Financial Times

Oracle ready for long road to eGovernment
Oracle Corporation which set up its fully owned subsidiary in Sri Lanka recently is ready to travel the long-road to realizing commercial benefits providing eGovernment solutions.

Keith Budge, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific Division told The Sunday Times-FT, during a visit to open the local office and the eGovernment Centre of Excellence (COE), that as a commercial organization Oracle naturally has a commercial objective, but is committed to maintain investment and take a partnership approach to business.

“As much as we are a commercial company it is also important to contribute; so we do it in a way it matches the business,” he added explaining that government and stakeholders need to understand and gain confidence of their solutions. Presenting an example of his company’s commitment, Budge said it had taken Oracle eight years in China to realize substantial commercial gains.
Oracle Corporation is a major sponsor of the COE established last week at the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA).

The COE according to Oracle has a number of roles. Primarily it allows civil servants who have an idea of Information Technology to fully see the solutions at work. Further, it would also be used to create prototypes and localize their solutions. “The eGovernment COE is an important step for us in supporting government. We have very true experiences in Delhi, Beijing and Phillippines. In some places it is run in Oracle offices. Here it will be run by the government with Oracle support,” said Budge.

The regional head explained that they find the COE extremely useful in making government and stakeholders see eGovernment’s values in the areas of public administration and citizen services.

The company has been actively involved in public administration helping government in financial management through IT. Other Oracle products that are used by governments around the world include a Customer Data Hub that functions as a single data source for all government-citizen and government-government interactions; an E-Business Suite comprising integrated enterprise applications, business intelligence and financial analysis applications; a technology platform for customized application development; and a collaboration suite that offers audit, archive, index and query corporate data.

The solutions also have the capability to handle Sinhala and Tamil languages.
Oracle best known for its database solutions presently services 75 customers through its partners. “We will continue to work with partners. The local office will work directly with local clients for training and development. We would also like to be actively involved with local software companies,” added Budge on the private-sector role for the local office.

Sri Lanka is classified as part of Oracle’s South Asia Growth Economies and the local office would function develop alliance and channels, while supporting the COE and handling its relationship with the government.

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