Oracle is not just database and ERP Cloud. With the Oracle CX suite it is the market leader of the Customer Experience , which today takes on a different meaning than in the past . We live in the experience economy, where every interaction with a product or service affects the user’s perception. Companies must therefore be able to interact with the user at any time of the “customer journey”, when he is evaluating the purchase, at the moment of purchase and when he has become a customer, while he is using the product or service. It is a complex process, which affects all sectors of the company but has become essential, because having the best product in the world is no longer enough. If the user has a bad experience in interacting with the company, there is a very high risk that he will focus on competing products or, even worse, express a negative opinion that can also affect other users.

Serves, from on the one hand, being able to intercept all the signals that the user sends in the interaction with the company and then being able to react in real time , to propose more and more customized solutions, crossing the data coming from all company systems. If the marketing wants to propose a campaign on active customers, perhaps to recommend the extension of a service, the “system” must be able to know if a user has highlighted a problem with that particular service at the same time and make sure that that specific user does not receive the marketing communication until the problem is resolved.

For Oracle the experience economy is based on data

This is just an example but it shows how it is not possible to manage this type of relations of the experience economy “manually”. We need a system, duly configured according to the characteristics of each individual company, which can intervene automatically and the data of all company departments are shared. It is on these assumptions that the Oracle CX solution is structured, which is constantly updated, as demonstrated by the innovations launched a few weeks ago on the occasion of Oracle Live: The Time is Now.

To deepen these issues Edge9 has met virtually Des Cahill , Oracle’s General VP Product Management CX, who certainly has a privileged view on the direction that is taking the market and on the evolution of Oracle’s solutions dedicated to customer experience.

Edge9 : The global pandemic is changing user behavior, with an exponential growth of e-commerce, which is also bringing users who previously proved reluctant to digital to these channels. How is Oracle CX evolving to accommodate these changes?

Des Chaill : Life itself is changing. We live in the experience economy:

1. It is experience that determines the value, much more than the product
2. The user is the real innovator : new channels, new social media, increasingly oriented towards purchases based on use (fee)
3. The “customer journey” in the interaction with the company is not linear and goes from digital to physical, the opinions expressed by the user are increasingly important

In the future there will certainly be more digital, the pandemic is accelerating this transition, for example in Italy 50% of consumers experimented with new shops or new channels that they did not use before the health crisis. Other trends that have been accelerated are contactless, smart working, new forms of collaboration.

McKinsey believes that the “next normal”, when we manage to overcome the pandemic, will lead to a return of behaviors that are now partially limited, as in the possibility of moving, in particular when traveling abroad, but that some new practices will consolidate, in particular in terms of smart working.

Oracle’s job is to support the shift in user behavior, which is increasingly “digital first ”, With a platform that allows our client companies to intercept the signals arriving from users. We are building a “ customer intelligence layer ” that brings together company-owned data that is distributed on different systems, which often do not interact with each other: E-Commerce, back office, financial and accounting system, logistics, warehouse. All this at the service of marketing , to make sure that if there is a problem in any department marketers are aware of this and can react accordingly.

This new approach is fundamental because a brand must offer personalized experiences and treat users holistically.

Edge9 : What are the latest Oracle CX news that go in this direction and which ones does Oracle see today as competitors in this “space”?

Des Cahill : I like to point out four new features of Oracle Unity that are particularly significant:

1. The integration in Eloqua, our marketing automation platform, of business models B2B , exceeding the limit of being able to work previously only in the B2C field
2. The ability to track the behavior of users ” unknown “(therefore not logged in) in compliance with the GDPR, with the possibility of linking this data to the user’s profile, once registered
3. AD activation: the ability to deliver marketing campaigns from Unity to active customers on Facebook and on the web
4. Compliance and privacy tools, to better manage the user consent process, especially with the future removal of third-party cookies

For Unity, more than making comparisons with competitors o systems on premise, the challenge is to build a single platform , based on the second generation Oracle cloud, that integrates all data, all workflows and allows you to have a holistic view on behavior or users.

Oracle develops new partnerships with Sprinklr and Zoom

From this perspective, the recent partnership that Oracle has signed with Sprinklr, a platform for managing and monitoring user activity on social media, which will lead to an integration of Sprinklr’s services into Oracle CX. We believe that being able to perceive user sentiment on social media is a critical element for better understanding user behavior. This testifies that, for