Country Profile: South Africa

In the ever-changing world of technology the ISVs find themselves at the forefront of innovation. South Africa is a hub of technology innovation in Africa. Our ISV community is continually embracing new technology to ensure that they deliver solutions which will enhance their offerings to enable customers to take advantage of their technology investments. We talk to Bev Scott, ISV manager for South Africa, about how Oracle works with the South Africa ISV community.

ISV News: What are your job responsibilities within Oracle South Africa?
Bev Scott: My role in Oracle South Africa is to develop and execute the ISV strategy and ensure that the ISVs align themselves with the overall Oracle business strategy. So I am involved in recruitment of new and competitive ISVs, business development, product migration and the sales and marketing efforts for the Oracle ISV community.

ISVN: What is your experience in dealing with partners?
BS: I started working in the channel at Microsoft when it entered the South African market space. I was involved with the early implementation of the Microsoft distribution channel and then moved into retail, the Microsoft Certified Partner space and then later on in the development of the Mid-Market environment. From being with Microsoft for seven and a half years I moved to Navision prior to its acquisition by Microsoft Business Solutions. After the acquisition I found myself back at Microsoft for a while before joining Oracle to develop and grow the ISV business.

ISVN: How is the South African Alliance & Channel function organised in relation to ISVs?
BS: We have channel managers dedicated to Systems Integrators, E-Business partners and ISV partner development. As the Oracle PartnerNetwork in South Africa continues to develop, we are finding that more and more SIs and E-Business partners are engaging with ISVs in order to complete the vertical solutions required by customers.

ISVN: How would you characterise the ISV landscape in South Africa?
BS: These organisations are primarily medium size organisations who have focused on developing solutions in a specific vertical such as Healthcare, Aerospace or Financial sector. You also find ISVs who have developed specific expertise on utilising our technology such as the Oracle Application Server Portal.

As mentioned earlier, we are finding that SIs are utilising ISVs' products more and more. This ensures that each partner can stick to their core expertise but still deliver complete solutions for the customer. This form of partnering ensures that partners can remain focused and profitable in an ever increasingly competitive environment.

Although these organisations are of medium size, they are finding that in order to grow, they need to look outside of the South African borders. With its global partner network and strategic partnerships with international SIs and hardware vendors, Oracle is well placed to help them expand.

ISVN: How do you reach out to ISVs in South Africa?
BS: Oracle finds itself in a very competitive market space and we have to continually be creative in the way in which we engage and communicate with the ISV community.

A good example of our activities is the Oracle Developer Days, where we had over 600 developers attend an event. Here we showcased the Oracle technology at its best - in a live, hands-on working environment.

We also continually ensure that ISVs are kept up to date with all new technology updates through our locally produced e-zine - Technobyte (subscribe), executive breakfasts and one on one meetings.

ISVN: What is driving the take-up of Oracle products in South Africa?
BS: There are a number of factors that are pushing ISVs to re-evaluate their chosen technology platform and ensure that it is still meeting their - and their customers' - needs. Many ISVs have matured and their solutions require a new platform that can scale, handle high transaction volumes, offer unrivalled security and run on a wide choice of operating systems.

Oracle's technology stack provides great tools that enable ISVs to deliver the solutions which they require without having to rewrite applications or code when they need to scale.

The trend towards Open Source and predominantly Linux and Java are driving ISVs to look at Oracle. Our new SME-oriented products, Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One and Oracle Application Server 10g Standard Edition One have enabled Oracle to become more competitive. ISVs are starting to realise that they don't need to invest in products from multiple vendors in order to develop and implement solutions for different types and sizes of customer.

ISVN: In what ways is Oracle South Africa helping local ISVs to grow their business?
BS: In order to develop and grow our ISV relationships we need to ensure that partners are engaged with Oracle on different levels. We are very focused on ensuring that our ISVs have both the knowledge and skills in order to sell and deliver Oracle solutions. We deliver sales and technical training, business development assistance and make marketing resources available to the ISV community. We also assist where appropriate in sales engagements with both account managers and pre-sales resources.

ISVN: Have you implemented any local initiatives aimed at ISVs?
BS: One of the our challenges was to get both internal Oracle people and partners to understand where the ISV can assist in winning business. To address this, we implemented a local Applications day. We invited Oracle ISVs to exhibit their solutions at the Oracle offices so that our account managers could interact with the partners in an informal way. In order to ensure that we got the most out of the day, we also invited customers and potential customers to join us as well. At our last Applications Day we had 500 people through the Oracle doors.

ISVs are typically small organisations who often can not afford their own marketing department. We have engaged with an outsourced organisation, Coolcumba Communications, to assist with marketing activities for the ISVs. This organisation is an extension of our own Channel Marketing team. Oracle marketing resource capacity is sometimes strained, and this ensures that we can gain the most out of all marketing activities with out having to overburden our resources

ISVN: How would you summarise the benefits that ISVs can gain from working with Oracle South Africa?
BS: We will continue to enhance our offerings depending on the needs of the ISVs. ISVs are an important part of delivering complete solutions in the Oracle South African world. The continued multi-level engagement approach allows for proper two-way communication and understanding.

ISVN: Whom should an ISV contact if they were interested in working with you?
BS: Bev Scott, +27 11 266 4189, bev.scott@oracle.com