Ghana's growing information and communications technology (ICT)
ecosystem received a boost recently when global software giant,
Oracle, opened its local office in the country. Oracle's direct
presence in the country will come as a big relief for the ICT
community, especially for companies that use large data and
information and relies largely on IT software to drive operations.
The company's vast array of software and hardware solutions cut
across industries – private and public. The company, which has been
indirectly present in Ghana through partners for more than two
decades, intends to push cloud computing and data centre applications
strongly, one of the areas that oracle is competitive in.
Ghana Country Manager, Mr Joseph Asumang, told the Graphic
Business ahead of the inaugural ceremony that Ghana remained an
important market for the company adding that Oracle was committed to
operating in the country for the long haul.
"We see that the African market in general is growing so
there is a lot of potential, particularly for us. We see that the use
of information technology is growing and Ghana being one of the key
growth potential in Africa, we feel that it’s about time Oracle
committed more resources to the market.”
Mr Asumang said coming directly into the market would bring Oracle
closer to its clients to help them deploy IT solutions better. Oracle
is a unique software company that has the widest portfolio of
products and services and wants to push all areas, depending on
market needs.
The company has backed its words by taking up office space within
the Stanbic Heights at the Airport City where it has further
retrofitted into a state-of-the -art modern office for its sales,
engineers and service support staff.
Although the company has just made a triumphant direct entry, its
products took a lead years ago and has been deployed in various forms
for various entities including electronic banking, healthcare,
insurance, human resource management, retail, aviation, for deploying
enterprise and public sector portals, real estate, telecommunication
and the likes.
"Yes we had reached the market through our partners, but we
think the time has come to be closer to our customers so that we will
be able to deliver superior service and deploy products to the market
much quicker," Mr Asumang said.
The company’s presence is also good for young Ghanaian IT
enthusiasts and professionals, as the company has a policy for using
local talents as much as possible. "One of our key objectives is
that we rely on local skills sets to settle in the market. This means
we are going to give opportunities for Ghanaians to develop and
utilise their skills. So there is a correlation between our physical
presence and the development of local capacity.”
This will also mean that Ghanaian IT professionals can be deployed
within the Oracle global network, irrespective of geography. Already,
the company, through its training academy, has worked with two IT
students of Ashesi University and Valley View University to develop
apps for the hospitality industry.
However, with cloud computing fast catching on in Africa as in the
rest of the world, Oracle also intends to work towards adoption of
cloud services either as a service or platform. This is expected to
give the market the choice to either deploy its own small data
centres for cloud solutions or rely on Oracle Cloud services which
has servers hosted elsewhere.
Currently, the company does not have a data centre in Africa.
Oracle Cluster Leader for Africa, Mr Cherian Vanghese, said the
company believed in the economic potential of Ghana and its human
capital, saying Oracle would help train the local professionals and
deploys them within the group.
Mr Vanghese said the cloud adoption was considered a non-starter
in Africa some few months ago but the service was catching on fast,
which makes Africa one of the rapidly changing markets across in the
world.
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