The Evolution of Oracle Direct EMEA by John McGann
- by user769227
John is expanding
his Dublin based team and is currently recruiting a Director with marketing and
sales leadership experience: http://bit.ly/O8PyDF
Should you wish to
apply, please send your CV to [email protected]
Hi, my name is John McGann and
I am part of the Oracle Direct management team, based in Dublin. Today
I’m writing from the Oracle London City office, right in the heart of the
financial district and up to very recently at the centre of a fantastic Olympic
Games. The Olympics saw individuals and teams from across the globe competing
to decide who is Citius, Altius, Fortius - “Faster, Higher, Stronger"
There are lots of obvious parallels between the competitive world of the
Olympics and the Business environments that many of us operate in, but there
are also some interesting differences – especially in my area of responsibility
within Oracle.
We are of course constantly striving to be the best - the best solution
on offer for our clients, bringing simplicity to their management, consumption
and application of information technology, and the best provider when compared
with our many niche competitors.
In Oracle and especially in Oracle Direct, a key aspect of how we
achieve this is what sets us apart from the Olympians. We have long ago
eliminated geographic boundaries as a limitation to what we can achieve. We
assemble the strongest individuals across multiple countries and bring them together
in teams focussed on a single goal. One such team is the Oracle Direct Sales
Programs team.
In case you don’t know, Oracle Direct EMEA (Europe Middle East and
Africa) is the inside sales division in Oracle and it is where I started my
Oracle career. I remember that my first role involved putting direct mail
in envelopes.... things have moved on a bit since then – for me, for Oracle
Direct and in how we interact with our customers.
Today, the team of over 1000 people is located in the different Oracle
Direct offices around Europe – the main ones are Malaga, Berlin, Prague and
Dubai plus the headquarters in Dublin. We work in over 20 languages and are in
constant contact with current and future Oracle customers, using the latest
internet and telephone technologies to effectively communicate and collaborate
with each other, our customers and prospects.
One of my areas of responsibility within Oracle Direct is the Sales
Programs team. This team of 25 people manages the planning and execution of
demand generation, leading the process of finding new and incremental revenue
within Oracle Direct.
The Sales Programs Managers or ‘SPMs’ are embedded within each of the
Oracle Direct sales teams, focussed on distinct geographies or product groups.
The SPMs are virtual members of the regional sales management teams, and work
closely with the sales and marketing teams to define and deliver demand
generation activities. The customer contact elements of these activities are
executed via the Oracle Direct Sales and Business Development/Lead Generation
teams, to deliver the pipeline required to meet our revenue goals.
Activities can range from pan-EMEA joint sales and marketing campaigns, to
very localised niche campaigns. The campaigns might focus on particular
segments of our existing customers, introducing elements of our evolving
solution portfolio which customers may not be familiar with. The Sales Programs
team also manages ‘Nurture’ activities to ensure that we develop potential
business opportunities with contacts and organisations that do not have
immediate requirements.
Looking ahead, it is really important that we continue to evolve our
ability to add value to our clients and reduce the physical limitations of our
distance from them through the innovative
application of technology. This enables us to enhance the customer buying
experience and to enable the Inside Sales teams to manage ever more complex
sales cycles from start to finish.
One of my expectations of my team is to actively drive innovation
in how we leverage data to better understand our customers, and exploit
emerging technologies to better communicate with them. With the rate of
innovation and acquisition within Oracle, we need to ensure that existing and
potential customers are aware of all we have to offer that relates to their
business goals. We need to achieve this via a coherent
communication and sales strategy to effectively target the right people using
the most effective medium. This is another area where the Sales Programs team
plays a key role.
