Husam Dajani

'We would be in the red instead of reporting 35% profit margins in the worst IT recession in living memory,' he says, 'Of course, we have been luckier here in the Middle East with growth slowing down rather than disappearing entirely.'

After 15 years with Oracle, which was once just an IT start-up company albeit launched on the back of a contract for the CIA, Mr. Husam Dajani has seen it all. His advice to regional businessmen is both from the benefit of experience and considerable success.

So how should regional businesses respond to the present downturn in some parts of their business? What is the right road map for the future?

'The first thing is that business leaders and owners need to take personal charge of transforming their business. It is no good leaving it to others. They need to revisit all their processes and look for alternatives and ways to eliminate costs.

'One necessary action is to consolidate all data into a central place where everyone in an organization can take advantage of it. This is far more efficient. For example, Emirates Airline now has all its critical functions in one place and staff can access everything over the Internet.'

The second part of a business transformation is outsourcing, 'This allows staff to focus on the core business and not waste time on sorting out non-core functions,' explains Husam Dajani, 'IT can help enormously in outsourcing. Why host email, for example? It is much cheaper done externally.'

From this concept of focusing on the core business, flows the idea of integration of systems, 'But I think it is a waste of time integrating IT systems unless they are designed to work together,' says Husam Dajani, 'Out of the box integration is the way to ensure that hours and hours are not wasted trying to get IT systems to work together.'

Finally, Husam Dajani puts a big emphasis on benchmarking as a means of business transformation and cost comparisons in particular.

'All decisions need to take into account the final benefit to the bottom line. How will the part benefit the whole? For example, a new financial system needs to look at the whole process from beginning to end and not just optimize the parts but optimize the whole.'

Husam Dajani says that in the Middle East the private sector has generally been slower to take-up Oracle software than the public sector. Perhaps this is unavoidable given the state domination of many economies?

'Yes, but we believe there are enormous benefits for private business too in re-engineering themselves. The Dubai e-government has been an excellent experience and will pay for itself in increased productivity. But this cost-saving example applies across private business as well.'

Nevertheless, the most impressive demonstration of a re-invented company, which has completely reorganized itself around Internet based software, is Oracle itself. Oracle saved its now famous $1 billion on operating costs by implementing its own software. Cleverly the company now uses this example as a way to sell its product to others.

But Husam Dajani does concede rather humbly that this original business strategy was something of an accident. In the mid-1990s Oracle championed a product called the network computer to replace the PC with a server-based network in each company. This product was a spectacular failure, but it left Oracle with the best server software just at the time that the Internet took off.

The Internet is, of course, a server based phenomenon, and Oracle's boss Larry Ellison spotted the opportunity to turn a failure - network computers - into a spectacular success. But even this visionary leader must have been surprised at just how big a success that proved to be. It made him one of the richest men on the planet.

Maybe that is the last lesson from Husam Dajani. That in business even the worst positions can be turned around, and that a bit of luck and opportunism can go along way when combined with a firm grip on reality.