The power of partnerships: celebrating what we’ve achieved with Oracle

Published on June 17, 2019 in Digital Transformation

When is a technology no longer a technology?

This isn’t a riddle, but an old idea. Once a technology (think the ballpoint pen, trains, even smartphones) becomes so integrated into our lives that we stop noticing it – then it’s no longer a technology, but just part of the furniture.

But what about when technology becomes so omnipresent that it’s no longer separate, but embedded into the fabric of your company?

Today technology really is everywhere, underpinning operations and adding value across the organisation. But as a result, it’s no longer possible to be an expert in everything – making partnerships critical.

For businesses, that means working with a partner who can understand both your business objectives and the technology that will deliver them. And for tech companies like yours truly, it means working together to deliver the best capabilities to customers.

That’s why we’re so proud of our partnership with Oracle, which was recently recognised with multiple awards at the Oracle UK and Ireland Partner of the Year Awards.

To show the real power of partnerships, here are just a few examples of the work that we’ve completed together and how much we’ve achieved for businesses.

Navigating the best path to the cloud

Dealing with existing infrastructure is a challenge for many older companies, especially in the public sector. Often, it takes significant investment to refresh your infrastructure every few years – and ongoing resources to keep everything running.

Organisations are often keen to begin their journey to the cloud, but may be held back by security and privacy considerations – or simply want to maintain close control of their data on-premise. It’s understandable to be unsure of the best next step.

Collaboration with a trusted tech advisor is key, both to understand the options available and simplify the journey to the cloud.

That’s what we did alongside Oracle, by becoming the first company to deliver Exadata Cloud at Customer to a regulatory authority in the UK. This has enabled the organisation to gain the benefits of an Oracle public cloud behind the customers firewall, while beginning their wider transition to a fully managed service.

Equally, we’ve also helped businesses take advantage of business applications like procurement, finance, HR and payroll to move those key services to an infrastructure as a service platform. Our partnership with Oracle enabled us to transition these companies to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, keeping their key functions performing effectively.

By helping to work out what a business needs – and determine the best path to cloud for them – we’ve been named Oracle’s Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service Partner of the Year.

Drawing on expert support

External support has long been important for keeping the lights on, especially when dealing with your infrastructure. This remains equally important as businesses undertake their journey to the cloud.

The cloud world comes with mandatory quarterly releases, with new functionality and fixes. To know what’s coming and how it will impact the organisation, it’s very helpful to have a partner that understands the old world – and the new.

At Fujitsu, we have more specialists trained on My Oracle Support than any other UK partner, reducing the number of requests direct to Oracle and the time taken to answer them: ultimately, improving our service to our end customers.

But we’ve also gone one step further with a large central government department in the UK, through the development of an Intelligent Customer Function.

The public sector organisation has decided to follow a policy of ‘adopt, not adapt’ when it comes to new cloud releases, changing the way the organisation works according to the new functionalities of applications delivered by Oracle.

This has huge advantages from a cost and flexibility perspective, but it also means the organisation will need to work at the speed of new technology releases to implement and train employees in new functionalities.

Through Intelligent Customer Function, we can bring together our understanding of new Oracle releases, the business and political landscape with our awareness of the whole technical environment in the organisation.

Using Oracle’s technology is pivotal for the organisation’s long term plans – and that’s one of the reasons that Fujitsu has been recognised with the ACS & Premier Support Partner of the Year Award.

Sorting storage

Servers and storage can be the unsung heroes of the IT infrastructure. These critical components can determine the speed of applications and store and protect vital data – essentially underpinning all business operations.

But with the range of options available, finding the right fit as a large or complex organisation can be challenging. That’s why working with a partner that understands both the sector and the direction of the business, as well as the storage options available, can be hugely valuable.

Storage remains important in perhaps unexpected places – like the high street. One national retailer needed a storage system that could deliver back office and shop floor services, as well as the infrastructure to underpin their data centres.

We worked to find the best solution for them, installing a proof of concept to ensure the hardware configuration could deliver value across the business.

Whether it’s food distribution, telecoms or transport providers, businesses in different sector have different needs. But it’s our expertise in each of these areas that has led Oracle to name us Systems Partner of the Year.

Just the beginning

Partnerships are powerful, not least when it comes to technology.

In a time of so much complexity – and rapid development – working with a partner who understands both your organisation’s objectives and the technologies best suited to achieving them is hugely beneficial.

And at the same time, no one company in the technology sector can do everything. By working closely with Oracle, we’ve built an in-depth understanding of what they offer and how it can help customers in every sector.

While digital technologies have become core to businesses, we’re just at the start of the journey. But by working together, we can ensure that technology delivers value for businesses for years to come.