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A multi-cloud strategy is crucial for accelerating technological progress in a country like Bangladesh. Companies have realised that depending on a single cloud infrastructure provider is neither wise nor practical, and they need the right cloud for the job,” Oracle Bangladesh’s Managing Director Rubaba Dowla told The Business Post’s Ibrahim Hossain Ovi in an interview
What kind of technological changes do you see happening in Bangladesh?
Since 2020, we have seen an unprecedented technological transformation. Volatile business conditions have severely disrupted most industries in South Asia, and Bangladesh is no exception, forcing corporations – both public and private, and from the largest to the smallest – to rethink their digital transformation strategies.
This means that most company’s technology roadmaps and business continuity strategies now contain advanced use of technologies, including cloud. Already a large number of customers are using our cloud infrastructure.
Another change is we are all using tools like Zoom. Companies are looking to minimise the gap between the physical and virtual worlds, through technologies like augmented reality (AR) in e-learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to make better sense of data.
This data is being used to do things such as enhancing the experience through chatbots and gain real-time insight to support data driven decision-making.
Even SMEs and startups are adopting new technologies like these to help them cut costs, gain more knowledge, and make real-time decisions for business resiliency.
Additionally, with all of this digitisation comes massive data generation, as a result, there is a demand for tools that can assist them in safeguarding their data.
How might Bangladesh benefit from Oracle’s assistance in adapting to the changes, particularly in industry and communications?
Oracle has had a very strong presence in Japan and Asia Pacific region over the last 40 years and in Bangladesh’s market for the last two decades. In January 2020, we opened our first office in Bangladesh.
In this time, enterprises from the telecom, manufacturing, financial, utilities, healthcare industries and more, have been using our technology across applications, databases, hardware and now the cloud to address top-line growth.
As we look forward to the next 20 years and beyond, we are committed to the Digital Bangladesh vision by continuing to help the public and private sectors accelerate their digital transformation, and through that create a better environment for citizens and
businesses.
Can you mention some company names using Oracle cloud-based services or solutions? And why do people need it?
Many public and private sector companies, including readymade garments(RMGs), healthcare, fast moving consumer goods businesses, use Oracle’s cloud-based and on-prem offerings, such as Ananta Group, Bangladesh Bridge Authority, Bangladesh Computer Council, Bangladesh Election Commission, bKash, BRAC Bank, The City Bank, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges, Partex Star Group, Union Group, and Pacific Jeans to name
a few.
Bangladeshi firms leverage Oracle Cloud to fulfill various business requirements, from talent management, delivering better customer experiences, launching new services faster to reducing costs.
How can Oracle help Companies ensure that new investments in technology can create value for enterprises?
Customers are looking for complete software and infrastructure cloud solutions that are simple to adopt and that will give them price and performance advantage, flexibility, freedom of choice and the ability to innovate, underpinned by strong security.
Innovation is the key to differentiation in the market; hence, our suite of advanced technologies allows them to focus their investment on technologies that will help maintain and gain a competitive advantage and yield better business results.
And with our growing cloud region footprint and comprehensive hybrid cloud portfolio, we are quickly becoming one of the world’s leading cloud providers able to meet the increasing client demand globally, right where the customers are.
Our cloud services are empowering businesses to better manage their investments and add value while also gaining from our superior price-performance and data insight, plus our autonomous self-driving, self-securing cloud, which removes manual repetitive tasks, freeing resources up to be focused on more value-adding
activities.
When can Bangladesh introduce Big Data, and how can Oracle help?
Big data is a fact of life today, given the massive data volumes there are today. Data is the new currency, so any company going through digitisation will eventually have to deal with huge amounts of data.
Oracle’s industry-leading data platforms are helping organisations harness today’s ginormous, high-speed, and multiple format data volumes. Empowering them to act fast and make decisions in real-time.
How can Bangladesh be more secure about data security, and Oracle help to do so in the technological part?
Here at Oracle, we put security first and are committed to enabling every organization to take advantage of the cloud’s agility, flexibility, scalability without compromising their customer data.
We have automated security that is always on and built-in at every layer to ensure the full platform is secured and protected by design.
Do you think Bangladesh has enough infrastructures to be completely digitised or to take advantage of digitization? What kind of infrastructure does Bangladesh need to develop, and where are the shortcomings?
Over the last decade, we have witnessed a huge commitment to the country’s digital transformation. We have submarine cables, broadband connectivity down to the union level, and high mobile penetration – these are the indicators that we have democratized technology.
Now moving from the governments’ vision of digital Bangladesh toward a knowledge-based economy by 2041, the next steps should be training, upscaling resources, and adopting new technologies. We are working closely with the various stakeholders and are supporting them to move forwards towards that vision.
We are seeing steps in this direction. Recently, Oracle signed a contract with Bangladesh Data Center Company Limited (BDCCL) on behalf of the government of Bangladesh to deploy Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer (DRCC).
This will deliver a facility to store government data locally, meet data sovereignty requirements and maintain the highest level of security. It is a huge milestone for Oracle in Bangladesh.
And now that companies have realised that depending on a single cloud infrastructure provider is neither wise nor practical and are adopting a multi-cloud approach to access the different features, underlying infrastructure, security, and other elements specific to the vendor’s offerings, we expect to see an increase in the use of cloud, and a greater level of benefits gained.
In short, multi-cloud means competitive advantages for organizations across industries, including cost savings, reduced barriers to innovation, stronger disaster mitigation, and business continuity planning.
