Oracle’s Organizational Structure

ORACLE

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Oracle, the enterprise software company, earns its sales from seven different segments. The segments include Software License Updates and Pdt, New Software Licenses, Hardware Systems Products, Consulting, Hardware Systems Support,On Demand, and Education. The seven segments make up the entire years sales figure for a specific year. The total sales for Oracle in 2011 is $35,622,000,000 and the below flow chart will break it down showing how much each segment has contributed to the total sales for that year.

It is also important to see what percentage of total sales is made up of each individual segment. The below chart reflect the segment data broken down into percentages.

Software
License Updates and Pdt
42%
New Software Licenses 26%
Hardware Systems Products 12%
Consulting 8%
Hardware Systems Support 8%
On Demand 4%
Education 1%

 

With the data available that breaks down the Oracle’s total sales into segments, we are able to determine where the company performs the best and what segments should be most important. Oracle’s largest segment in terms of sales is Software License Updates and Pdt while its smallest segment is Education.

 

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What is Twellow?

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Image via CrunchBase

Have you ever run into the problem of not being able to follow the right person or people on Twitter that fall under a certain interest or category? After having wasted countless hours of your time that you will never get back one would wish that searching people can be simplified. Twellow.com has provided that service and has greatly enhanced how searching for people can be done both effectively and quickly.

Twellow is a service provided by an outside company to help enhance the searching experience on Twitter. They allow the user to find a list of people relatively easily by selecting a category. An example would be if you are looking for people relative to social media you can click on that category and a list of potential followers will populate up according to relevance. The company overview from their business facebook page states, “Twellow.com has been designed from the ground up to help you “cut through the clutter”. From our home at Twellow headquarters, we’re actively searching and categorizing millions of inter-personal exchanges available on the Internet every day. Twellow.com is thereby able to assist you in finding real people who really matter. We’re doing the hard work of sifting out people who can help bring your vision to reality, whatever that vision might be.”

Twitter has become a very important social media tool to businesses and how they can market themselves. The service keeps getting more and more simplified for users who may find themselves stuck amidst all the clutter online. Twellow allows users to register themselves with their user names and simplifies how the user can search for people.

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Oracle’s Mission and Business Description

Oracle

A mission statement is a statement drawn up by a company that explains the reason for the companies existence. According to missionstaments.com, “A mission statement defines in a paragraph or so any entity’s reason for existence. It embodies its philosophies, goals, ambitions and mores. Any entity that attempts to operate without a mission statement runs the risk of wandering through the world without having the ability to verify that it is on its intended course.”

Oracle’s mission statement from the company’s website:

With more than 380,000 customers—including 100 of the Fortune 100—and with deployments across a wide variety of industries in more than 145 countries around the globe, Oracle offers an optimized and fully integrated stack of business hardware and software systems.

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center–from servers and storage, to database and middle-ware, through applications. Oracle systems:

  • Provide better performance, reliability, security, and flexibility
  • Lower the cost and complexity of IT implementation and management
  • Deliver greater productivity, agility, and better business intelligence

For customers needing modular solutions, Oracle’s open architecture and multiple operating-system options also give customers unmatched benefits from best-of-breed products in every layer of the stack, allowing them to build the best infrastructure for their enterprise. (oracle.com)

Oracle is a software enterprise company based in Redwood Shores, California. The LexisNexis Database provides a detailed description of the company and what they do. “Oracle Corporation is an enterprise software company. The Company develops, manufactures, markets, distributes and services database and middle-ware software, applications software and hardware systems, consisting primarily of computer server and storage products. It operates in three segments: software, hardware systems and services. Its software business is consisted of two operating segments: new software licenses and software license updates and product support. Its hardware systems business consists of two operating segments: hardware systems products and hardware systems support. Its services business is consisted of three operating segments: consulting, On Demand and education. In January 2010, the Company acquired Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Silver Creek Systems, Inc. In January 2011, the Company completed the acquisition of Art Technology Group (ATG), Inc.” (LexisNexis)

With Oracle’s mission statement and business description defined we now know what why the company exists and what they do. Generally speaking a company’s main goal is to increase profit. Oracle’s objectives of how they increase profit and stay in existence are more clear. Oracle is able to maintain their top position in the software industry by acquiring cutting edge technology and acquisitions.

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Oracle’s Strengths and Weaknesses Defined

Oracle Databases

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Having the strengths and weaknesses of Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft helps us notice the similarities and differences that these competitors face within themselves. These are internal forces that each company faces and uses to grow. This analysis is made so the firms know what they are doing well and build off that to continue doing well. It is also made so the company knows what it lacks in and can correct weaknesses in order to remain competitive and effective.

Next we have to  look at what these results are based off of and what they really mean. For example all three competitors mention research and development as one of their strengths but we have to look more in-depth and figure out what about research and development is so important. The below chart will supply information from the EBSCO database with what Oracle uses to help create its SWOT analysis.

Oracle Strengths Weaknesses
  Robust market position:

  • The company leads the relational database management systems
    market with a share of approximately 48% in 2009.
  • The company is in the number one position in terms of total
    software revenue for Linux and Unix with 74.3& and 60.7% market shares.

Inorganic growth strategy:

  • Over the last five years Oracle has acquired Sun, BEA systems,
    Hyperion, Solutions, Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft.
  • The acquisition of Sun made Oracle one of the world’s largest
    enterprise software and hardware systems companies.

Strong R&D capabilities:

  • R&D expenditures were $3,254 million in 2010, $2,767 million in 2009, and $2,741 million in 2008.
High indebtedness:

  • Total debt has increased from $5,894 million in FY2006 to
    $14,655 million in FY2010.
  • Interest that the company has incurred in FY2010 as a result
    of so much debt was $754 million.

 

The statistics from strengths of Oracle have to be next compared to those of its competitors to really tell whether they are strengths or possibly weaknesses. Oracle’s strategic management should strive to make their strengths the competition’s weaknesses.

 

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The Strengths and Weaknesses of Oracle and its Key Competitors

Image representing Oracle Corporation as depic...

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Oracle Corporation is a computer technology company based in Redwood Shores, California. The firm specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products. The two main competitors of Oracle are IBM and Microsoft. Oracle needs to utilize all of its strengths to stay competitive and successful amongst its competition. Below we will take a quick glimpse at the strengths and weaknesses of Oracle, IBM and Microsoft directly from their SWOT analysis found in the EBSCO database.

 

Oracle IBM Microsoft
Strengths ·Robust market position
·Inorganic growth strategy
·Strong R&D capabilities
·Leading provider of IT services
·Strong R&D capabilities
·Robust strategy resulting in improving profitability
·Strong brand image
·Focus on R&D
·Robust balance sheet
Weaknesses ·High indebtedness ·Low per employee contribution
·Product perception issues
·Low search engine market share
·Low investor’s confidence

 

As we can see Oracle has many strengths and one major weakness. It strengths represent the companies view on investing money in itself to increase market share by acquiring many firms and also on its R&D. Oracle and both of its competitors include R&D as a strength so it is important Oracle differentiates itself from these companies. The weakness of Oracle represents the large debt that they owe and unfortunately that debt has been increasing. Management has to work on strategies to significantly lower this debt which in turn will help the overall company with its success.

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