In a move to tap into revenues made available through the U.S. federal government’s Cloud First Policy, Oracle has added human resources, enterprise resource planning and sales offerings to its Oracle Government Cloud Platform. The Cloud First Policy requires government agencies to leverage cloud computing benefits to improve IT flexibility and responsiveness while driving down costs.
Specifically, Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud (Oracle HCM), Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud (Oracle ERP Cloud), and Oracle Sales Cloud applications are now available to government organizations. The announcement marks Oracle’s second major add-on to its software-as-a-service solutions to its Government Cloud. Last year, Oracle added its Service Cloud to the mix.
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told us Oracle’s government cloud services announcement has a considerable different tone than SAP’s recent announcement of its U.S. federal secure node. Oracle’s announcement is from a company that has long counted federal and state government agencies as core customers. It’s also not Oracle’s first entry.
Intense Public Sector Pressures
“This announcement is a follow-on to other solutions available via the Government Cloud platform so they simply build on Oracle’s established cloud foundation,” King said. “Finally, the promotional focus is tilted toward claims of how the solutions can help government agencies increase productivity, lower costs, improve controls and enhance their public services and interactions.”
As King sees it, given the intense pressures that public sector organizations are under to improve service and cut costs, Oracle’s new cloud solutions should attract serious customer attention. But he’s not counting out SAP in the broader market competition for government dollars.
Oracle, though, is already showing success with customer deployments. “With Oracle Human Capital Management, we created an automated, transparent recruiting process that enables us to better screen our applicants and fill positions more quickly,” said Christina Batorski, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Human Resources at the City of Chicago.
Inside the Government Cloud
Governments can deploy a modern HR system in the cloud through Oracle HCM Cloud applications in the Government Cloud. The Oracle Sales Cloud applications set the stage for agencies to deliver a better citizen experience throughout the service journey and across various channels of interaction.
Meanwhile, the Oracle ERP Cloud lets organizations streamline business processes using tools that support financials, budgetary control and encumbrance accounting, procurement, project costing, and grant management. Oracle ERP Cloud’s public sector-specific sourcing features promise transparency and compliance with sourcing policies through several means, including a two-stage request for quotes, online supplier messages, negotiation creation and award approvals, and surrogate bidding.
For its part, SAP announced plans for a U.S. federal secure node that will be delivered in partnership with SAP National Security Services, its independent, U.S.-based subsidiary. Plans call for a fully-managed, secure cloud for mission-critical applications like the SAP Business Warehouse application and custom app on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform.