Michele Fitzpatrick

Last week 180 Oracle partners gathered in Dubai to hear the latest from Oracle's headquarters, and to learn the key points to deliver to customers over the next year. Addressing them was senior vice president Michele Fitzpatrick, an elegant French lady visiting from the UK. So what was her main message to Oracle's business partners?

'We are asking them to apply e-business solutions to their own businesses and then go out and tell people about their achievements,' she says. Well, fine. But has she done this herself?

'Absolutely, I was very sceptical about e-business and had my own conversion experience two years ago. Everyone in Oracle will tell you about their own experience of over coming resistance to e-business implementation.

'In my case, I was responsible for producing a catalogue for our business partners, a really hefty package in a special case. It cost $2.5 million a year to produce, and then suddenly, just as we were about to go to press, I got an instruction from Larry Ellison's office saying to abandon it and put all the documentation on the Web.

'I was appalled and took the matter straight back to Larry's office, saying that many of our customers would not be able to use a Web based solution. His reply was simply that why should we worry about partners who did not use the Internet, as all our software was Internet based. In fact, we lost very few of them and we saved $2.5 million by this single e-business solution'.

Oracle is famous for its claim to have saved over $1 billion by introducing its own e-business software that applies the productivity savings of the Internet across all its business functions. Even its fourth quarter results showed higher than expected net earnings on weaker sales because its cost-cutting continues to deliver benefits to the bottom line.

'We just want our business partners in the Middle East to try it for themselves and reap the reward,' says Mrs Fitzpatrick. 'We certainly applaud the e-Government initiatives in the region, and expect that initiatives such as Tejari.com will force the pace on e-business development in the private sector'.

But what about Oracle itself, and its new products? What is coming next?

'We are launching Oracle 9i as a new product here next week that will have a lot to offer the smaller companies as a dial and go service on the Internet. The whole focus of our software development is now on simplifying and standardising applications and delivering software online.

'E-business should be for everyone, and our experience is that the initiative has to come from the highest level. If our ceo Larry Ellison had not ordered everyone in Oracle to move online, we would never have done it.

'I am sure that it is the same in the Middle East. You need senior management to sort out e-business because it affects the entire way a business operates, and only senior management can implement such a radical change. This is an area where black and white decisions are needed and shades of grey will not do'.

Mrs Fitzpatrick admits that this message may well fall in deaf ears in some parts of the Middle East, and notes that she has similar problems in Europe where senior management is often surprisingly ignorant about IT matters. But she remains convinced that the cost-cutting logic and beautiful efficiency of e-business will make an impact in this region too.

'An executive at Oracle can go to any PC in the world and check her pay check, file expenses and deal with all sorts of company matters. This is the efficiency of the Internet applied to everyday business. And it will work just the same for Middle East companies'.