CERN have already helped improve the treatment of certain types of cancer. So we are very pleased to renew our partnership in CERN openlab and hope to work together to develop even more powerful technologies that will advance both science and industry,” said David Ebert, Director-Government, Education, Healthcare Industry Solutions EMEA, Oracle.

To accelerate the commercialization of life-changing products, bioscience companies are selecting Oracle NetSuite. Two cutting-edge bioscience companies, Selecta Biosciences and BioMonde, are leveraging NetSuite to bring life-changing products to market faster and allow them to focus on the continued treatment and prevention of serious diseases.

Selecta Biosciences Seeks to Counter Unwanted Immune Responses

Selecta Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is focused on unlocking the full potential of biologic therapies by mitigating unwanted immune responses. Selecta Bioscience’s current pipeline includes enzyme, oncology and gene therapy product candidates enabled by its proprietary Synthetic Vaccine Particles (SVP™) technology.

After working with inefficient, on-premise software, Selecta Biosciences selected NetSuite to better manage financial, accounting, and project management processes with one unified system. With NetSuite, Selecta Biosciences has harmonized data from accounting, timekeeping and project management, which allows the business to synchronize project planning with cash flow and the timing of crucial product events.

“Implementing NetSuite was a great system investment,” said Chip Michaud, FP&A Director, Selecta Biosciences. “By significantly reducing the amount of time to handle backend processes, we are able to better focus on developing our product candidates.”

BioMonde Revisits Ancient Treatment

BioMonde, a global bioscience company based in the UK, specializes in larval debridement therapy for the treatment of patients with chronic and non-healing wounds. Larval Therapy has proven efficacy and is known as a natural leader in wound debridement.

To help manage complex business processes, regulatory mandates, and global manufacturing and distribution challenges, BioMonde selected NetSuite OneWorld. With its data-driven approach, NetSuite OneWorld enables BioMonde to quickly respond to patients’ needs by providing a 360-degree view of financial, customer, product and order data that allows BioMonde to focus on expanding its global footprint and bringing its innovative treatment to more suffering patients.

“To reach our potential, we quickly needed to become a world-wide operation,” said Mike Johnson, CFO, BioMonde. “NetSuite OneWorld enabled us to expand and now we’re able to slice and dice not just financial data, but all the data sales people have captured. With this data, we have a clear view of where we are and where we need to be at any given moment.”

“The bioscience industry faces unique challenges, including complex healthcare regulations and commercialization requirements, which means it often takes years and millions of dollars to turn ideas into reality,” said Paul Farrell, VP Industry Product Marketing & Management, Oracle NetSuite. “To navigate this complexity and devote their attention to making life-changing breakthroughs for patients, bioscience companies are increasingly selecting NetSuite to manage their business processes. NetSuite gives them a unified, cloud-based platform to streamline business complexities and pressures around everything from regulation to increased competition.”

Learn more about NetSuite’s offering for bioscience companies.

Modern American Steak House (MASH), a high-end Danish restaurant chain, has chosen Oracle Simphony Cloud to power its steak house restaurants across Europe. With 13 restaurant locations across Denmark, Germany and the UK, and plans for additional international growth, MASH needed a technology platform that could support the strategic expansion of its business at scale. In addition, the restaurant needed a solution that would help reduce the complexity of its IT infrastructure and streamline both front and back-office operations across all of its restaurant locations.

“Our biggest challenge was scalability—since opening MASH in 2009, our expansion into other countries proved to be a very difficult and complex undertaking due to obstacles around IT infrastructure, regulations, taxes, language and currency, so finding a technology solution that would help us maneuver around these obstacles and enable us to grow at scale was a top priority,” said Mirek Nørkjær, Assistant COO, Copenhagen Concepts, the parent company of MASH restaurants. “Implementing Oracle Simphony Cloud has enabled us to minimize IT complexity through one centralized system, streamline front and back-office operations with real-time data and localization capabilities, and support our vision for expansion, all at scale.”

Oracle Simphony Cloud provides MASH with one centralized system to manage operations across all 13 of its restaurants, reducing the cost and complexity of IT, ensuring high performance scalability and allowing for more business efficiency and agility. In addition, Oracle Simphony Cloud enables MASH to maintain brand standards across its restaurants globally by enforcing brand, menu and employee management standards and allowing for localization. It also ensures menu and pricing consistency, within a country, a region, or a single location, and offers multilanguage and currency support.

“Both large restaurant chains and independent restaurants need to be able to remove obstacles in their IT infrastructure that prevent them from creating a positive foundation for growth,” said Chris Adams, vice president strategy and solutions management, Oracle Food and Beverage. “MASH demonstrates the value and potential of Oracle Simphony Cloud to transform IT processes, streamline operations and drive growth at scale.”

For more information learn how MASH delivers prime cuts and premium service.

Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison today marked a major milestone in the company’s autonomous strategy with the availability of the latest Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud Service, Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing. Leveraging innovative machine learning and automation capabilities, Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing delivers unprecedented cost savings, security, availability, and productivity. Oracle’s new self-driving database cloud service is built to run the world’s most demanding finance, retail, manufacturing, and government applications, supporting a complex mix of high-performance transaction processing, reporting, batch, and analytic workloads. Oracle’s Autonomous Database portfolio provides organizations with the most complete and advanced set of database capabilities on the market today.

“Oracle is by far the best database in the world and it just got a lot better because now it’s autonomous,” said Ellison. “This delivers a much more reliable, much more secure system—a system that protects against data theft, a system that is up 99.995 percent of the time, and a system that makes organizations and their developers dramatically more productive.”

Traditionally, creating a database management system required experts to custom build and manually maintain a complex hardware and software stack. Oracle Autonomous Database revolutionizes data management by using machine learning to provide a self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing database service with cloud economies of scale and elasticity. The service enables users to instantly create new autonomous databases and easily convert existing databases, dramatically reducing costs and time to market.

Complementing the existing Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse service, Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing can support a complex mix of high-performance transactions, reporting, batch, IoT, and machine learning in a single database, allowing for simpler application development and deployment, and enabling real-time analytics, personalization, and fraud detection on live transactional data. Users can:

• Cut costs: Complete automation of database and infrastructure operations cuts administrative costs up to 80 percent. The efficiency of a self-optimizing database together with elastic pay-per-use cuts runtime costs up to 90 percent. 

• Reduce risk: Automatic application of the latest security updates with no downtime eliminates cyber-attack vulnerabilities. Protection from all types of failures, including system failures, regional outages, and user errors delivers 99.995 percent availability, or less than 2.5 minutes of downtime a month, including maintenance. Database Vault prevents administrators from snooping on user data.

• Accelerate innovation: Eliminating database maintenance allows database administrators to focus on getting more value from data. Developers become more agile by instantly creating and effortlessly using databases that require no manual tuning. Integrated machine learning algorithms enable the development of applications that perform real-time predictions, such as personalized shopping and fraud detection. The simplicity of upgrading existing databases to the autonomous cloud enables IT to transform to a modern, agile cloud model quickly and easily.

Oracle Autonomous Database builds on 40 years of experience supporting the majority of the world’s most demanding applications. It is easy for customers to adopt because it uses the same proven Oracle Database as on-premises, with the same functionality and interfaces. Oracle Autonomous Database supports the most mission-critical workloads because it is based on highly-sophisticated Oracle Database technologies that are unrivaled by any other product, including high-performance Exadata infrastructure, Real Application Clusters for transparent scale-out and fault tolerance, Active Data Guard disaster recovery, and Online Data Evolution.

“The toughest job a DBA has is that of tuning and maintaining a mission-critical transactional database,” said Carl Olofson, research vice president for IDC’s Data Management Software research. “In addition to examining statistics and applying tuning adjustments, the DBA must also apply patches, including security patches, on a very frequent basis, which is both an error-prone and operationally-disruptive activity. With Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing, Oracle has eliminated these problematic tasks, allowing the DBA to concentrate on the higher value activity of enabling more business-responsive applications, and helping the enterprise to ensure that data will not be compromised due to known vulnerabilities.”

Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud is the industry’s broadest and most integrated public cloud, offering a complete range of services across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. It supports new cloud environments, existing ones, and hybrid, and all workloads, developers, and data. The Oracle Cloud delivers nearly 1,000 SaaS applications and 50 enterprise-class PaaS and IaaS services to customers in more than 195 countries around the world and supports 55 billion transactions each day.