Vladimir Knežević, Country Managing Director, Oracle Serbia & Montenegro

According to IDC, 50% of large global enterprises will see most of their business depend on their ability to create digitally-enhanced products, services, and experiences by 2020. At Oracle, we are aware of this trend and we are glad to see it in Serbia as well.

Currently, digital transformation in a company is usually a set of different initiatives, mostly supporting the idea of customer experience enhancement, relying on an omnichannel strategy. But the digital transformation is much more than an initiative – it is the future core revenue-generating business, and companies born in digital are already living it.

The path to digital proficiency might look complex. Companies need to determine the various paths to transformation based on business priorities and risk appetite. They must also examine the complexities and rewards of various starting blocks in a progressive modernization program. There are questions that need answers. Which path to go for first? Should the company start with process transformation? Should the company go for product innovation? Or should they go for price innovation?

Yes, it may look complex, but it is not unattainable. Oracle was part of the National Australia Bank’s (NAB) transformation, described as the largest tech transformation in the bank’s history. Local institutions and companies in Serbia and Montenegro also gave us credibility to be their trusted advisors and lead them along the path of digitalization. We proved that we can create and launch an entirely digital bank.

What is the reason why our customers consider us their trusted advisors? Oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications, platform services and engineered systems.

With more than 420,000 customers in more than 145 countries, Oracle provides a complete technology stack both in the cloud and in the data centre.

Oracle’s industry-leading cloud-based and on-premises solutions give customers complete deployment flexibility and unmatched benefits, including application integration, advanced security, high availability, scalability, energy efficiency, powerful performance, and low total cost of ownership.

Oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications, platform services and engineered systems

We are all aware that the speed of change is constantly increasing and will continue. There are three key drivers for the modern enterprise in such environment: to drive engagement, increase productivity, and run agile IT.

Oracle cloud gives the opportunity to business to adapt quickly to changes, reducing the risk of lacking resources, avoiding the risk of security breaches, ensuring a shortened time-to-market period, and providing business continuity and consistency.

Cloud changes the innovation equation. From the finance perspective, cloud saves money due to two basic postulates: start small, grow big – no huge investments before results can be realized, and pay what you consume – scaled to your real requirements and able to support your peak and downtimes.

From the technology perspective, the cloud enables companies to use the most recent and the very best technology in the accomplishment of their innovation and strategical goals.

From the availability perspective, the exact same capabilities and emerging technologies are available equally to all size companies. Simply, the cloud becomes a synonym for significantly faster innovation at significantly lower costs.

We have upgraded our entire organization with a cloud, and it has given us benefits and capabilities that were simply not possible from our legacy approach. Often, those benefits started with saving money and driving greater efficiencies. We have seen over one billion dollars in savings across the organization by upgrading to Oracle Cloud.

Local institutions and companies in Serbia and Montenegro gave us credibility to be their trusted advisors and to lead them along the path of digitalization

We used to be amazed by science fiction movies presenting artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and now, it’s our business reality. Autonomous is set to dramatically transform industries.

Automotive and transportation industry is already riding the autonomous wave and are estimating 8 million semi-automated or highly automated vehicles could potentially be on the road within 10 years, creating up to US$60 billion in annual revenue.

Another estimation is that autonomous IT systems, no matter the industry, could save up to 50% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) in comparison with their traditional counterparts.

This will not result in job cuts. As technology evolves, it will also and equally change the nature of the business and the jobs required, and this is a process that has been going on for centuries. The use of modern autonomous technologies allows companies to make a shift from daily manual operational work towards innovation.

There is no doubt but that autonomous capability will affect an organization’s systems, people, processes, but also external relationships. Slow response times affect overall performance and integrated, accurate, and timely communication, both internal and external, will have significant importance in making decisions on establishing partnerships.

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), chatbots, the blockchain, and natural-language processing (NLP) are the innovation fuel for companies, and they are a reality. It is not just a CIO topic. CxOs and LOB leaders are drivers of innovation streams looking for new business opportunities, revenue growth, and cost savings. Oracle’s portfolio has the answer to innovation challenges bringing the very best technology and proven best practice that can help organizations on their path to the future.