A lack of simple and easy information and communication technologies (ICT) is often a barrier for companies to innovate and become more productive. This is the view of global enterprise software giant Oracle, which recently came to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles to encourage a culture of innovation to the local ICT industry.

According to a report in local newspaper, the Seychelles Nation, Oracle teamed up with its local partner, Core Technologies to a group of local ICT specialists and operators at the Eden Bleu hotel and conference centre on Thursday, joined by the principal secretary in the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) Benjamin Choppy.

According to the managing director of Core Technologies, the purpose of the ‘Africa Innovation Day’ event was to showcase Oracle solutions to local public, private and banking sectors while providing them with an opportunity to meet with Oracle industry experts.

“There were in total five experts from Oracle giving presentations and discussing solutions one-to-one with various potential clients,” Nair told SNA. “Oracle solutions are powerful, proven and simplified to give organisations more time to innovate in other areas, ending up with a more streamlined, organised and efficient operation in their business. Oracle has named this entire process ‘innovation’.”

Oracle already has a well-established presence in Seychelles, with existing local clients such as Airtel, Seychelles Commercial Bank, Nouvobanq, and Development Bank of Seychelles (DBS).

“Oracle are the market leaders in the banking sector in Seychelles,” said Nair, adding that since Oracle recently purchased Micros-Fidelo, a popular hotel management software, that many in the hospitality sector would also be running Oracle.

Oracle is a California-based multinational corporation specialising in hardware and enterprise software products such as its database management systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software and supply chain management (SCM) software. Their main competitors are Microsoft, IBM and SAP.

It is the price of this software which is often regarded as prohibitive, but Nair believes that there is a definite market for Oracle in the Seychelles’ small private business sectors, such as hardware ready-engineered with software, cloud-based solutions and scalability solutions for growing businesses.

Government should ‘modernize’ ICT

As for the public sector, it is here that Core Technologies and Oracle believe that they have the maximum potential to improve the country’s ICT capabilities through Oracle’s iGovernment software offering.

In his keynote address, Oracle’s territory manager for the Indian Ocean region, Luc Guilliey, said that further improvement to the government of Seychelles’ existing e-Government offerings and the modernisation of the existing ITC infrastructure was necessary to improve communication, service delivery, transparency and overall efficiency.

He added that improved e-Government services would ultimately bring change and better serve the citizens of Seychelles.

Oracle’s iGovernment solution is based on creating a next-generation government IT environment that ensures security and controls access, and would use a common service delivery platform to support a wide array of government functions, from human services to public safety and economic development.

Nair told SNA that after making some proposals to various government officials, some interest was shown, but could not elaborate further at the moment.

Although turnout at the event was not as good as the organisers had hoped it would be, Nair said the next event would be run over two mornings rather than a full day to allow local business representatives more flexible options for attendance.

“However, Oracle and Core Technologies were happy with the turnout and we are sure that the event would have created a much greater awareness of Oracle Solutions in Seychelles,” he said.