My morning routine includes checking my email somewhere around 8 a.m. Once I waded through all the "Good Morning Good Sir" and "Increase Your..." junk (gotta improve the spam filtering), I ran into a few emails that really got me thinking. These emails were involving resignations/farewells for various positions in various user groups, all due to consolidation within the Oracle-related 3rd-party consulting and integration provider market spaces. Seems there has been quite a bit of change in this space recently, but it's not been widely noticed (perhaps it's been overshadowed by the acquistions and product changes within Oracle itself). To name a few:
- Solbourne has been acquired by Deloitte and is in the process of winding down as an independent entity
- Triora Group started up earlier this year, with a significant contingent of ex-Solution Beacon people (which says something positive about SB's ability to find and develop good talent)
- TUSC was acquired in January by Rolta, one of India's leading IT companies
In addition, I've seen an increase in the number of changes by people employed in the Oracle partner space. I won't name names here, because this is a blog and not a gossip column, but there does seem to be more than the usual amount of churn in the workforce among Oracle partners.
My viewpoint is that Oracle partners, especially the smaller ones, are essential to achieving Oracle's strategy of increasing SME market share. The smaller or "botique" implementation, integration and service partners are based on business models that can profitably engage in the smaller chunks of business that just don't make sense for Oracle Consulting's business model (I suspect I might be able to lump Deloitte, BearingPoint, and several others in with Oracle Consulting here, but I'm not familiar enough with their business models to do so with any acceptable degree of certainty). The current trend of churn and consolidation looks like a potential risk to the success of Oracle's strategy - it's in Oracle's interests to have a strong community of smaller partners to implement, integrate and extend Oracle's software in the SME space.
So, how about it? Does anyone else see what I'm seeing here or am I just finding the small cloud inside a huge silver lining? Anybody out there willing to share a relevant story? Comment away!
- Solbourne has been acquired by Deloitte and is in the process of winding down as an independent entity
- Triora Group started up earlier this year, with a significant contingent of ex-Solution Beacon people (which says something positive about SB's ability to find and develop good talent)
- TUSC was acquired in January by Rolta, one of India's leading IT companies
In addition, I've seen an increase in the number of changes by people employed in the Oracle partner space. I won't name names here, because this is a blog and not a gossip column, but there does seem to be more than the usual amount of churn in the workforce among Oracle partners.
My viewpoint is that Oracle partners, especially the smaller ones, are essential to achieving Oracle's strategy of increasing SME market share. The smaller or "botique" implementation, integration and service partners are based on business models that can profitably engage in the smaller chunks of business that just don't make sense for Oracle Consulting's business model (I suspect I might be able to lump Deloitte, BearingPoint, and several others in with Oracle Consulting here, but I'm not familiar enough with their business models to do so with any acceptable degree of certainty). The current trend of churn and consolidation looks like a potential risk to the success of Oracle's strategy - it's in Oracle's interests to have a strong community of smaller partners to implement, integrate and extend Oracle's software in the SME space.
So, how about it? Does anyone else see what I'm seeing here or am I just finding the small cloud inside a huge silver lining? Anybody out there willing to share a relevant story? Comment away!
4 comments:
Yeah - seeing a bit of that, but don't think its just the Oracle space. In my view we're seeing a widening of the gap between big and small co's in IT - the medium get bought out. Which inherently leads to churn as employees lose their familiar cozy environments to more bland and rigid ones. Also the Oracle community is an interesting one to follow due the major tech shifts at the moment.
Running a small boutique company myself, I can say it is a bit like a small fish swimming in a very big sea , hopefully won't get trapped by a trawler ;-)
Xcelicor a boutique Oracle HR consultancy was also acquired by Deloitte last year.
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/press_release/0,1014,sid%253D2283%2526cid%253D172166,00.html
I can't blame founders of these smaller partners for being successful and being bought up. You just hope that there's always a pipeline of new talented people wanting to start up a smaller consultancy because I agree these fill a really important niche in the Oracle ecosystem.
I think there will always be "employees" and "consultants". The challenge is finding them at the right periods in their lives...:-) Lots of good people out there but most are concerned now with lifestyle over money (which they should be in my opinion). The cycles change from time to time but there does appear to be a reduction in the number of smaller specialized firms.
Good note as usual. Hope you took it easy over the fourth with your health scare...:-)
Is there any further reading you would recommend on this?
LDS Infotech
Oracle Partners
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