Oracle wants to create a culture reminiscent of a startup to attract school and university leavers and develop innovative technology, says the company’s UK managing director.
Ian Smith says the software giant is looking at how it can change its innovation environment to entice young innovators who thrive in an entrepreneurial environment.
Innovation is crucial to Oracle creating high-quality systems that will help customers work more efficiently, he says.
‘Young people coming out of education at the moment have very high expectations of being entrepreneurs,’ he told Computing. ‘They are beginning to learn business skills at school and that is encouraging them to be highly entrepreneurial and to expect to start their own business rather than go into corporations.’
Oracle wants to attract this new talent, and believes the best way to do this is to foster an environment where if somebody has a good idea they feel as if they are starting their own business within the company.
‘We cannot simply do what has been done in the past, where young people come out and then get bashed into shape by the organisation they join. You cannot do that any more because these kids will walk away from us if we do,’ said Smith.
‘I keep telling people that UK under-25s have more in common with the half a billion people who are aged are under 25 in China and India than I do. Most of them are better connected to each other than the boards of most UK plcs.’
Smith says innovation has historically been regarded as culturally un-British.
‘Lots of people have ideas, but innovation is how you turn an idea into GDP and we have not had a great track record of that,’ he said.
‘What Oracle wants to do is put the resources in place to support ideas and the people having them.’
Oracle is already changing many aspects of the way it works to become more innovative.
‘In the past it was considered radical to put up a suggestions box. Usually nothing happened about the ideas that went into that box, and they were lost,’ said Smith.
‘What we have created is a suggestion box that comes with a process, where we put infrastructure and resources behind ideas that we get, and where good ideas are not lost.’
The company is also taking increasing notice of customer feedback and injecting comment back into the business.
‘The information feeds into our innovation processes, because something will nearly always come where we can say “if only we did such and such”, and we can build on that and improve in future,’ said Smith.
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A need to innovate
Oracle UK managing director Ian Smith says the company needs to adopt a small business culture to improve its innovation environment.
Drawing on customer experiences is also important to innovating, says Smith.
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